BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

  Humanities Technology and Research Support Center

Using the HTRSC Recording Studio: A Primer
1141H JFSB

Most modern PCs have pretty good built-in sound recording capabilities, which are adequate for many uses. However, to record clean, professional-quality sound you need a noise-free environment with "clean" cabling. To this end the Humanities Research Center maintains an up-to-date recording studio that includes high-quality recording equipment. The studio is located in 1141H. Access is through the Humanities Learning Resource Center (HLRC), room 1141 JFSB. The attendants in the HLRC will assist you in scheduling the studio.

What follows is a brief introduction to some of the basic capabilities and equipment of the studio. The studio is capable of much more if you are familiar with audio recording equipment and software. User manuals for the equipment and the audio recording software installed on the studio's Macintosh computer are kept in drawers beneath the computer monitor. You may consult these manuals if you wish to explore beyond these basic instructions.

Topics

Recording Studio Layout

Equipment Racks

Cassette Deck

CD-R Deck

Setting Up For Recording

Booth Monitor and Talkback

Setting up the Isolation Booth

Setting up the Computer

Bias Peak™ Software Setup

Starting the Recording

Some Suggested Settings

Recording Studio Layout

		Control Room All recording, playback, and capturing devices are in this area. A microphone imbedded in rack 1 enables communication between control room and booth.
		Isolation Booth With the door tightly closed, this area provides a silent, echo-free environment for clean sound production. There are four microphone jacks available. Remote controls allow single-user recording for many functions.

Rack 1		Rack 2
	Touch Panel (source-destination control)  Dual Audio Cassette Deck 1 (CASS 1 and CASS 2)  CD-R Deck (CD-R)  Talkback Monitor and Auxiliary Input Panel		Vinyl LP Turntable (TTBL)   Reel to Reel Tape Recorder (R-R)

Cassette 1

Setting up cassette deck to record Turn on power switch. Insert tape, making sure that the record tab is intact or taped over. Set Dolby to Off, unless you'll be playing the tape on a Dolby player. Set the input dial to about the two o'clock position. Adjust dial as necessary to achieve the desired sound input level. Press Record together to get sound level check Start playing source; sound input will begin to register on the level meters. Press Play to begin recording.

CD-R Deck

Setting up the CD-R deck to record Coming soon...

Back to top

Setting Up For Recording

Touch Panel

Booth Monitor and Talkback

To monitor any recording device or the persons in the recording booth over the speakers in the control room choose the device you want to listen to on the touch panel in Rack 1 . To listen someone in the recording booth, note which microphone jack their mics are connected to, then touch MIC 1-2 or MIC 3-4 accordingly. Then Touch CTL RM. The CTL RM button will turn the same color as the mics you are monitoring. Adjust the monitor volume knob as needed.

To talk to someone inside the booth through their headphones press and hold the red Talkback button at the bottom of rack 1. To keep a live talkback connection open, flip the Coach switch to the up position.

Setting up the Isolation Booth

Turn the lights on.
Verify that the microphones are connected to the desired jacks, located below the window, and Labeled Mic 1 through Mic 4. Using paired mics (1 and 2 or 3 and 4) will let you record stereo sound. Most commonly you will want to use Mic 1 and Mic 2. The labeled microphone jacks beneath the window correspond to the MIC 1-2 and MIC 3-4 sources on the touch panel in the control room.
For communication between the booth and the control room, turn on the headphone console (see below) and plug headphones into any of jacks 2 through 6.
Note: The dual audio cassette deck and the CD-R deck can be controlled remotely from the isolation booth, so that 1 person can do recording alone. There is a remote control touch pad on the small desk in the booth.

Back to top

Using the Macintosh Computer for Audio Recording

Connections to Input and Output devices

The Digi 002 Rack digitizing device is "hard wired" to the Macintosh computer. This means that the input or output devices for the computer are selected in the computer software, not on the touch panel.

Bias Peak™ Software Setup

1. Start up the computer if it is not already running.

2. Launch Bias Peak™ using the Peak icon in the Dock (the quick-select list of programs, usually located at the bottom of the screen. (If you can't find the alias, the application itself is located at /Macintosh HD/Applications/Peak 5.2.)

3. Check the audio input (recording) and audio output settings. (Normallly they will be set correctly, but you should check at the beginning of each session.)
   • Set the audio input source--the record settings.

     From the menu bar choose Audio > Record Settings... Or click the Record Settings icon () on the toolbar. The settings shown here are appropriate for most uses. The AIFF file format is commonly used and is the best choice in most cases. You can experiment with the options to suit your needs.

     Click Hardware Settings... and make sure the settings match those in the illustration at right. Note that you should set both the input and output device to Digidesign HW (002).

     In the Record Settings window, click on the Device and Sample Format... button. The CoreAudio Record Settings window should appear, as at right. Set the Record Through to the source you want to record from. Typically, "In 0 1 & 2" will connect you to Mic 1 and Mic 2 jacks in the isolation booth. (See left.) "In 4 5 & 6" connects the computer input to the FROM device that is linked to "DIGI 5-6" in the TO section of the touch panel. (See right.) Set the Sample Rate, and Clock Source popup selectors as shown. Select Mono or Stereo sound according to your preference. In most cases a Bit Depth of 16-bit is more than adequate. (Audio CD bit rate is 16 bit.) Click OK to exit this window. Click OK to exit the Record Settings Window.

     Changing the input gain (input volume) of the audio capture device There may be occasions when you cannot get enough input gain from the audio source. In such cases you may want to boost the gain of the audio device itself. To do this you must adjust the knobs on the Digi 002 Rack device located under the desk near rack 2. Knobs 1 and 2 control gain on DIGI 1-2; knobs 3 and 4 control gain on DIGI 3-4.

Back to top

Starting the Recording

1. Open the Transport Window. (Choose Transport from the Window menu.) It gives you quick access to recording and playback information and functions in a window similar to the one below:

   

2. Set the recording levels. Play your source sound or have your human subject speak into the microphone in the recording booth. Watch the level meter. When it is properly set, the yellow indicator to orange will light up regularly, and occasionally the red indicator may light up. Use the sliders on the mixer board or the output level on the output device to adjust the level.
3. When you are ready, click on the Record button ().
   
   The record window will appear:

   To begin recording, click the Record button (). Then have your subject start speaking, or press play on your output device. You should see sound wave graphics appear in the top portion of the record window. This indicates that the sound signal is being successfully recorded by Peak. When you are finished, click the Stop button (). When requested, give the recording a name and choose where to save it on the computer's hard drive.

   
   
4. You should now see the sound displayed in the editing window. Edit out unwanted material by selecting parts of the sound wave with the mouse and pressing the delete key.
   
5. At this point you can choose to either save in the preselected format by choosing Save from the File menu, or you can change the sound format by choosing Save As... from the File menu, and choosing the options you want. (Hint: Several audio formats can be easily compressed to much smaller than their original size without noticible loss of quality by using compression when saving. Good compression choices are MP3 and MPEG-4 Audio (AAC). Note that not all audio formats, notably WAVE, can be compressed.)

Back to top

Suggested Recording Settings

Here are some suggested settings for good results for the following formats:

Back to top