Week 4 assignment
- 1. Most Common Noises How to reduce unwanted noise when recording using GarageBandcoursera.org Before Recording Remember First we have to listen to the space and notice any little noise that comes up. We have two noise types that we have to eliminate. i) Acoustic noise: is the noise of space around us. ii) Electrical noise: is the noise that get picked up from the gear itself. Listen and try to reduce all those different types of noise Acoustic Long Cables Unbalanced Cables Appliances, dimmers Low Quality Gear Gain L E S S O N 4 A S S I G N M E N T Hi fellow reader I am John Soulakellis from Greece Athens. This presentation is for the course of Introduction to Music Production from coursera.org I will cover the topic of How to reduce unwanted electrical and acoustical noise when recording using GarageBand Thank you, for having the time to read my assignment Electrical Room Tone Fans, A/C Windows Heating Mic far from source Increased Gain Wrong mic type
- 2. 2 REMOVE UNWANTED NOISE USING GARAGEBAND WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT Open or create a Project Open GarageBand Application and choose what project you want to open. In this example I will use the project that I created for weeks’ 2 assignment Create a project in a DAW using GarageBand. If you want to know how to create a new project in Garage Band link is provided at the last page of this assignment Main Screen ) After we open our project we can see the picture below. If we create a new one you will not see sample tracks on left section, it will be empty.
- 3. 3 REMOVE UNWANTED NOISE USING GARAGEBAND WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT Choose Track Select the track for adding effect At the left side of main screen in GarageBand select the sample track you want to add an effect by clicking on it. Select Preset Effect At the top right corner select the Real Instrument Tab and click Browse (for adding effects from a preset list of ready configured effect so you don’t have to make a lot of adjustments) or click the Edit Tab if you want manual selection. In the effects menu we can see three disabled effects for the current track Noise Gate, Compressor, Visual EQ and two enabled effects for Master output. The last two will be added to all tracks in our project and adds the desirable effect in Master Output signal. We can change them or edit them in the Master Track Tab on the top right tab. The only thing to mention is that changing the value of master effects, affects only the current track but we save time if we simply want to use the same effect over and over. Disabled effect switch is in grey color . Enabled effect switch is in light blue.
- 4. 4 REMOVE UNWANTED NOISE USING GARAGEBAND WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT Adding Effect Track If we hover the cursor over an empty cell and click on it we can select an effect from the list below. By default GarageBand have a Noise Gate Effect in first position that is non-interchangeable. We just enable it and set the threshold level. In this example I set it to -28dB. This value depends on the signal itself. If we have a low gain level signal then we might have to boost the signal gain also from the master track. In the above situation if we don’t boost the gain, then all the signal won’t pass through the gate because what is really this effect does is letting a signal from a desired gain level and above to pass through it. (we can also say the opposite, block a signal that is below this value). In other words Noise Gate effect is letting a specific range of gain level signal to pass through To understand this better see the next example.
- 5. 5 REMOVE UNWANTED NOISE USING GARAGEBAND WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT Preview Result After adding and editing the effect we can play the example and hear the result. I also enabled Visual EQ for current track to see how much my signal is being blocked. As we see below if I set the threshold to -5dB it almost blocks all of the signal and I can hear only the loud stuff. This is natural because my signal flow makes a valley and isn’t flat. If we set the level to -28dB we can see below that the trail of our valley signal passes through and isn’t silenced as before. Sometimes maybe we want to use the situation from 1st picture if we are in a noisy environment and we want to block the noise floor. Both examples exported in SoundCloud links are provided at the last page.
- 6. 6 REMOVE UNWANTED NOISE USING GARAGEBAND WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT Sometimes is a bit of trial and error until we find how much signal we want to block until we are satisfied with the result. A good way to is to measure the noise floor before any action. We can download a dB meter on our smartphone or have a device to do that. Sound Level Meter We will be amazed on how many dB noise passes through. The above step wasn’t necessary to mention or write about it but if we don’t have good listening abilities and we want to find the most free of noise position this is the way.
- 7. Reduce Acoustic Noise • Listen carefully the “silence” or “room tone” to identify noise. • Move away from noisy sources like fans and windows (pillow or blanket on windows stops noise) • Create an isolated space for recording. • Turn off noisy sources like A/C, fans, heating, TV and appliances. What I learned from this weeks assignment was more technical terms, better understanding of how effects works, noise types, how to avoid noises, a better way of using a DAW, what to check before recording, what to change, how to set it up and finally how to record it. Thank you for your time! REMOVE UNWANTED NOISE USING GARAGEBAND WEEK 4 ASSIGNMENT PICTURES CAPTURED USING OSX BUILT IN CAPTURING FUNCTION LINKS Sound Examples https://soundcloud.com/john-soulakelliss/productionguitarchordsl04 https://soundcloud.com/john-soulakelliss/productionguitarchordsl04noise Week 2 : How to Create a Project in GarageBand http://www.slideshare.net/johnnys83/week2-assignment Reduce Electrical Noise • Use fewer pieces of gear. • Use shorter cables • Use balanced cables • Turn off appliances and dimmers. • Use High quality gear. Avoid Unnecessary Gain: i) Use gain as little as possible. ii) Try to move microphone closer to the source instead of increasing the gain. iii) Choose a directional microphone to isolate the source from a noisy environment