Reflections

Reflections

At first, I never thought MMS 172 will be this fun.  Learning the intricacies of audio production made me appreciate what I hear. I never thought a lot of effort is needed to produce even a short clip. Good thing our class was under the guidance of the two best professors in multimedia, they were able to impart their knowledge and techniques in audio production. The knowledge I gained will absolutely help me in my future production courses as well.

Wildsound Studio

 Attending the F2F sessions is one of the best experiences I've had in this course. It was my first time to visit a recording studio, and seeing how audio is processed. "Parang magic," especially for someone clueless like me. But magic it is not; it's a product of hard work of all those people behind audio production.

Sir Al and Sir Mike

 For the blogging activity, I find it very helpful. Writing down your thoughts and experiences is a way to help understand ones self. It's like asking yourself over and over, "What have I learned today". This can be particularly helpful especially for other students who would like to learn more and improve their skills. Learning based from the experience of other people is one good way to improve our own.

Samson Microphone

I would like to thank our professors who taught us the basics of audio production, and my classmates who were actively participating in discussions. I admit there's more to learn about audio production, but knowing and understanding the basics is a foundation I will always be grateful for.

The Project

The Project

When I learned the details for our final project in MMS 172, I got excited. As in really excited. Several ideas came into mind, such as doing a voice over from my favorite kiddie show Batibot, dubbing a clip from some anime shows, and making a radio commercial. However, my wife prodded me to make a song cover instead. "That would be very useful when you're going to record my guitar covers," she said.

The wife has spoken, the wife must be obeyed. :D

I browsed through several songs and I found one I really liked. Whistle for the Choir by the Fratellis. I thought, maybe I can do this. However, there's a few problem with this. I don't really sing, and I'm not confident enough with my guitar playing skill. So, I asked two talents to join me in this project, one who will play the guitar and another one who will sing.

To lessen the unwanted noises, we recorded in the office during the wee hours of the night. There's an inner office where I work, which is fortunately carpeted. We positioned our blankets in a chair for the recording of guitar tracks. For the singing part, I did not use a magic voice box but a large wall-mounted rack lined with soft blankets. The Zoom H1 microphone was mounted on a small camera tripod, and I used some rubberbands to secure the moving parts of the tripod and the soft cloth which served as filter.

The Rack

Noise-Cancelling Blankets

Zoom H1 + Tripod

The New Superhero - Zoom H1 Microphone

Rubber Bands

 Guitar tracks were recorded first, and mixed using Audacity. This was then uploaded in a smartphone to serve as a guide for the singer. The bass line was also recorded in this manner, using the previous recording as a guide. This made it a bit easier to mix later on since they are using the same guide.

The Guitarist - Fernan

The Singer - Mariku

For processing, the four tracks were laid in Audacity, removing the unnecessary part at the start and end of each track. When the timing is acceptable enough, noise reduction was applied. The left and right channel balance was also adjusted.  Finally, Studio Fade Out was applied.

Audacity

Although it was a bit hot in our makeshift "recording studio", we had a great time while doing this project. Even though we had to retake several times, we still managed to have fun and enjoy the time spent for this song cover project. Hearing the tracks blend together in the final output makes it all worth it.

Signal Flow Recording

Okay, so after reading through different threads and researching about different kinds of gears that I'm going to use in this course, I was finally able to put up a simple setup. Something that I hope will suffice and enable me to create something beautiful, or at the very least, palatable. :D

Speaker/Monitor - Dausen Headphones

Dausen headphones, foldable for your convenience

A classmate posted something about a sale on headphones in Lazada. I checked it out and thought maybe this can be a good monitor, and with a super sale price, I was sold. Good thing that Lazada offered cash on delivery, that way I won't have to use any credit card to purchase online. This was the second time I purchased an item over the Internet (the first one was a pair of shoes from Zalora, another online shop). I'm enjoying the added convenience of shopping online, since I can't find the time to go to the mall to buy stuff I needed. Plus, the discount is just irresistible.

Microphone - Zoom H1 Handy Recorder

It took me a while to find a good microphone for recording. There were a lot of discussions about the microphones, and there's just too much information to process. I narrowed down my choices between a Samson USB Meteor Mic and the Samson Q1U-CW, although I'm leaning more towards the Meteor Mic since this seems to be the popular choice among the class.

Samson USB Meteor Mic (image from soundcorp.com.au)

But then, I thought it would be better to have a stand alone recorder, since this can be more functional in the long run. I can record office meetings, and also use it for future projects, like video making. The Zoom H1 Recorder seems to be a good choice, but with the cost of 6,800 pesos at channel.com.ph, this is something way out of the budget.

Zoom H1 Handy Recorder, works as USB mic too!

However, a classmate told me that there's a shop in Singapore where Zoom H1 is offered at only 130 SGD. That's about 4,390 pesos (at 33 pesos per SGD), quite cheaper than the listed price of channel.com.ph. I beggged, pleaded, coerced, and bargained with the wife (who is currently working in SG) to buy me one and ship it through LBC. Shipping was at 18 SGD (594 pesos), so still, it is way cheaper.

Thanks to my ever supportive wife. She's not a professional singer, though. (Photo grabbed from her FB page)

Software - Wave Lab LE / Audacity

Screenshot of WaveLab LE

The Zoom H1 came with a free copy of Wave Lab LE software. I will also be using Audacity for audio processing, since I'm a fan of open-source softwares. Processing will be done using my trusty Asus laptop, or in the office desktop, which is a lot faster than my laptop.

Dausen headphones and Zoom H1 Recorder

Basically, the Zoom H1 will be recording either directly into the computer (when used as a USB mic) or into the microSD card (when used as a stand-alone recording device). The recorder has a 3.5mm jack, where the Dausen headphones can be connected. The recorded sound can then be downloaded to the workstation for further processing.

Signal Flow of My Recording Setup (mindmap created from www.bubbl.us)

There goes my setup. I hope I can make something good out of it.

Excited With Audio in Multimedia

Yay, first post!

Well, not really the first post. This is my first post about our new subject, which is Audio in Multimedia. I'm quite excited with this course since we will be learning new stuff about audio under two great teachers, Prof Mike Idioma and Prof Al Librero. Sir Mike is an expert in this field, and this IMDB page will show his best known works (one of which is the Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salong Story). Sir Al is the kind of teacher who will really push you to your limits. Really, as in 100%. After taking two courses under Sir Al, I'm pretty sure I will finish this subject with a lot of new information pertaining to audio in multimedia.

Of course, what excites me is that I will finally be able to understand the process involved in audio production, plus I do hope that I will be able to produce good audio. As compared to photography, everything in audio is alien to me. Sure, I can do some basic stuff like adjust the volume and equalizer of the radio, or splice some WAV file for presentation. But the thought of making something better in terms of audio production, that's something I look forward to.

Winamp (and equalizer), It Really Whips The Llama's Ass!

Then again, I hope that we will enjoy this audio in multimedia class. I can't wait to learn more about the "magic" behind audio production.