The Story of Recording

The session includes: early recording methods and how recording methods advanced; practical assignments with midi sequencing.

What do you know about mixing consoles? Which of the following are genuine manufacturers of audio recording

equipment?

Acoustical Recordings 1890s to 1930s

! No microphones or amplification.

! Direct to disc cutting process.

! Acoustic energy channelled through a horn to a mechanical cutting lathe that inscribed the signal onto a master cylinder.

The Edison Wax Cylinder Phonograph. The recordings played on such a device generally consist of wavy lines that are either scratched, engraved, or grooved onto a rotating cylinder or disc. As the cylinder or disc rotates, a stylus or needle traces the wavy lines and vibrates to reproduce the recorded sound waves.

! Examples of an early Wax Cylinder and the cutting lathe. These cylindrical shaped objects were called records. These were the first commercial media for recorded sound, popular from the 1880s until the disc shaped gramophone records became dominant in 1910. They were stopped being manufactured in 1929.

Sound stages would be created to allow an even balance of dynamics could be channelled through the horn.

By the early 1930s, following the invention of the microphone, the amplifier, the loud speaker and the mixing desk, acoustical recording was now rarely used.

The recording straight to disc approach would be subject to potential musical or technical problems. Instruments could go out of tune before the end of particularly long recordings.

Until the late 1940s master recordings still had to be cut direct to disc.

! In 1947 Bing Crosby invested money in a company called AMPEX to develop analogue tape as a means of recording his radio shows

Analogue tape opened new possibilities for recording

It became possible to record instruments and singers separately and at different times on different tracks on tape, although it was not until the 1970s that the large recording companies began to adopt this practice widely, and throughout the 1960s many hit songs were still recorded live in a single take.

More sophisticated desks were required to allow playback/record functions

By the late 1950s and early 1960s producers could add other ethereal sounds, such as reverb and echo, to enhance their recordings. Recording studios would assign a room in their building, often a reflective basement to be its echo chamber. A signal would be fed to a speaker here, and a microphone would pick up the sound of the room and send it back to the control room. The mixer would mix the new wet signal with the original dry recording.

Connecting two or more tape machines together meant that mixing desks needed more channels to cope.

The first tape machines were usually only capable of recording either 2 or 4 discrete tracks. As producers and artists searched to achieve greater clarity with their recordings they experimented connecting tape machines together, thus allowing 8 or 12, or more, separate tracks to be recorded. The number of channel strips on mixing desks to this day still come in multiples of 4.

It was only until the late 1960s that headphones were common place during the recording process. This allowed isolated recordings, preventing leakage between instruments during live recording sessions.

Long recording sessions would require studios to offer comforts previously unavailable, and unnecessary, to

one-take artists of previous generations.

Digital Era

Sequencing and sampling have become key to modern pop recordings. Cubase was an early form of sequencing

software that would revolutionise how we make music.

Modern recording studios will often combine digital recording methods with analogue

aesthetics.

INVESTIGATION Task: Research a Topic / Present New Information

Later this term you will start a Special Subject Investigation. This is a 3 month assignment which allows you to thoroughly research a topic which is of special interest to you.

To prepare you, this short project asks you to evaluate research materials, and decide how best to present new information.

! List some good examples of quality resources/research material.

! Why might some resources not be good choices for your investigation?

! List ways in which you could present new information?

Scenario

! A radio station wants 4 x 10 minute audio documentaries about Music Through the Decades for their TIME TRAVEL season. Each programme should contain music from a specific decade: 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; and 1980s. It should also include information on the audio technology of the time and how social or political events might have influenced the music being made.

Your role ! Although you will work in teams, each of you will be

researcher, script writer, editor and producer.

! The programme will also need presenters and interviewers. You may also want to find and use old news clips from the era.

! The finished presentation may also require music composition and sound design (you may want an intro jingle or background music).

Research ! Music: who were the major artists at the time; what styles/genres

of music were popular at the time; what were the big hits; how did music change from the start to the end of the decade?

! Politics/World Events/Fashion: were there any socio-political factors that may have influenced music (wars, famine, recession etc)? What was in fashion (e.g. clothes, hair-cuts, popular films/tv shows etc)?

! Technology: how was music made? How did people listen to music? Where could people see music performed live?