Category: Recording Techniques

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January 1946: The Broadcast Engineer as a Field of Endeavor

Download an 8-page scan from RADIO NEWS, January 1946, on the subject of ‘the modern broadcast engineer’:

DOWNLOAD: Radio_News_Jan_1946_From_Studio_To_Master_Control

It is January 1946.  The war is over.  Millions of young men and women in the United States are seeking peacetime employment.  Massive global R+D efforts undertaken during the war have made available incredible amounts of new technologies, surplus materials, and personnel trained in communications work.  I’m not exactly sure what the point of this article is, but it seems to be a call-to-action for young ppl to enter the field of broadcast engineering work, or at least define it as a career option.  DL and check it out.  Below: some highlights.

 

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Recording Techniques

Of Interest to Recording Engineers: Interesting 1971 Article On Distant Mic’ing

Distant_Micing_1

Above: what the authors suggest you do NOT do…

How y’all doing out there in the land of Ooo…  srry for the dearth of new ‘content’ lately; it’s been v v busy here at PS dot com HQ.  Anyhow, I recently came across an interesting article in an old issue of DB magazine concerning distant-mic’ing.  The authors are Roger Anderson and Robert Schulein; you can download it here:

DOWNLOAD: Distant_Micing

Essentially, the concept is that best-results with distant-mic’ing are obtained when the microphone is as close to the most prominent boundary (in most cases, the studio floor) as possible.

D_M_2I use both a distant-mic and a close -mic on pretty much every instrument that I record at GCR; I don’t always use both sources, but shit, we’ve got a big, great-sounding room, why not record it?  But I’ve always set the distant-mic on a stand approx. 4-feet above the floor, much like the diagram above.   I carefully position it to obtain what I feel is an appropriate balance between direct and reflected sound, but I’ve never thought much about how far it is from the floor.  Anderson & Schulein make a very compelling argument for doing otherwise, and I’m gonna give it a shot at this week’s sessions.

DM_3To all my working recording-engineer readers:  thoughts on this technique?  Weigh in,,,