Sound and Frequency

S1. What is Sound? (You may need to install the Flash plug-in)
Study Questions: What is sound? What is the speed of sound? How is sound related to air pressure? What is a single cycle of sound? What is frequency? What is a frequency range of human hearing? What is Hz? What is a waveform, and what does it represent? What do the x and y axes of a waveform represent? What does a low-frequency waveform look like? What does a high-frequency waveform look like?

S2. What is Sound and how is it Produced?
Study Questions: Why do we sound different to ourselves on recordings? What is oscillation? How does sound "travel" through the air? Kahn Academy

S3. What is Frequency and Wavelength? This is a good intro, but don't worry about the difference between period and wavelength. You can stop after three minutes! The only formula you need is frequency = speedofsound/wavelength.
Study Questions: Why is sound well described by a sine wave? Answer: Air molicules move back and forth (and sound pressure moves up and down) in a smooth movement described in the sine function. How does frequency relate to oscillations? What is the frequency of an "A" note? What is the range of frequency that humans can hear? What range can dogs hear? What is the wavelength of a sound wave? Answer: the physical distance between two adjacent compressions in the air.

S4. Getting to know Frequencies. Wikiemedia - Important information, although this fellow has imaginative pronunciations! The frequency examples are especially useful for training your ears to recognize frequencies in sounds that you hear.
Study Questions: How do the number of completed cycles in a second relate to frequency? What are low frequencies commonly called? What are high frequencies commonly called? Why does an A note on a piano sound different than an A note on a guitar? What does a spectral analyzer show us? Answer: a graph with all the frequencies of a sound and their relative amplitudes. (Audacity can show you this.)

S5. Frequencies and Harmonics A very good review of frequency and harmonics. Listen to the sample tones a few times and try to become familiar with them.
Study Questions: What is meant by kilohertz? What frequency is the low E on a bass guitar? (41 Hz) What are harmonics? What range of frequencies seem louder to humans? Why is this range of frequencies critical to mixing adjustments?

S6. Harmonics and Octaves. Why some people like tube amplifiers better than transistor amplifiers.
Study Questions: What is a fundamental frequency in a musical note? What is a harmonic frequency? Answer: a multiple of the fundamental frequency. How is an octave related to a fundamental frequency? What is harmonic distortion? What is THD? Why do some people prefer the sound of tube ("analog") amplifiers, to the sound of transistor amplifiers? Which sounds "warmer"? (The answer involves odd or even harmonics.)

Audacity

A1. Audacity on-line Manual Have a Tour or Select a Topic

A2. Audacity Tutorial - Editing an Existing Audio File

A3. Audacity Tutorial - Your First Recording

A4. Audacity Tutorial - Mixing a Narration with Background Music

A5. Normalization in Audacity

Editing tools for Equalization and Filters

E1. Frequencies and Equalizers Recording Allstars-
Study Questions: What is EQ? What is the difference between a a high frequency wave, and a low frequency wave? What is a Hertz? How could you measure frequency by looking at a waveform? What is the Hz range of human hearing? What is an octave? What is the Hz range of the bottom octave of hearing? What is the Hz range of the top octave of hearing?

E4. Introduction to Filters This explains it well, with good audio examples.
Study Questions: High-Pass, Low-Pass, Band-Pass, Notch and Comb. What does the graph of each type of filter look like? What dose a HPF filter do? What does a LPF filter do? A band-cut filter? A band-pass filter? A notch filter? (No one pronounces Comb and Parameter like this guy!) What is a HPF filter slope? What does a filter resonance look like on the graph?

Room Acoustics and Your Listening System

RA1. Room Acoustics for Home Audio - Crutchfield

RA2. Basic Room Acoustic Treatments - WikiBooks

RA3. Home Studio Monitor & Room Acoustics SOS studio guide

RA4. Studio Monitors - a guide to choosing wisely and setting up correctly - M-Audio publications

RA5. Audacity's on-line manual. An indexed how-to-do-everything in Audacity.

RA6. Fundamentals of Sound and Acoustics in your listening room. A little more in-depth summary of how to address problems in your listening or control room.
Study Questions: •What are the three physical properties of sound waves? •What is Hz? •What is a fundamental, an overtone, a sine wave, Fourier analysis, wavelength, compression, rarefaction? •What causes low-frequency anomalies in a room? •How could you calculate which frequencies will be a problem in a particular room? •What is a standing wave, a node, an antinode? •How do tangential modes (bounced off of four surfaces) and oblique modes (bounced off of six surfaces), complicate things? •Why would using a "golden ratio" of room dimensions help? •What is the advantage or disadvantage of the two basic responses: changing the angle of walls or adding absorbtion? •What is a bass trap? (Tuned cavity with a depth of 1/4 the wavelength of the offending frequency) •What makes an ideal room? •What is meant by "in-phase" and "out-of-phase"? •How close, in time, must two sounds be for us to perceive them as one sound? (25-50ms) •How do we perceive location information from sound? •What does delay have to do with it? •What does amplitude have to do with it? •What is the "mirror trick"? •What advantage does a LEDE arrangement provide? •What is "flutter echo"? •How does a duffuser help room sound?

RA7. Bass Traps - SOS Quick Overview
Study Questions •Do bass traps remove bass from your room? •What do bass traps actually do? •How do they help your room sound? •What are the typical problems with effective bass trapping?

Noise Reduction

NR1. Audacity's Noise Reduction Tool - Audacity -
Study Questions: What is a noise profile? (sometimes called a noiseprint) This is a two-step process. What are those two steps? How long a profile do you need? What happens if you catch some other sounds with the noise when you make the profile. What does setting the level of noise reduction (in dB) change? What does frequency smoothing do for you? Increasing the sensitivity setting might help get rid of the noise. But what undesireable side effect might it have?

NR2. Short-duration-noise removal with Adobe's Audition: - youtube
Study Questions: What is a spectral frequency display? What is the healing brush and where is it found?

NR3. In-depth noise removal strategies with Audition - various types of noise- Sengstack -
Study Questions: How do you bring up a spectral view? How is a spectral view different than a waveform view? Where is the noise-print tool found? Auto-heal is used for what kinds of noises? Where is auto-heal found? What is one of the two ways to reduce little "tic" noises? What should you do right after using auto-heal?

NR4. Noise Reduction Tools and Techniques - Sound on Sound. More technical and in-depth.
Study Questions: What kind of noise does a noise gate work best on? How much noise should you reduce? What is a noise-fingerprint reduction tool?

Editing tools for Reverb and Dynamics

R1. Audio Processing (Compression, EQ, Limiting, Reverb, Flange, Chorus) Media College - Basic definitions and introduction

R2. Audacity Guide: Principles of Reverb -
Study Questions: What is different about early reflections, compared to direct sound? How do we measure (and state) the difference in time between direct sound and early reflections? What is pre-delay? Reverb time is stated a little differently here, and it is correct. The reverb time in a real room is the time it takes between the source of sound stopping, and the reflections dropping down how many dB? (This is not quite to 0, but is reduced to where we don't notice it anymore.) What is the dry part? The wet part? In Freeverb, what is dampened when you increase damping? (Typical for most reverbs)
           In a Virtual Room with Reverbs, what physical room characteristic affects the sound color of the early reflections? What room characteristics affect pre-delay and reverb time? What effect on reverb, will a room full of people have?

R3. Audacity Guide: Reverb - Adjusting the reverb settings -
Study Questions: How do you change reverberance for larger rooms? How does damping affect the reverb frequencies? What is pre-delay again? How does tone-low and tone-high affect the reverb? Again, what are wet and dry components? From your experience, how would you describe what room-size does to the sound?

R4. A Wash of Reverb - Recording Magazine - Why and how sound editors add reverb to projects.
Study Questions: •What two companies dominate much of the algorithmic reverb effects marketplace? •If algorithmic reverbs use mathematical formulas to generate reverb, what do convolution reverbs use? •What are two mechanical (analog) ways to make reverb, such as in a guitar amp? •What are the example reverb types useful for electronic music, choir, or rock vocalist? •These days, what are plate and spring reverb effects (in their digital form usually) still used for? •Describe a gated reverb. (here is an example using a snare drum) •What is an impulse recording? •What does the “delay time” control do? (Actually this is probably a typo, "decay time" is more correct, and a more common term is “reverberation time.”) •What is an example decay time for a small room? Answer: 3/4 second. •What does using too much reverb do to your mixes? •Compare early reflections to diffusion. •What does reverb damping have to do with realistic rooms? •Describe "mix level," or "dry/wet" mix control?

R5. Use Reverb as a Pro - Mixing - Using Reverb to improve a musical mix - Sound on Sound Magazine -
Study Questions: Know how the proper reverb can knit together a mix; how to set up a common reverb track and use sends; how to use "wet" and "dry"; how a mix might benefit from more than one type of reverb; how to EQ reverb; how to use pre-delay, length, and level; when delay works better than reverb.

R6. Designer Delay Effects - SOS

X6. Audacity's Tempo Tool - Audacity

C1. Audacity's Compressor - Audacity - Study Questions: •What do these controls do: Threshold, Ratio, Attack Time, Release Time, Makeup Gain. •In what situation is the Noise Floor control useful for? (Dialog so the background noise won't appear to come up during pauses in speech.)

C2. How Does a Compressor Work? - SOS -
Study Questions: •The threshold control represents which level? •How much the signal is pulled down is set by which control? •If the ratio was 4:1, and the input signal exceeds the threshold by 8 dB, how much will the output level be reduced? •What is the difference between settings, comparing a compressor to a limiter? •Which is more suble: hard or soft knee? •How do you use a compressor to raise low levels, rather than reduce loud sounds? •What does the attack control in a compressor do? The release time control? •Does the author like the preset library settings that come with a compressor?

C3. How a Compressor Really Works - Youtube - This Presonus demonstration is one of the best at letting you see and hear what an audio compressor is doing. This may help you make sense of all those new terms: threshold, ratio, attack, decay, makup gain.

C4. Compression Made Easy Sound on Sound - a more advanced discussion with examples and great practical advice:
Study Questions: How do the controls on different brands of compressors work? How much compression should you use? What are the right attack and release times? Notice especially the underlined content.

C5. Multiband Dynamics (Advanced Compressors)- Recording Magazine - this is a great article to deepen your understanding of compressors, and explain the usefulness of this popular type of plugin. - Notice especially the underlined content.

C6. SOS Latest Squeeze - Compression Re-Explained - Parallel compression is used a lot in pop music. This explains why parallel compression works better than in-line compression in many cases. Very well explained.

Microphones

M1. Microphones 101: Condenser, Dynamic, and Ribbon. Darkhorse Institute. This PDF file, will review what you learned in the lecture, and add a bit more knowledge.
Study Questions: •Why would you choose a dynamic microphone over a ribbon or condenser? •Why would you choose a condenser microphone over a ribbon or a dynamic? •What are the "cons" for condenser mics? (a couple new ones here, including differences in mics of the same model, effected by humidity and temperature)

M2. Mic Basics: What is Frequency Response? - Shure Company - Study Questions: •What does the frequency response graph of a particular mic tell us about the expected performance? •Give a practical example of how it would help us make a useful recording? •What is meant by a "flat" frequency response? •A purposefully "shaped" frequency response would typically have what characteristics? •Whether a particular mic has a shaped or flat frequency response, what characteristic of the line should be similar in either case? (Hint: use the word "smooth"). •What is an SM57 especially good for? •In the chart fort an BETA SM58, what do the several dotted lines tell you that is useful?

M3. Mic Basics: What is Transient Response? - Shure - A quick read. Study Questions: •What is transient response? •Why does a condenser mic naturally have a transient response advantage over a dynamic mic? •From this information, how would to describe what "a transient" actually is? •How is a transient related to the "attack" part of a sound envelope?

M4. Microphone Guide - A quick overview of microphone types, frequency response, patterns, diaphragm size, and most common uses - Sweetwater

M5. Choosing a Microphone: Types and Uses - Sound on Sound - Notice especially the underlined content.

M6. Studio Microphones for All Budgets - Recording Magazine - Notice especially the underlined content. This should be required reading if you are considering spending serious money on a microphone. It is a few years old, but most of these mics are currently available and still the cream of the crop.

Microphones for Video Production - DSLR - BH Photo

Microphone Techniques for Theatrical Productions: A Shure Webinar (59 minutes) Micing the stage and micing the performers

Condenser Microphones - Technical Differences - How to Build a Smart Mic Locker. 1 hour podcast with Matt MCGylnn

Large Diameter Condenser Microphone Categories Explained (goes with the above podcast)

Using Microphones

RC1. Introduction to Home Recording PDF - Shure - There is a good overview and review here, including descriptions of mic types, patterns, and uses.
Study Questions: •What is meant by audibility, and intelligibility, and fidelity? •Describe the best "recording environment." •Why should you make and listen to a sample recording before you begin your actual recording? •If you want high sensitivity, low self-noise, and a truer sound, what type of microphone is recommended? •What are the recommendations for "general recording techniques"?

RC3. Recording Great Vocals from Home - Recording Magazine - A complete guide including setting up the space, mic types to consider, the use of typical effects such as EQ and compression, how to get the best performance from your talent, and how to "comp" (combine the best parts of several takes) - Notice especially the underlined content in the first half.
Study Questions: •Why is a "dead" room better? •What is a reflexion filter? (Braukmann thinks they are OK but over-rated!) •Does an omni-pattern mic have the same proximity effect as a cardioid? •Where do you place the mic relative to the vocalist's lips, for starters? •What does the gain knob on your preamp in your interface do? •How do you know if your interface is clipping?

RC4. How to Prevent Distortion - Media College -
Study Questions: •What causes distortion in a recording system? Listen to the two examples carefully, and avoid creating the second one. •What does a clipped waveform look like? (Notice the tops of the waves are clipped off neatly in a straight line, as if done by a scissors.) •How do "peak" or "clip" lights help you?

RC5. Microphone Positioning for Vocals -
Study Questions: •What is the usualy working distance range for recording vocals on a LDC microphone? •Which way do you move the mic for a warmer sound? •What can you do if you are getting too much sibilance in the recording? •If you are getting plosive pops in the recording? •What do you tell the voice talent about moving around?

RC6. Recording Voiceovers in a Cruise Ship Cabin - SOS - Study Questions: •What characteristics did their closet have that helped it serve as a vocal booth? •What did they do to improve it? •How did they arrange the deck chair cushions? •Why did that work better than the closet?

Voice Overs

VO1. Voice Over - Reading - William Williams
Study Questions: •Why is natural speech different from reading aloud? •What is in your speech non-verbal tool kit? •How should we move our eyes as we read VO script? •When you first read a script, and you make a mistake, should you go back right away to try to correct the problem? •Why?

VO2. Voice Over Microphone Technique - William Williams
Study Questions: •What kind of mic should you use? •Why should you remember the microphone is like a flashlight shining in your face? •What is the starting distance for lips to microphone? •What do you do if the script calls for you speaking loudly? •What do you do if the script calls for you speaking very softly? •What are a couple problems for the recording that are caused by you being too far away from the mic? •Should you alter your performance to match the recording setup, or change the recording setup to match your performance?

VO3. How to Read a TV Trailer Voice Over - Gary Terzza
Study Questions: •What would you have if your client provided a brief for you? •What is the first thing you do when marking up the script? •What is the second thing? (A:do a quick run-through and see what is working. Change what isn't working.) •How do make a list reading sound less boring?

VO4. How I Improved My Terrible Voice Over Script - Gary Terzza - Study Question: •How would you mark places to put a pause and/or a breath?

VO5. Energize Your Voice - Gary Terzza
Study Question: •What are several ways you help tap into your natural enthusiasm?

VO6. Voice Over Bad Habit - Tailing off at the End of Sentences - Gary Terzza
Study Questions: •Describe what tailing off means? •Why do we all tend to do it when we read out loud? •How can we avoid the problem?

VO7. Breathing Issues in Voice Overs - Gary Terzza
Study Questions: •How do you avoid breathing issues? •What should you consider when deciding whether or not to edit out breaths?

VO8. Five Golden Rules of Voice Over - Gary Terzza - Actually the first four good rules are great for this course.
Study Questions: •What are they, and •what do they mean? (The fifth is important if you are trying for a career in VO)

VO9. 11 Tips for Better Voice Over Recording - Sweetwater
Study Questions •What are the 11 tips? •What is the second part of tip 11, related to what to do when you make a mistake? There are a couple important things to remember here, that haven't come up in other resources, like a script stand, your posture, and having a drink handy.

VO10. Producing Professional Voiceovers At Home, Part 1 - Sound on Sound
Study Questions: What are the roles of producer, engineer, actor, director and editor? •Review how to set up the microphone. •What are the goals of voice over production? •What are the two most important responsibilities for each of these roles: Producer, Engineer, Actor (the "talent"), Director, and Editor?

VO11. Voice Over Guide - A good printed summary of VO
Study Questions: •What is paramount - equipment or technique? •What the 5 difficulties to overcome when starting VO? •Where does the author suggest placing the mic for VO, to avoid plosives, lip and tongue noises, and breathing? (The 6" x 3 rule.) •How does the author set up her room to minimize echoey reflections? •You cannot perform a VO using your regular speech patterns: what do you need to CHANGE from your usual speech patterns? •How does Mary Had A Little Lamb help you? •When practicing your script (several to many times), what do you do with the "tongue-twisters" that sometimes trip you up?

Music

MU1. Music Theory inHalf an Hour - Andrew Huang-
9:54 Study Questions: • What are notes?
• How many different notes are there?
• On a keyboard, what are the names of the white notes?
• What does sharp mean?
• What does flat mean?
• If a vibration is twice as fast as another one, it is called what? A: An octave
• What is a semitone? A:difference between one note and next note.
• What is a whole tone? A: 2 semitones
• What is another term for a semitone? A:a half-step
• A common combination of notes is called a? A:Key.
• What are the most common categories of keys?
• How many notes are in a major or minor key? A:7
• What key uses all the white notes on a keyboard?
• What is the difference between a key and a scale? A:Key is the home base group of notes. Scale a set of notes played in conjunction with a key.
• What is an accidental? A:means a sharp or a flat.
15:17 Chords. • What is a chord?
• What do chords do?
• How do you make a C-major chord? A:Root +3rd +5th
23:44 • What are Inversions? A:Changing the positions of one or more notes in a chord
• What do inversions allow us to do?
27:08 • What are Melodies? A:Single sequences of melodies played with the chords, usually played above the chords. Melody notes not in the chord often create tension.
• What is a bar or measure?
• Bars most often contain how many beats? A:4 beats per measure
• What does this represent? 1 e &  a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a  A:16th note count bar

MU2. Loops in Studio One - SOS - • What makes Studio One's Musicloop format different from regular loops?

MU3. Tempo Tools in Studio One - SOS - "Audio Bend in Studio One is a great way to time correct your audio. How it works is that it detects the transients in your audio event. It then bends these transients on audio so that it sits on the grid better. This way you can quantize your audio." Groove is a tool that extracts subtle tempo variations from a performance that give the music rhymic character, or make it seem to swing.
Study Questions: • What can you do with an extracted groove? • What does detecting transients mean? • Summarize what the author was doing in this article.

MU5. Are Loops Cheating? - SOS - • What is your personal position on using loops?

Presonus Studio One

S1. Introductory Videos - This page has a series of short videos for learning Studio One - a"must watch."
Video 2: The Start Page. Starting a project, naming and locating your new files.
Video 3: Audio Setting. The input and output settings will allow you to set up your recording interface. (See S2 below for details)
Video 4: Browser: Tabs. Instruments (Presence), Effects, Loops, Cloud, Presonus Exchange, Sound Cloud, Pool (shows all the files used in the project)
Video 5: Drag and Drop for recording, mixing, and composing.
Video 6: Tracks and Channels - Organizing multiple reordings into tracks.
Video 7: Pattern Creation and Editing - (A powerful tool. He uses an external controller, though.)

S2. Presonus Setting up Your Audio Interface - Obedia -
Study Questions: •After plugging in your interface and opening S1, what button do you click to set up the interface? Setup > Options >Audio Setup. •When you click on Control Panel for your audio interface, what options can you set? (sample rate and bits, etc) Block size affects how fast digital information gets to your computer and back to your headphones, alled latency. Smaller block size is quicker, but your computer processor has a harder time keeping up. Anyway you might not have to worry about block size or latency if your interface has a direct monitor output. Most do. So... •What is latency and how does it relate to block size? •Where do you set up interface inputs and outputs? •After you start a "new song" where do you find inputs and outputs? (Top Menu >Studio One > Options >Song Setup) •In the audio matrix, what is in the top row? Hardware I/O. •After matching my hardware inputs and outputs to the S1 software inputs and outputs, must I press "Apply"? Yes. •Why is "Make Default" important?

S3. Presonus 4 - Creating a New Song and Recording Audio - Obedia -Good quick overview for anyone. Also introduces templates and preset styles.
Study Questions: How do you add a track? + Why is it important to name a track when setting up for recording? What is in the track inspector? How do you "arm" a track to record? Where is the meter that tells you if you are Do you set the input gain in S1 or on your input device? Where is the record button to start recording?

S4. Creating Your First Song With Studio One - 60 minutes - Quanta - This will help you through your first Studio One project, and covers all those little things that are hard to remember to do if you are new at Studio One. Especially good for musicians with song ideas - Starts with loops + instruments + inputing beats + adding a vocal.
Study Questions: •If starting a project with loops, what setting needs to be on for stretching audio files to match the song's tempo (and bars)? •How do you preview the sound of a particular loop, in the browser? •When listening to a loop, how do you preview it at your song tempo, rather than its original tempo? (triangle) •What is "time stretch" in S1? (tempo of loop matches song tempo). •What is a shortcut to the Inspector? F4 •What is a shortcut to the loops tab? F8 •How do you add copies of the loop into the timeline? press D (He has a MIDI keyboard connected to play the piano chords, bass notes, and so on. You can try it without a MIDI keyboard, if you look up the Querty Keyboard option in S1, and play instruments on your computer keyboard.) (Quantize means make notes fit the beat exactly.) ("Hat" is a high hat cymbal)

S5. Recording Multi Tracks with Studio 1 and USB interface (uses a guitar and the Audiobox, but works for all interfaces.) Adding drums with a loop. Recording multiple audio takes (or "comps") and choosing the best one. Also using a recorded guitar track, (and the Melodyne tool unfortunately not in the free S1 version) to recreate a bass instrument MIDI track. Then a basic mix. Just what you need.

S6. Installing the Included Loops in Studio One

S7. A Complete Studio One Song Project - Quanta - A detailed project example taking you through setup, working with loops (7:00), installing an instrument (piano) and recording MIDI (15:20), recording a vocal (20:20), playing and recording a drum track using samples and MIDI (21:50).

S8. Tempo Tools in Studio One - SOS -

S9. Automation in DAWS - SOS -

S10. Advantages of Grouping in Studio One
Study Questions: •In what way do groups help you edit (such as cut or move) across several tracks at once? •What is the greatest benefit of grouping within the mixer? •What is meant by the term VCA faders? •How is routing channels through a buss  channel different from grouping the channels? •What is a track folder?

Mixing

MX2. Sound Mixer Tutorials - Media College - Whether you are using a hardware mixer to record, or a software mixing metaphore for mixing your tracks on a computer, this explains what those controls do!

MX3. The Solid Mix - Recording Magazine - Starting with a typical set of pop/rock tracks, this is a great first tutorial. There is just enough detail to get you to a satisfactory mix. - Notice especially the underlined content.

MX4. Mixing Essentials - Sound on Sound - After reading The Solid Mix above, this excellent article will fill in details, reinforce fundamentals, and take you a "step up"

MX5. Mixing - Using Sends for Effects - Sound on Sound
Study Questions: •What are the practical and sonic benefits to using send effects (FX) rather than running separate effects on each channel (4 benefits)? •Are EQ and Compressors also commonly used with sends? •What is the term used for the positive results of "bus compression"? •Compressors sometimes delay the sound a bit as they take time to process the sound. This delay is short, usually a few ms, and is referred to as "latency." So why might latency be a problem with "parallel compression," that is compression set up using sends? (Hint: will the sound from the channel fader to the master bus arrive at exactly the same time as the sound from the FX channel fader?)

Music as Communicator

MC1. Music as a Communicator of Emotions Part 1- Lecture by Prof. Aniruddh Patel, in the series Music and the Brain

MC2. Music as a Communicator of Emotions Part 2- Lecture by Prof. Aniruddh Patel, in the series Music and the Brain

MC3. Consonance, Dissonance, Musical Scale Excerpts from Lecture 7- Lecture by Prof. Aniruddh Patel, in the series Music and the Brain

MC4. Composing for Film - SOS -  • (Sidebar)
Study Questions: Why did his timecode values keep slipping a couple seconds out of sync on a project in Europe?  • What is a locked cut?  • When might digital film files be referred to as "reels"?  • What are three types of file formats you might expect the locked cut to arrive as?  • What extra requirements does the composer need?  • Why is "split track" an advantage to the composer? • Tips? • What is the timecode (00:00:00:00) format?  • For realism using samples: what is it about dynamics, articulations, instrument changes, and click tracks, that he would recommend?

Free Resources

LinPlug sound samples, for film scoring, that will load into their Spectral synthesizer - http://www.linplug.com/sounds.html

Voxengo Free Good-Quality VST and AU plugins http://www.voxengo.com/group/free-vst-plugins/

Very good free compressor and equalizer plug-ins at Tokyo Dawn. Also see their clever Proximity free plugin.

Online Tone Generator: http://onlinetonegenerator.com/

Free object sounds (Sometime Inaccurately Called "Sound Effects")

Introduction to Recording and Sound Reinforcement PDF - Shure

RC8. Producting Professional Voiceovers At Home, Part 2 - SOS

RC9. Microphone Technique - A useful review - WikiBooks

RC10. Microphone Positioning Techniques - Shure - with links to specific recommendations for types of instruments

RC11. Studio and Stage Recording - Shure - How to record typical instruments such as guitar, piano, horns. Not too long to read, but fairly complete.

RC12. Live Sound and Recording- Shure

RC13. How Sampling Works for Analog to Digital Converters

RC14. Recording Orchestras - Combination of Mix articles.

RC15. Guitar Recording Advice - EQ Magazine

MAS1. Mastering Overview - Braukmann

MAS2. Mastering 101 - Uses Reaper and Izotope Ozone 9 - 1 hour - Discussion of mastering - All tools demoed - Includes a demo and discussion of mastering for specific types of contemporary publishing.

Audio for DSLR Cameras: XLR mics - Explora - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/hands-review/audio-dslr-part-2-xlr-mics

SD1. Designing Sounds - How to build new sounds. Metcalfe
Study Questions: •What is Nick Metcalfe's job description as a sound designer? •What does the crafting of sound effects and Foley provide for the medium? •How does layering of sounds make them more effective? •What types of elements did the author add to the explosion? •What would he leave off if the explosion was supposed to be farther away? •How can you increase the dramatic content of an impact sound? •How did he enhance the sound of the arrow hitting HARD? •In Pitch Black, how did sound design use contrast to enhance the drama of the ship losing power and starting to fall? •What is a hard cut? •What dramatic sounds were heard in the 2001 Space Oddessy extra-vehicular (space walk) scenes? •How is the force of the explosion that almost deafens Capt Miller, in Saving Private Ryan, conveyed? •What are Metcalf's 8 suggestions for efficient editing of sound? (There is a good chance this will appear on a quiz!)

SD2. The Sound Designer in a Major Film - SOS
Study Questions: •What do you do first to begin a sound design project? (4 or 5 things recommended).
•After acquiring a story board of key events, the author recommends using markers in your DAW that correspond to the story board and your sound map. •Where is this tool found in Studio One? •How does it work?
•Do novice sound designers tend to produce too many or too few sound layers?
•How many tracks in a typical commercial film would you allot to atmosphere? •To Foley? •How many for spot effects (object sounds, etc)?
•When layering atmosphere tracks, besides location, what other characteristics must be planned for?
•What happens if the atmosphere mix is too dynamic? •What is the obvious tool to control that?
•What makes for "bad Foley"?
•When doing footfalls, what should you keep in mind for a complete job?
•The main character in Ratatouille, Remy, is small.  How did the sound designer adjust the design of sounds that Remy himself would be hearing?

SD3. Recording Foley Sounds - An entertaining look at how Foley is done at Warner Brothers Studio - (6.5 minutes)
Study Questions: •What creates the sound of a dog's paw?  A bird's wings?  Snow footfalls? Cracking ice? •What is Foley sound? •Who was Jack Foley? •How many layers did you hear in the hiker in the waterfall scene? Carabineers and ropes. Water pouring. And what else???