1: What Is Music Recording?
“Everything I do, whether it's producing or signing an artist, always starts with the songs. When I'm listening, I'm looking for a balance that you could see in anything. Whether it's a great painting or a building or a sunset.”
-Rick Rubin
Music Recording
Music recording involves the technology and techniques required to produce musical works in the form of an audio asset. Music technology has rapidly advanced in the last 150 years, but the essence of music recording has remained essentially unchanged.
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Recording technology includes microphones, pre-amps, interfaces, audio processing units (EQ, Compression, Reverb, etc.), and speakers. This course will provide a brief overview of these tools and some guidelines on how to approach building a home studio.
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Recording requires skill and knowledge to be done successfully. When I first started, I obsessed over the gear I could acquire. Now, I find techniques and training my ear to be the best path to success (assuming the tools I have are at least average). This course will guide you through essential techniques in music production.
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Tools and techniques mean nothing without a musical idea. This course will help you prioritize great musical creation and get the setup in place to maximize capturing your message!
Signal Levels
Microphones transduce acoustic signals into electrical signals. These electrical signals are an analog of the acoustic signal. Microphones are low-level, low-voltage, low impedance (resistance) signals varied to some degree by the type of microphone and design. Mic signals are typically sent over XLR cables. Since they are low-voltage and low impedance, these types of signals can run longer lengths without loss of signal. Microphones use balanced cables that reduce the chance of noise. Since microphones send such a low output, they require a preamplifier to boost their signal from microphone level to line level.
Balanced cables have three pins or connections: hot, cold, and ground. In an XLR, each pin represents one element. In a TRS cable, the three pins are represented by the tip, ring, and sleeve. An unbalanced cable carries only the positive/hot signal and the ground shield. A TS cable is an example of an unbalanced cable (tip and sleeve only). Balanced cables offer the benefit of reducing noise. The hot connection carries the positive audio signal, and the cold connection carries the negative audio signal. At the output, the signal is inverted, and any noise incurred in the line will be canceled through phase cancelation. Unbalanced cables are useful for shorter runs because they are cheaper and simpler in design and function.
Additional Resources
This lesson will cover the basic terms you need to know to work through this course, but there’s no way we can cover everything there is to know about music production in one section. Thankfully, there are plenty of already great resources available for you to discover more about the world of audio. Here are my three favorite music production online glossaries and dictionaries.
