Unit 4 - Task 3 Importance of Techniques - Aim B

The final section of your pre-production report will be focused on professional recording and editing equipment, and on recording techniques and procedures.

You must add a final section to your pre-production report that evaluates the importance of different techniques and procedures when recording audio. This will inform the production of your own audio work. You must include information on recording and editing equipment, such as:

• solid state, digital recording devices in current use, e.g. Audacity (freeware), Bias Peak, Adobe^® Audition, Pro Tools, Cubase, Audiodesk
• handheld and portable digital audio recorders, e.g. Zoom, Olympus^®, Alesis, Tascam, Yamaha^®, Roland, Sony^®, Fostex, Marantz
• sound in-camera (fixed or detached microphone on camera)
• desktop recorders
• mono/stereo recording devices
• multi-track recorders.

For my pre production I will be talking about the importance of different techniques and the procedures when recording audio. I will be talking about what each of these techniques mean and what they're used for, to provide information that I know for how I will create my own audio work; by using this information with the correct terminology. I will also research and describe what each recording and editing equipment's are used for audio.
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Solid state, digital recording devices such as;


Audacity - Audacity is a freeware software used to record audio and edit audio tracks at multi time, and it's one of the most easiest audio editing & recording programs in my opinion. This program can be used on every operating system from; Windows, Linux, GNU to Mac OS X. You can use audacity to do things such as:
Record computer playback,
Edit sound files such as WAV, FLAC, MP3 etc...
Record live audio,
Cut splice, copy  or even mix different sounds together (even your own recordings),
and a lot more features, this is a hyperlink to them: list of features.
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Bias Peak - Bias Peak, or known as Peak, is also a audio software, but is used for digital audio editing mainly, and is only  for the operating system 'Macintosh', this software is priced and it's mainly used for sample editing, stereo/mono recording, CD mastering & creating loops. This software is usually used by professional audio/video editors, musicians, educators, sound designers and more.
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Adobe^® Audition - Adobe audition is known as professional workstation for audio, and is used for editing audio, creating audio, mixing, and designing sound effects too. This audio editing software is known as 'the industry best digital audio editing software' because it allows you to do all kind of audio editing, and is used by professional audio editors, however, this program is a professional audio software owned by the big brand Adobe. Adobe who own all the software's professional people use; Photoshop, Premiere pro etc. and of course, adobe audition isn't free, but they would have a free trial in some cases.
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Pro Tools - Pro Tools is an audio editing software with all the tools needed to construct and edit audio perfectly, and allow you to become a 'pro' by creating your chosen perfect audio. It is known as digital audio workstation, developed and released by Avid Technology for operating systems such as; Microsoft Windows and MacOS. Which allows the use of this application to be spread for a wide range of sound production purposes and sound recording, mixing audio etc. This application can run as a standalone software, or even operate with actual external analogue or digital converters, meaning the sound mixers/editors professional recording artists use in studio booths, can be used and connected with the pro tools application at the same time, or just be used by it self. And, of course this is a priced audio software too, because it's a professional software and professional software's all come at a cost.
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Cubase - Cubase is also a digital audio workstation, but it's well represented for the cutting edges of audio. Cubase is specifically designed and created for professionals from 'the ground up', which means for beginners, up to professionals. This audio workstation, converges extraordinary intuitive handing, sound quality and much more range of different highly advanced audio tools, to create the best recording, editing, composition and mixing of sound. As every professional editing software, it's priced, but doe's also offer a free trail.
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AudioDesk - Audiodesk, is known as an American Multinational software cooperation, which specifically created for the perfect construction, architecture, engineering, media, manufacturing and entertainment Industries. Audiodesk is well known for the use of multi-track recording, editing and mixing. This software allows you do all these features both offline file-based
processing and real-time effects.

My own work use:
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Researching into different software's used for recording and editing audios have told me specifically what are some of the best audio recording/editing software's, and what they have to offer; is it only recording? is it expensive..? And this allows me to understand which program I can use effectively for my own recording and editing, and how much I would need to pay if it's either free or monthly etc. So for example, the program audacity allows you to record and edit multiple tracks at once, and the program is easy to use and free. Whereas, Cubase is a program mainly focused for cutting edges of audio and do not really offer you a position to record audio, only to edit and make the best recordings, and Cubase is also a priced software, but allow a free trail, so I can try the trial and see if it's good or not for my own personal use, or just use the free recording & editing software audacity.


Handheld and Portable digital audio recorders
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Zoom - Zoom is a portable handheld digital recorder which offers variety of handy solutions for location recording. Zoom portable handheld digital audio recorders are very good because they're well known for their robust build, and there design is simple. The quality of the microphone is very high, and as a portable recorder it's one of the best handheld recording devices. The new Zoom H6 offers a six track recording program on it, and it has four interchangeable input capsules - X/Y, shotgun, MS, and dual XLR/TRS Combo. This is great for live recording, live broadcasts, electronic news gather and professional film/video work. Price:£69 
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Olympus - Olympus is another portable handheld digital recorder, but as zoom is only a digital recording company, Olympus also sell video cameras too. But, the Olympus LS-P4 (the newest) recording devices is small enough to fit your pocket and the palm of your hand easily; it is one of the smallest Hi-Res audio recorders which they've made. It can be used for broadcasting with top quality audio anywhere. Olympus LS-P4 is also one of the first digital audio recorders which all you to capture sound in formats such as; PCM, FLAC and MP3. £189
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Alesis - Alesis is a music brand company which designs and markets digital audio processers, digital audio interfaces, electronic musical instruments, audio mixers and more. All this equipment made by Alesis helps audio musician recorders create perfect audio by having eating step to their audio production; processing, editing, mixing, recording etc. The products used allow you to record your sound and allow you to edit/mix them simply from the product or if it's connected to the computer, you can mix it online and edit and play it - or do the same from the product without a program. One of the digital audio recorders is; The MidiVerb 4, which it  offers "18 bit A/D and D/A converters and 24 bit internal processing for a 20Hz-20kHz bandwidth and 90dB dynamic range, making it ideal for digital recording" therefore, giving you the best digital recording for your audio. These products are not handheld, but can be portable because they're a small medium size (depending on the product, but majority are), but they require connection to a computer/laptop, because you also would have your microphone plugged in too which will be used to record the audio and the Alesis product will be used to mix/edit your audio. Price: £174
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Tascam - Tascam is another handheld portable audio recorder, it is very similar to the Olympus and Zoom, but this handheld audio recorder is much smaller than the zoom, it is able to fit in the hand easily and your pocket as well as the Olympus. But, this recorder has omnidirectional microphones which allow optimal audio quality, and it features a 96kHz resolution. It is great for live performances and any location recording, this digital audio recorder like the Olympus can film in MP3, but this one can also film in WAV format to either microSD or microSDHC media for added versatility. The microphone also offers  a 1/8’’ microphone input which allows you to connect your own stereo microphone or other line-level source to your Tascam microphone. Price: £75
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Yamaha - Yamaha is a corporation produced by Japan and they conglomerate with a very wide range of products and services, you might known them for their pianos as they're very famous for making musical instruments, power spots equipment and even electronics. Yamaha is one of the worlds largest piano manufacturing companies too. So the musical instruments other than pianos, they make mixers which allow you to record and capture any "performance with stunning 96kHz sound", one of the good mixers is the Yamaha 01V96i, because it's  perfect for recording your live performances and mixing professional-quality music. Price: up to £1662

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Roland - Roland is Japanese corporation who manufacture electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software too. The digital handheld audio recorder, Roland R-05 has a features such as a inbuilt stereo mic and also an external input, on-board editing functions and allow you to record in a 16-bit WAV and mp3 format simultaneously. The Roland R-07 also includes a built-in reverb. The Roland R-07 is known as an ultra portable audio recorder with wireless monitoring and remote control, and they come in colours such as red, white and black.   (Black, Red, White R-07 (BK) R-01 (RD) R-07 (WH)) Price: £196
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Sony - The Sony digital handheld portable audio recorder is called the 'Sony ICD-UX530', this digital voice recorder has an inbuilt USB, so you can connect it to your computer easily, it also has a high sensitivity and noise cancelling built in s microphone system, which allows you to get the perfect audio recording in any location - it has a wider recording range than most older models. This voice recorder will allow you to capture radio broadcasts, any meetings, and even lectures, all in high clear quality audio. The Sony ICD also has optimise-able settings dependent on which situation you're in; this is through a new user interface which also allows you to search for recordings and music files to play easily, and also allow you to monitor your recording levels easily. The Sony has a internal memory of 4GB and uses MicroSD cards and SDHC and SDXC is also supported. Price: £75


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Fostex - Fostex is a Japanese audio equipment manufacturer. Although they're well known for making audio equipment such as headphones, loudspeakers, studio monitors and microphones, they also have pioneered with TASCAM and made an affordable multi-track recording equipment, which is one of the first eight track reel to reel multi-track that have used affordable 1/4 inch tape. This is called the MR8, MR - short for Memory Recorder and this multitrack recorder is in HD and can record audio and store it as WAV files. The Fostex MR8 multitrack digital recorder is " capable of recording eight tracks of 16-bit, 44.1kHz audio to Compact Flash cards of 64 to 512MB capacity, and is supplied with a 128MB card ". Price: up to £349
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Marantz - Marantz is a company which develops and sells high-end audio products, one of the best handheld portable digital audio recorders is the Marantz PMD620 which is a high performance recorder of a very small size to allow you transport it easily. This recorder has an inbuilt stereo condenser microphone, which allows you to array the recorder with point and shoot recording, and this digital audio recorder also has an intuitive control surface which can be used for 'one-hand' operation, with also a thumb operated transport wheel and has a red illuminating, tactile, record button. Price: up to £430
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Sound in-camera: Sound in camera is basically the types of microphone used to pick up sound with the camera; whether it's a fixed one, or a detached, a cable or otherwise. Having this choice can be very useful for me if I want to record a video to go with my podcast, because I can determine the audio quality dependent on whatever sound in camera microphone I have.

Fixed microphone - A fixed microphone is basically a microphone which is inbuilt into the product; it's fixed into it by the manufacturers, and cannot be removed/detached. Having a fixed microphone inbuilt your camera/product can be very useful because it means you don't have to buy an external/detachable microphone, you can use the one inbuilt meaning you save more money. However, the fixed microphone is usually doesn't have great audio quality so you may have bad sound from your video, hence why you may want to buy an external microphone because it may not fit your required quality.
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Detached microphone on camera - This is basically the opposite to fixed microphone, and means it the microphone has an extendable microphone, either connected by cable or some other method such as Bluetooth. Detached microphone has many pros because it allows you to have the camera set in one place, and you can move the microphone forward meaning you don't have to be so close to whatever your recording, to pick up the best possible quality. You can have the microphone sound at the best quality for what you're recording, and it makes it easier to record clear audio. However, a pro and sort of a con is that the detachable microphone can be lost or broken if not kept safe, and also you can buy sound mufflers such as wind mufflers, pop filters etc to get the best quality audio, but it costs to buy those because wind/environment issues may be problem with recording. Another possible con for the detached microphone is that size would add onto your camera making it heavier and possibly more difficult to film.

Desktop recorders - A desktop recorder is basically a recording software used for computers or laptops which allow you to record your screen or audio by a click of button, and the touch of a few settings. This can be very useful because just like the recording programs such as audacity, it's a desktop recorder, but that's used for recording and editing only audios. Desktop recorders such as OBS (Open Broadcast Software) can be used to record your audio and your screens visual, so you can edit the clips and publish it online; for example, if you're playing a game like Fortnite, you can record it with OBS and then edit it easily after you hit stop recording, and it will save the recording of your gameplay onto your pc in any recording format such as MP4 and you can later on use editing programs such as premiere pro to cut out anything not needed or add music to the background audio. One other thing good about the program OBS, is that it allows you to not only record, it's used for live streaming too on platforms such as twitch.tv and youtube.com. And, with OBS you can set up each part of your recording to whatever you wish, you can set up if you want one monitor to record only the game window, while you tab out onto another page, or if you want to record your facecam and audio, you can do so and apply it all together by using the programs different features, and you can resize them all and have any individual recording piece you need.
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Mono Recording - Mono recording is when you record audio on one single channel. This type of recording is in contrast to stereo recording because stereo recording is done on two different channels, composed to left and right sound inputs. Mono recording is well used for a great deal of time, especially for things such as when people record static speech. Stereo records all the different elements of dynamic music such as ; surround sound effect, but for static applications such as deciding the speech in speech recognition software, but with mono, it uses stereo offering but with no further advantage. Mono recording is mostly used because the recordings done is used by one single microphone device, so the audio is recorded in one channel, whereas stereo would be multiple microphone or array microphones for right and left channels; overall, making it easier to have audio recording and makes it also easier to edit.

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multi-track recorders - A multi track recorder is basically a recording equipment used for multiple tracks to be recorded and edited at once; the multi track recorder allows you to have multiple tracks recording and applied together for mixing and editing all easily by one device known as the MTR. This style of sound recording was developed in 1995, and the multi tracker allows you overall, to record singular sounds and apply them simultaneously to create music or one total track. For example, if you had a MTR, and you wanted to make some music, you could use it like this; record one track for the beat, one for the rhythm, one for chorus, beat drop, then the singing or whatever, and then you can apply it together by mixing it using the multi track recorder, and then you would have made your own song by using only one simple recording device.

 

Researching these specific digital audio recorders, and the sound in camera components/uses and techniques, have benefitted me by allowing me to understand each way In which I can use specific digital audio recorders to record my own audio and with researching them, I'd known which one is the cheapest and has the best quality of audio for me to use. With the sound in camera, I know which recorders are best for whatever use; fixed has it pros and cons, but detached also has it's pros and cons too... The mono recording will allow me easily to record on one single channel, where others will be couple of channels (right n left - stereo), and finally understanding the features and uses of multi track recorders have helped me a lot because it has told me how I can use multi track recorders and what they're used for, which is best and which is priced for however much. Overall, researching all the importance's of the techniques in AIM B have guided me towards everything I need to understand to create the best possible audio for my own sound; music, broadcasts, videos or podcast.