Recording Boot Camp – Day 1

What do a Canadian, an American, an Italian, a British chap and a Swiss guy have in common?

They are attending Ronan Chris Murphy’s six day Recording Boot Camp in Italy.

At Abnegat Studios this beautiful Italian Wednesday morning, we began with an introduction learning that the essence to great recordings is simple.

“Recording is simple…” – Ronan Chris Murphy

Ronan quickly put us at ease dispelling some of the large assumptions and myths that many have about recording and explaining why he keeps the number of students that attend his boot camps small.

Listening to examples of The Beatles, U2 and Van Halen, Ronan Chris Murphy demonstrated that mastering the craft of recording involves understanding a number of predictable variables and being aware of common mistakes made in most studios across the globe. Understanding these two facts alone can help us to create great recordings.

Making great recordings is fun, quick and very inexpensive

Touching upon the basic advantages and disadvantages of both stereo and mono recording, a significant chunk of our morning session was dedicated to what Ronan calls the recording time-line.

Understanding the recording time-line has helped me to understand how to begin to getting great recordings easier, cheaper and with a lot more fun. That’s before a note is played or a fader is raised!

The morning session alone has likely covered the cost of the course learning a variety of new ways in which we can make great recordings getting it right before the mic.

We learned why certain expensive equipment may or may not be worth our investment and how it may not be necessary to book ourselves in to Ocean Way studios to get close to the sound or recording we’re after. And the techniques are simple.

Learning what not to do is key here.

Bits you need to know

We looked at the benefits and characteristics of both analogue and digital recording techniques. During this session, we spent some valuable time learning about the critical differences between 16 and 24-bit digital recording whilst paying close attention to the core characteristics of different sampling rates.

During this session, Ronan Chris explained how 24-bit can provide us with an extended dynamic range effectively giving us a ‘limitless’ space within which we can create high quality recordings. Nice.

Phase and time

“When we’re talking about phase we’re talking about time.” – Ronan Chris Murphy

Beginning with a clear and detailed explanation of the different types of microphone commonly used in recording studios such as Figure-8, Cardioid and Omni-directional, we briefly explored the placement and characteristics of each microphone (more of this later this week) learning how waves flow and, perhaps more importantly, how this fits in to something the sound experts call phase.

During this session, Ronan demonstrated how almost every studio, professional and otherwise, is not immune to phase problems and how one very simple technique helped us to overcome the phenomenon known as proximity effect.

dB or not dB

The amount of notes I take is always a good indication of how much I’m learning. The day was packed full of new insights and I know we’ve only just begun. Journal brimming.

In the closing session, we explored dB values and s.p.l (sound pressure level) and learned how to escape one critical mistake guaranteed to be one home recording enthusiasts the world over are making.

Pasta

After a full introductory day we filled our bellies with some fine local Italian pasta in one of the lively local restaurants. It’s one treat to be enjoying the experience of learning again and another to have the Italian landscape outside.

Not only was the first day fun, it was packed full of useful, practical ideas, tips, tricks and lessons I know I can use immediately mostly without having to spend a single extra cent.

Tomorrow we look at dynamics and compression.

Related links:
Recording Boot Camp – Day 2
Recording Boot Camp – Introduction
Recording Boot Camp
Abnegat Studios
Ronan Chris Murphy

Photo Credit: © Agenda Red