Setting Up a Home Recording Studio – The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness is our 1st video-tutorial course, and will show you how to start a home studio in less than an hour and have you producing professional sounding audio from it. The cost for the studio? How about $5.00 (for a PC mic if you don’t already have one)? Once you’re ready to crank it up a notch or three, the 2nd in our Audio Recording Awesomeness series awaits – The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 2: Pro Recording With Reaper. That course moves into the professional realm of audio recording using the incredible software, Reaper, and delving into move advanced topics like MIDI and virtual instruments, loops, and several time-saving voice-over production techniques like quickly slicing one file into many, saving each with it’s own file name, and rapidly creating multi-character dialogue projects.
This is awesome stuff. Enjoy!
Ken
ps-for more on home studio recording, check out this interesting article: http://www.stanford.edu/group/ccr/blog/2010/11/the_future_of_music_production.html
Home Recording Equipment
What is a Mic Preamp?
The term preamp, most often paired with the word microphone is something you’ll see a lot if you do much reading about audio recording. So what is a preamp? Well first off, it’s short for “preamplifier.” Second, yes – it is a thing that amplifies something before it goes to an amplifier. I know, I know – more confusing terminology in the audio recording world. Shocker. That’s one of the reasons I write these articles.
OK, so what are they talking about when they say “microphone preamplifier” or “mic pre” for short? Here it is. Microphones put out really quiet levels. But audio recorders (and other devices that ultimately amplify and send signals to speakers) need something a called a line level, which is quite a bit louder than mic level. So you need a device to boost (amplify) a microphone level to line level. And that device is called…you guessed it…a preamplifier.
Anything you can plug a microphone into (well, that EXPECTS to have a mic plugged into it – I guess technically you could plug one into your ear) will have a mic preamp built in. A computer sound card, for example, has a little hole with the word mic written write next to it. There will be a preamp in there somewhere. Likewise, most mixers have microphone inputs which have preamps in them. But neither of the above examples of preamps are ideal for recording.
To keep cost down, mixer manufacturers use inexpensive preamps since there are a bunch of them on board. Built-in sound cards on computers are also very cheap since most folks aren’t using them to record pro quality audio.
So if we are going to record great sounding audio with our computers, we need good mic preamps. Most audio interface units these days (meaning circa 2012) only have 1 or 2 mic preamps built in (such as with the E-MU 0204 interface), and that is what you are mainly paying for. They are much quieter and cleaner than the ones in mixers or computers, which is why they sound so much better. Oh, and something else handy to know is that USB mics (like the Samson C01U) have preamps built right into them.
So that’s my answer to the question “what is a mic preamp?” You didn’t want to know much more than that did you? Well, if you do, you can do the bonus reading below. I asked someone to give me 400 words on what a preamp was and I got what I asked for; a technical and academic sounding description. But hey, some folks may be interested so to you I say “read on!”
Cheers!
Ken
Extra credit reading on preamps
A broadly used term in the world of audio is the word “preamp”. Defined, a preamp is an amplifier that prepares electrical signals for increased amplification prior to them being received by the main amplifier. By design a preamp is supposed to do one or a combination of the following functions: increase the gain or the amount the signal level, convert unbalanced levels to balanced, change the tone, and/or lower output impedance.
Essentially the preamp works to make sure that there is an effective relationship between input and output so that the power it takes to receive and produce a sound isn’t compromised. Without going too deep into the technical explanations of each of the before mentioned uses of a preamp, one could say that the preamp is a multifaceted audio device.
When speaking of preamps it’s often discussed in relation to a separate power amp. The preamp is the signal processing component of an amplifier. Traditionally, the way you got better sound quality was to separate the two sections of the amplifier. Separating the preamp from the power amp redesigns your power supply so it is capable of managing electronics of more complex or sensitive signals without the interference from a nosier amplifier. In most cases when discussing preamps, users tend to mean amplifiers that are separate from the power amp. This would require a detached power amp to power speakers. An amplifier with both sections in it is called an integrated amplifier or just a plain old amp.
The versatility of a preamp as an audio tool shapes the sounds of an amplified microphone or instrument. The preamp usually includes dials that act as tone controls that adjust low, mid and high frequencies. The dials allow users to increase or decrease bass and treble as they see fit. Once the signal is processed the user now has the tone and sound they desired.
Preamplifiers may be found incorporated into home audio systems where the term takes on additional definitions. Most often, home audio preamps simply mean the device that switches between altered line level sources. In this sense no true amplification takes place; however the preamp does supply voltage to the amp. This is enough voltage to power loud speakers although it doesn’t register as a significant current gain.
Preamps can also be found implanted in other pieces of equipment like turntables, microphones and electric/bass guitars.
Doing Dubstep On Your iPad
Here is a cool video of how to create a dubstep drum/rhythm track on you iPad using the Korg iMS20 app. The app gives you a classic Korg synthesizer (looks just like the real thing) and sequencer. It is so amazing what you can do in the audio recording arena just using iPad and other iDevice apps these days.
Anyway, I’ll step aside and you can just watch the video:
Microphones On Big Brother TV Show
Reality television shows present something of a challenge for the sound folks on the set. This is especially true of the shows, like Big Brother, where the cast members are often shirtless, or otherwise clad in something difficult to hook a clip-on (also known as a lapel, lavalier or just “lav” for short) microphone to – bikinis at the beach or by the pool, etc.
So you may have noticed (from 2013) Frank, “Boogie”, Ashley, Ian, Jenn, Joe, and companions wearing lanyards around their necks and carrying around little boxes with antennae on them. In case you hadn’t already guessed, these are lavalier (clip-on) microphones and bodypack transmitters (since these are wireless systems like the Sennheiser Evolution Series.)
Shotgun Mics
On a set where people wear shirts and the scene is blocked and scripted, the actors’ voices are picked up by shotgun mics (like the Sennheiser MKH 416), which allow for excellent sound when the voice is a couple of feet away from the mic, which is just off-screen.
And indeed they do have some shotgun mics hanging from the ceiling around the Big Brother house. But in a reality show, you can’t have a sound guy following every actor around with a shotgun mic on a fish pole. So the shotgun mics are usually too far away to get good sound.
The voice has to be close to the mic or it sounds too echo-y and reverb-y. And the cast can’t all wear headset mics like in the picture at the top left. So the only way to get good sound quality on the voices of the Big Brother house guests (HGs) is to have them wear lapel/lavalier mics.
But you have to attach them to something. Lavs usually come with an alligator clip so you can clip them onto ties, lapels or folds in a shirt or blouse, etc. But it would be pretty painful to pinch these onto your skin.
So the alternative is to hang them around the neck on a rope, cord, or “lanyard,” like the Countryman Magnetic Mount. That is what the HGs are wearing around their necks – microphones attached to neck lanyards.
But these are wireless microphones, so in addition to the mic necklace, HGs have to carry around bodypack transmitters.
The way wireless lav systems work is that the mic plugs into the bodypack transmitter, which then wirelessly transmits the audio to the receiver (another box) that is hooked up to the audio recording device or directly to the video camera.
So wonder no longer! Often times the thing that makes the difference between amateur and professional video is the audio quality, and a lav mic is much better (if you don’t have a shotgun mic) than using a mic that is built-into the video camera, which is too far away to get decent sound. To hear this for yourself, see my review of a wireless lavalier mic here: Audio For Video: Do Not Let Bad Sound Ruin Great Video.
Release of Amplitube Slash
IK Multimedia just announced the release of their latest iOS product called the Amplitube Slash. As you may have guessed by the reference to Slash, this version of Amplitube includes models of guitar amplifiers and effects pedals used by the famed Guns N Roses guitarist.
IK Multimedia actually worked together with Slash to create this product, so it is as accurate and true to what Slash himself creates as it can possibly be.
If you are not familiar with Amplitube in general, you can see a complete review I did of that product here: www.homebrewaudio.com/amplitube-irig-by-ik-multimedia/ complete with video and audio samples. But to bottom-line it for you, Amplitube is a virtual guitar amplifier that lives in your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. It comes with a piece of hardware, an adapter called the iRIG guitar interface, that plugs into the iOS device and allows you to then plug your guitar into the adapter’s quarter-inch plug. Then you just download the free Amplitube app from the iTunes app store, and rock out. You have a large selection of sounds available and of course you can control the knobs on the amplifier (well, a picture of the amplifier) as you would a real one. Extremely cool!
But now, with the release of Slash, you can expand Amplitube to include his signature sound.
Check it out here:
www.amplitube.com/slash