Week 2 – Sound Foragers

Recordings

Tuesday, June 13
- Part 1
- Part 2
Thursday, June 15
- Part 1
- Part 2

Prepare

Start collecting a folder of samples.

Explore

I/O for Digital Audio Workstations

Let’s walk through a few setups for getting into and out of your computer, in increasing order of complexity.

Built-in laptop output

Most laptops have an audio jack which will give you a stereo output. The simplest beginner setup is to get a pair of good quality headphones to listen to your work.

There are commonly recommended brands and models that you can rely on for decent monitoring. Some people will hate them but they’re dependable and relatively affordable. An example is the Audio Technica M** series, with the M30x starting at around $70.

Pros:

When we’re starting out, creating a good listening space is much more challenging than buying speakers. Headphones make it simpler by relying less on the environment.

Cons:

It can be exhausting to wear and listen on headphones for long hours.

With the headphone jack, you can also use budget speakers that have an aux-in. One that’s commonly recommended is the PreSonus Eris E** series, with the Eris E3.5 starting at $99.

Powered monitors, like the one above, have an amplifier built-in to one of the speaker boxes. They’re also referred to as active monitors. If you buy passive speakers, that means you will need an external amplifier. These days, you are more likely to encounter this in HiFi listening setups, as most studio monitors for production will be powered.

To conclude, for a very simple setup for $100 or less, use the laptop output with headphones, or speakers that have a stereo aux input.

Audio Interfaces

The next step up is to have an audio interface, that is a dedicated device to handle taking audio in and out of your computer. For most semi-professional contexts, this is essential so that you don’t depend on your computer for digital audio conversion. In our case, if we want to bring in any external sound source into our computer, (like a mic for recording your voice, an electric guitar, a synthesizer, etc.), it’s a necessary investment.

The majority of interfaces today use USB. So your audio interface connects to your computer via USB, and all audio going in and out of your computer are hooked up to the interface.

The Focusrite Scarlett series is a frequently recommended starting place. The Solo starts at a little over $100, gives you one input and two outputs to connect to two monitors.

Use the style dropdown to see the other models. 2i2 gives you two inputs and 2 outputs, 4i4 gives you 4 inputs and 4 outputs. You can find older generation models for a lot cheaper.

Audio Connectors

The two most common types of balanced connectors you will encounter are TRS and XLR.

TRS (tip, ring, sleeve – left in the picture) is just a thicker aux cable, you might hear it referred to as guitar cable, lead, quarter inch (1/4th inch, as opposed to the thinner 1/8th inch aux cable).

XLR has an output side (with pins, middle in the picture) and an input side (right in the picture). Note that male/female terminology is often used in audio, which folks are pushing back against.

Interfaces sometimes have combo jacks that allow you to connect both TRS and XLR cables to the inputs.

In the majority of these cases, you are dealing with mono cables, that is a single cable carrying a single channel of sound (unlike the stereo aux cable we use in many consumer contexts).

Monitors Revisited

If you are using an audio interface, you will usually use two separate mono outputs to connect to your speakers. You might still have a stereo out in the front, but that’s usually meant for headphones.

Monitors can get expensive quickly. The Yamaha HS* is a commonly recommended prosumer grade series, with the HS5 starting at around $199 per speaker, or roughly $400 for a pair.

When designing your setup, pay attention to the input and output connections and make sure they’re compatible at every stage.

For example, the Scarlett 2i2 mentioned earlier has only TRS outputs.

The HS5 pictured here has both an XLR and TRS input. So this would be a setup that works.

Mixers vs Interfaces

Mixers and interfaces are commonly confused because they can have similar purposes, but have some crucial differences. Both are dealing with inputs, outputs, multiple sources of audio, but how they’re handling it can be quite different.

An analog mixer has a series of inputs where you plug in different sound sources, and mix them using tools like volume, pan, EQ, and so on. Simple mixers will have a stereo output.

So in the example pictured here, a mixer with 4 inputs and 2 outputs (stereo) lets you connect 4 separate sound sources (eg. 4 voices like in a podcast; 2 synthesizers, a drum machines, and a sampler, etc.). You can mix these 4 sound sources and get a stereo output.

Now, you can use an audio interface with at least 2 inputs (like the 2i2), to take the output of the mixer and input it into your computer.

Mixers + Interfaces

That’s the basic difference, but there are devices out there that complicate this. For example, the Zoom LiveTrak series looks like a mixer, but is also an audio interface, where each channel can be separately used as an input in the computer, not only the mixed output. It can also record each channel and the output mixes directly onto a memory card without connecting to a computer.

As the name suggests, this would be useful in live performance contexts where you have lots of sound sources, for eg. recording a band or a podcast, and you want to individually process them in the box (in the DAW). The Tascam Model series takes a similar approach.

This article is a good summary of this slightly confusing territory. Before diving into looking at gear, sit with a pencil and paper and think of your setup and what you need.

Field Recorders + Interfaces

The last thing to look at that could be a helpful are portable field recorders that also act as audio interfaces.

The Zoom H* series is commonly recommended as a starting place, with the H4n Pro costing about $199, older models are cheaper. It has an onboard stereo mic, and 2 additional inputs to connect external mics. It can record all 4 channels simultaneously. Because it’s handheld it can be used in a variety of setups indoors and outdoors.

But you can also connect it via USB to your computer to use as an audio interface.

Neutrality

Performing Sounds

The attack of a guitar string sound caused by a plectrum vs fingernails

Creative Mic Stuff

Here’s some fun stuff before you get too technical!

Iftah Gabbai
Lom Audio
Contact Mics

Types of Microphones

Categorizing mics by number of channels – mono, stereo, quad

Condenser vs Dynamic Mics

Note: what is phantom power and when do you need it?

Categorizing mics by pickup patterns

Courtesy: Audio University- **How Shotgun Microphones Work & When To Use One**

Note: sometimes commercial companies can be a good source of information, through their content marketing efforts they want to make it easier for you to buy their stuff.

Examples: