Chapter 7 Blog - Posted on 2015-11-19 by Eric Matson

Another great lesson with Joey. This lesson really has me craving my first session. We sat down and again, went over each individual question. We talked about bleed and that it is when a microphone picks up too much of another instrument being played and how dynamic moving coil microphones will produce the least amount of bleed. He explained what a line check and sound check are and what the differences are. A line check is when you make sure all of the microphones are picking up a signal and are in the right position for the right instrument. And a sound check is when you ask a player to play as loud as he can so you can adjust the gain and any other settings so there will not be any clipping through out the session. We talked about live tracking and overdubbing as well. Explained that overdubbing is adding anything after the original track is recorded, and is done best with a condensor microphone. Told me what a vocorder was, and also pulled up a song to show me exactly what effect it gives a vocalist. Again he touched on the phase relationship and explained that microphones must not be positioned too close to one another. He explained to me what panning meant and how its to move a sound to the right left or back to the center. I also didn't understand what a DI Box was, which he cleared up for me. It's a device that takes a sound from, say an electric bass guitar, and takes it directly into your DAW. The guitarist would use headphones so he could hear what he's playing. There was lots of great information between this and the last session, which I can't to start putting to use. Once again, another great session with Uncle Joey, and I can't wait to get back in the studio.