Education
Calgary Recording School
Congratulations!
You are about to improve your art with theoretical study
I have created a three day workshop on audio production and recording. The course is designed as an introduction for people who have very little to moderate experience in the field of audio . A thorough textbook is included and students can expect to come out of the class with a broad range of knowledge which can be used as a starting point for a career in music production, sound design, sound reinforcement and more.
Course Outline
Day 1
* What is sound?
* How do we perceive it?
* What are its properties and how does the environment effect it?
* How do you take care of your ears?
* Hearing loss and precautions
* The Fletcher-Munson curve
* What are beats?
* What is masking?
* What are combination tones?
* What is a transducer?
* What are reflection, diffraction, absorption and diffusion?
* What is a waveform?
* What are its characteristics?
* Amplitude
* Frequency
* Velocity
* Wavelength
* Phase
* Harmonic Content
* Envelope
* Attack
* Decay
* Sustain
* Release
* How do you control sound in the studio?
* Tips and tricks for converting your home into a studio.
Day 2
* What is a microphone and how do they work?
* Types of microphones
* Dynamic
* Ribbon
* Condenser
* Electret
* Microphone Characteristics
* Pick up pattern (directional response)
* Frequency response
* Transient response
* Sensitivity
* Noise rating
* Overload characteristics
* Impedance
* Line level vs mic level
* Microphone pre-amps
* What is phantom power?
* Audio cable types
* What is a DI ?
Day 3
* Song writing tips
* The recording process
* Production tips
* DAW’s
* Audio processing
* Pitch shift
* Reverse
* Gain
* Silence
* Time strectch
* Normalize
* Fades, Cross Fades
* VST’s
* Dynamics processing (limiters, compressors)
* Gates, EQ, Reverb, Delay ect.
* Latency
* Mixing techniques
* Copyright brief
* Socan
* BMI
* Myspace
* Where does your demo go?
* How do you prepare it?
* How to make a promo package (press pack)
* Other outlets for your music.
* Further reading and education suggestions
Due to the feedback from the last run of this course I have begun developing a follow up program which will be taught privately in a working studio.
The course will include the following outline and a copy of “The Mixing engineers handbook” by Bobby Owsinski
Day 1
- Planning your production
- A Drum tuning lesson with Richard Jager or Matt Doerty
- Setting the tempo
- Drum microphone techniques
- Drum track recording
Day 2
- Guitar recording techniques
- Guitar recording
- Bass recording techniques
- Bass recording
- A brief discussion on MIDI
- Piano/Keyboard recording techniques and recording
Day 3
- Vocal recording techniques
- Vocal recording
- Back up vocal recording
- Solo instrument recording
- “Pad” instrument recording
- Another look at MIDI
Day 4
- Cleaning up our takes.
- Using Gates
- Creating sub groups/aux/bus channels
- Balancing our mix (volume and panning)
- Using Eq, compression and de-essing to empower and smooth out our mix
- Using effects like reverberation, delay and chorus to give our track depth
- A brief visit with auto-tune/vocoders and exciters
Day 5
- Re visiting and finishing our mix
- Preparing our track for mastering
- Bouncing to a stereo file
- A brief intro into mastering
- Using a dither
- A discussion on duplication and distribution