Recording Audio

Coursera Assignment Week 2 1

Recording Audio

Ganesh ViswanathanBangalore, India.


About Me

• Singer/songwriter from Mumbai, India

• Currently, residing in Bangalore and working as a Designer at an IT Firm.


Lesson Overview


Overview

• I’ll be recording an acoustic guitar with the help of a Rode NT-2A condenser microphone.

• The DAW - Nuendo v. 4.3• The Audio Interface - Focusrite Scarlett 8i6• I do not use studio monitors. I’ll be monitoring with

the help of studio headphones.• I have connected the microphone to the audio

interface with an XLR cable at the Left Input or Input 1.


Left Input (Input 1)Left Input Pre-amp

Phantom Power

Headphone Volume

Audio Interface

• My left input gain is turned all the way down and phantom power is OFF.


DAW-related Protocol


• Opening the DAW – Nuendo..


• First, I go to the Devices Menu and select Device Setup


• I check my audio interface is correct. Always safe to check.• I, however want a sampling rate of 48000.0 Hz.


• I see that my latency is decent but where can I change my buffer size and sampling rate?


• I go to my Device Control Panel.


• We have found the Audio Interface Control Panel to alter our Buffer Size and Sampling Rate!


• I change my Sampling Rate (or Sample Rate) from the dropdown and..


• Voila! Sampling Rate of 48000.0 Hz achieved.• But why do I see Buffer Length in ms and not in number of

samples?


• Let’s recall that as Buffer Length increases, the latency increases. I want the Buffer Length to be AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE while recording/tracking.


• As we increase the Buffer Length to 2 or 3 ms, the latency has increased.

• Best bet is to keep Buffer Length to lowest possible: 1 ms


• On clicking OK, I get a message about the change in Sampling Rate. I then click on OK and close Device Setup.

• So far, so good.


Project-related Protocol


• Let’s create a New Project from the File Menu..


• .. and choose Empty if you wish to create a project from scratch.


• Create and Name the Project Folder. Unless you want a hard time organising your project, do not create it in a folder that has other project files too.


• We have entered our project screen.


• Few things to check. Go to Project Setup in the Project menu.


• It’s good practice to check the Sampling Rate, the Bit Depth and the Recording File Type before we proceed.

• Nuendo refers to Bit Depth as Record Format.


• We can also quickly check Sampling Rate and Bit Depth here.


Track-related Protocol


• Let’s create a track. Since I’m recording an acoustic guitar with a microphone, I’ll go for an audio track..


• .. and choose Mono. If I choose Stereo, then the recorded audio will be stuck to my left channel (I’ll hear only from the left side of my headphones) and become difficult to centre.


• Great, so our Mono Audio Track is created.• We’re good to record right?


WRONG!


• We must first name our track. This is a really good habit to cultivate and will save a lot of hassle while finding the recorded audio on your hard-drive.


• I’ve named the audio track - Acoustic01.• I also see that the input chosen is the Left Input or Input 1,

which is correct.


• Next is I enable the Monitor on the track so that I can hear how it sounds like.

• Note that I’ve not Record Enabled it YET.


Setting Levels

• We must set the levels now.• Making sure that my gain on the Input Preamp is

turned all the way down, I turn on my Phantom Power.

• I then start to increase my gain while checking to see if there is any clipping. The best practice is to play AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE while adjusting the gain so that in any case that might occur, we’re well-prepared for it.


• My audio interface does not show any clipping for the current gain but Nuendo shows that the audio is clipping.

• To be on the safe side, I lower the gain.


• This level looks healthy. This is two steps behind the previous gain where the audio had gotten clipped.


• Before I ‘Record Enable’, I’ll take off my headphones to avoid any feedback that may come, just to be on the safe side.


• The last few things I do is enable the Click and the Pre-count


• .. and change the Tempo to Fixed and adjust it to 90 BPM for this lesson

• And now, we’re good to go!


• Press the ‘Record Button’ at the top or the bottom of the screen and you can start recording your instrument!


Thank you!

Ganesh ViswanathanTwitter: iyerPortFacebook: www.facebook.com/ganesh.v


Reflections

• The screen-recording software I had would not record audio with Nuendo running. So I regret not having the audio for this project.

• This lesson may have been too long, but I tried to cover every step since Nuendo isn’t straightforward.

• Thank you for reviewing!

Self Improvement

Recording Audio