Thursday 18th October. Periods 3 + 4.Music Technology A2

A2 exam written question revision

‘The development of music technology’

•Must answer 1 question (choice of 2)•16 marks available (8% of A2)•Include 16 different points•Organise ideas in date order.•After planning, answer can be bullet points or prose

A2 exam written question revision

‘The development of music technology’Topics:

•Synthesisers•Drum machines•Samplers•Audio effects •Mixers•audio processing – EQ / compression / expanders / gates / filters•MIDI•Recording media (tape / digital etc). Consumer media (Vinyl & MP3 etc)•Multi-track recording (Digital and Analogue)•Computer based recording – Cubase / Logic etc•Electric Guitars and Amplification Internet•Digital Synthesis / FM / Additive / Wavetable / Sample based

Mixers and Mixing…What do you know?

History of mixers• Up to the 1950s recorded sound was played live onto the recorder.• 1 microphone used. If the take was no good everyone had to start

again.• Mixing as we know it today emerged when the first multitrack

tape machines appeared in the 1960s. There was a need to balance more than 1 track.

• 1937 BBC ‘Dramatic Control Panel’. 11 inputs plus 2 sub groups of 5 could be controlled with potentiometers.

Components of Mixers

• What does each section of the Channel ‘strip’ do?

Analogue VS Digital

• What are the pros and cons?

Analogue VS Digital• Some people prefer the slightly

coloured Analogue Sound.

• Can handle clipping / distortion better than digital.

• Basic mixers cheaper than digital.

• Quicker to learn how to use – there is a control knob / fader / button for every function unlike digital desks.

• Automation is complex and expensive on analogue desks.

• No Latency.

• Digital desks can ‘memorise’ all the settings. A computer based sequencer like Cubase has this benefit.

• No. of channels is almost unlimited – depending on the hardware.

• Can assign a lot of effects / eq / processing / groups . Easy to re-create any mixing environment.

• Many built in and complex effects / audio processors. Especially on software sequencers

• Does not like clipping / overloading / distorting – digital distortion sounds horrid!

• Automation as standard.

• Takes less space.

• Less noise than analogue.

Mixing• ‘…The art of mixing (and make no mistake, it is an art) is not a skill

everyone possesses…’

• ‘….some things can not be fixed in the mix so don’t overlook the importance of capturing a good performance initially….you can’t ‘mix-in’ a good performance….’

• ‘….its just as important to know what to take out of a mix than what to add to it…’

• ‘…..don't get too ‘precious’ or attached to parts In such a way you can not listen to the whole mix with a good perspective…’ ie

• ‘the nose flute I played has to be really loud in the mix and can not be taken out at all!!!....’

Mixing (on Cubase)

Mixing (on Cubase)• Before you start a mix – make sure all the channels are not peaking and bring them down quite a bit to allow enough headroom room.

When mixing usually levels always seam to creep up!

• Mute un wanted tacks and move them into a folder so they don’t clutter up the arrangement. Don’t delete them as you might need alternative takes / versions of tracks.

• Use groups ie a group for the bass / drums / vocals etc. Use sub groups were necessary - send backing vocals to a backing vocal group, send lead vocals to a lead group and then send both groups to a master vocal group etc.

• Be careful to not keep pushing faders louder and louder – if something is quiet in the mix you can also reduce everything else to make it heard.

• Don’t mix the same track too long - give your ears a rest.

• Reference other recorded material you like the sound of that you have heard on different speakers / headphones. But allow for the fact that commercially available music has been mastered so it will be considerably louder / brighter and more importantly, compressed.

• If you know your track is going to be professionally mastered you can try putting a mastering limiter on the output bus so you can hear how the track will sound compressed. When you mix the track down bypass the limiter unless you are confident in mastering with it.

• Be careful with the amount of Effects and EQ - remember EQ can be cut as well as boosted!

• Listen to your mix on other systems – car / ipod / hifi / small mono speaker.

• ‘Clean’ up channels – use shelving eq if needed. Like removing low frequency rumble off vocal tracks. This will give you more headroom and space in the mix. Use gates for noisy tracks but don’t loose important nuances – I think its better to have a bit of noise / hiss and keep the nuances than to remove all the noise / hiss etc.

• Remember you can ‘send’ a signal to an fx channel as well as just inserting an fx into the channel

• Make sure the master bus is not clipping. If it is link all the groups / channels that output to the master bus and bring them all down until there is some headroom.

Homework• Next week you 3 are going to answer a 16 mark unit 4 exam

question and will try to get all 16 marks by working together.

• The homework task is to make notes (I will be checking these) on this question and bring them in ready to answer it fully:

• Without the invention of the electric guitar, rock music would probably not exist as we recognise it. Describe the features found on an electric guitar and give a technical explanation of how an electric guitar works.

• Remember as a guide we need to make 20 valid points. Don’t go off on tangents – read the question and keep your answer specific to it!