Lesson Four - April 3, 2016 - Posted on 2016-04-06 by Judah Ratzlaff

For lesson 4 we went over a lot of the connection in the studio again, as well as reviewed the quiz from the 4th chapter. We took a look at cables such as 3 pin XLR, 5 pin XLR, TS, TRS, USB, Firewire and Lightning. We had gone over these briefly in previous lessons as well, but it was good to review and get a better understanding of the functionalities of the cables. We also used a cable tester to see how circuits were made with cable and throughout the studio via Brent’s patch bay. We spent a good chunk of time discussing patch bays and their usefulness in the studio. Brent has a half normalled patch bay in which plugging a cable into the bottom horizontal row will “break normal”. Every patch bay is unique per studio because all studios have a different set up of equipment and cables, but all of them work in the same way. They make it easier to make or relay a connection in the studio so you have more control of the studio and it increases the efficiency of the studio. Post patch bay discussion, we took out Brent’s SoundTracs Topaz mixing board. He says he seldom uses a mixing board anymore as everything is computerized now, but that it is good to take a look at it to get a better idea of what effects do what. The main features we talked about on the mixing board were Channels, Gain, EQ, Bus, Fader, Master, etc. He said we will continue to use the mixing board in the future just so I can get a firmer grasp on what each of these tools will do when applied in a DAW.