Acoustics !

Introduction!
In the process of recording music the whole general idea is to record the sound the most
accurately getting the most clean and realistic sound possible so that it can be edited at a later
date without any problems. Sound is more like a perception however and can be determined by a
number of things. In this article i will be talking about the many different ways how sound is
examined and analysed. I will be explaining in depth the basics of sound and how elements such
as acoustics (psychoacoustics) can have effect on recordings and how you perceive them. We will
also be analysing how your ears interpret sound and how this may differ person to person.!

The Basics of Sound!

Sound is a very and complex idea and there are many
areas that make certain sound like they do, all
different elements effect sound but when you get
down to the basics even the most contrasting sounds
have similarities. Every sound is a wave in some form
this is how it travels to your ear through vibrations
these waves are often referred to as Sound Pressure
Waves. An example of this would be if a singer sings
his or her voice will fit molecules into a tightly
compressed area which is a distance away from the
singer this will cause a higher atmospheric pressure
causing the sound to be compressed, This is how the
process compression is created. However there is
also another process in hearing sound which is called
rarefaction which comes about when a vibrating mass, such as when a singer uses their voice or
when a guitarist strums their guitar, moves into an area with lower atmospheric pressure. !

Waveforms!
A Waveform is the shape of a
signal in a physical/graphical
representation. What a waveform
basically does is show the sound
to pressure level so we can
visually see for instance when a
certain recording peaks and is too
loud or when a waveform is quite
small in shape and form therefore
is a much quieter sound this is
extremely useful when working
with audio and makes applying
effects such as compression much
easier as you have a visual
representation to work with not just
a sound that you can hear. !

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Amplitude !
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Amplitude is basically the distance

between the centre of a waveform the
aptitude determines how loud the signal
is. The bigger the distance from the
centreline the higher the contrast in air
pressure. Having little amplitude in a
recording generally means that the
waveform is very quiet and will often
needed to be rerecorded or severely
compressed. It is best to have a fair
amount of amplitude when recording
audio to get a clear sound, however you
don't want to much as you might start to
find that certain parts of the audio file
distort, this can sometimes be fixed by
compressors and limiters but other times the distortion is too much and the audio is classed as un
useable. There are two types of aptitudes positive and negative, a positive amplitude is above the
centreline whereas the negative amplitude is below the centre line.!

Frequency!
Frequency is the rate at which a signal or vibrating mass repeats. The number of repetitions is
measured in Herts shown represented as
Hz. Often when using plugins such as
tremolo or phase you will have a control
called frequencies which controls how fast
the effect is being applied. The range of
human hearing in the younger years is
estimated to be 20Hz to 20kHz.
Frequencies bellow 20HZ are considered
sub audio rates whereas the human hearing
range like just mentioned is considered to be
the audio rate and anything above that range is ultrasonic. !

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Harmonics !
Almost all signals contain a harmonic element in frequencies, the difference between a perfect sine
wave and a harmonic wave is that not all of the
energy in a harmonic wave is contained whereas
a perfect sine wave has all of is energy withheld.
Musical instruments almost never produce perfect
sine waves but many instruments have harmonic
content such as guitars or pianos. Partials are
something that helps us locate harmonic content
in waves due to their higher played higher than
the original pitch of the wave, Partials that do this
are often referred to as overtones. Due to
harmonics there are many different waveforms
produced such as Saw tooth waves, Square
waves and triangle waves. there are many more
more complex waveforms but these are the more
basic ones.!

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Envelope!
An envelope is the attack, decay, sustain and release of a sound. The attack of a sound is how
long it takes for the sound to become fully effective so for instance if a sound has a fast attack it
will produce a quick and loud note whereas a long attack will make a note that slowly increases in
volume. Decay is how fast a sound loses its volume. Sustain is the level of volume that the sound
is kept at until it is not being played and the release time is how long the sound takes to fade out to
silence after not being played. You can find envelopes in a lot of DAWs and Plugins for instance
you can find one in Native instruments massive or even in the EXS24 which comes with logic to
help manipulate sounds. You can also find envelopes on plugging such as the auto filter in logic
and other effects modules.!

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Phase!
Phase or phasing is a term giving to a type of technique which is used in a lot of music but can also
be applied to waveforms. Ussually when you record something simple like a guitar or a vocal you
wont come into contact with any phase but say for instance you were recording a drum kit with 2
overhead microphones but one was much closer than the
over, if you record our drums like this they will be out of
phase which basically just means the waveforms did not start
at the same time and our out of time with each other. Now
some people will often use this as a creative effect in there
compositions but sometimes it is unwanted in recordings.
Phase is measured in degrees and can be fixed but it is fairly
difficult, a lot of older mixers have phase buttons just for this
matter. !

How Musical Instruments work!

In music there are many different types of instruments which are stereotypically used in
certain genres however these instruments are usually set into categories such as Wind,
String and Percussion. These different types of interments all have a contrasting way in
which they are worked for instance a wind instrument needs to be blown into for it to work
as a percussion instrument needs to be hit to work. All of the instruments in there
respected categories have this basic principal of how each of them work.!

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Wind !
Wind or Woodwind instruments are one of the
musical instrument groups and there are two
main sub categories within this group which
are flutes and reed reed instruments such as
Saxophones. !

The difference between these two sub

categories are is that flutes are directly played
through the mouth whereas reed interments
are played through a mouthpiece which then in
turn causes a reed to vibrate inside of the
instrument. Reed instruments split into 2
groups which are single or double reeded
instruments. The more known and
recognisable woodwind instruments are single
reeded such as clarinet or a saxophone.
However you may know some double reeded
instruments such as oboes. To demonstrate
the way acoustics affect the way an instrument
sounds i have picked one instrument from
each section in this case the certain instrument is a Saxophone.!

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Saxophones are typically used for Jazz

songs and other variations of chilled and
slower songs. So sound is made in a
saxophone by an oscillation of airflow,
the reed in a saxophone resonates the
air in the instrument which creates
pressure and which in turn causes
vibrations which makes the sound
through the open holes in the saxophone.
So to put it more simply the reed
operates the air which travels into the
saxophone. Relating back to the previous
section of the article, the saxophones
timbre can change by increasing how
loud you are playing as this therefore
makes more pressure this in changes the
saxophones default sine wave and adds
more harmonics to the wave and
brightens the sound up. !

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String!
String instruments are another group of
musical interments which work by a certain
string of the instrument being plucked which
generates this explains the name given to this
category. A couple of examples of instruments
that are considered string instruments are
violins and guitars. The string section is the
largest section of an orchestra and is set into
many different sub groups such as violins,
violas, cellos and double basses. !

Guitars in some form or another are used

almost universally around music, they are used
in so much pop, alternative and rock music. But
how do guitars work? A guitar works by the
vibration of the strings, when you pluck a string it
creates vibrations. Each string on a guitar has a
different mass and sometimes different lengths.
Tuning works by the tension of the string. When
strings go out of tune you need to either loosen
or tighten the string tension to the appropriate
tuning. The main sound from a guitar is
surprisingly not from the strings themselves its
actually from the body and the bridge. With just
the strings you wouldn't hear a guitar half as
much with the body and bridge. The purpose of
the body of a guitar is to move the vibration of
the bridge back into the surrounding air the
sound that is made is actually mainly to do with
the players finger which is then relayed through
the body of the guitar. The Sound-hole of the
guitar is the part which contains the lowest
frequencies of the guitar due to a lower
resonance from inside the body. !

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Percussion !
Percussion instruments are another
group of musical instruments and they
are the simplest of the instruments to
make them work all you have to do is
hit them, in some cases a stick or
brush is required. Some examples of
percussion are timpanis and
Xylophones. Percussion instruments
are mainly used for rhythm purposes.
When a drum is hit the sound is
amplified due to the empty inside
however some percussive
instruments like bells resonate when
hit. Generally speaking with drums
the larger the drum the lower the pitch
but drums can be tuned to change the
pitch. !

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Drums are used in all genres and are universally known to keep rhythm in songs. They are used in
rock, Pop, hip hop you name it theres going to be some form of percussive drums in the song, but
how do they work? With drums skin is stretched over the hollow frame of the drum which creates
tension and when hit it pushes air into the drum and creating compression. The vibrations of the hit
resonate inside the drum and exit the back of the drum creating the sound we hear, bigger drum
sizes create bigger sound waves equating in lower pitches. Drums have naturally a fast attack due
the resonance inside of the drum.!

Human Hearing & Psychoacoustics!

When making music we rely on our ears for everything they give us the judgement of what
decisions to make and what changes to be made but how does our ears affect our work? So first,
to understand how our ears affect our work, we have to understand how they work. !

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Your ear has 3 main parts the

outer,middle and inner sections. The
outer ear contains the ear drum, pinna
and eardrum. The Middle ear consists
of the ossicles and ear drum and finally
the inner ear contains the auditory and
cochlea. When you hear a sound
sound waves enter your ear canal and
make the ear drum vibrate. Then as a
cause of this the ossicles moves and
the last bone knocks against the
cochlea and makes the fluid move
inside of the cochlea. The fluid
movement then activates the hearing
nerve.!

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How can our Hearing affect our work? !

Hearing can affect our work in many ways,
our hearing is a very fragile and valuable
sense and it can be damaged and if you
play music too loud or don't protect your
ears well enough this might start to hinder
your music production. You might start to
lose the hearing of certain frequencies and
you might even start to go deaf in one ear
meaning that you have almost a mono
understanding of music and this would
create some problems due to panning. The
normal threshold of feeling it happens at the
level of 11DB between frequencies of
200Hz and 10kHz. The threshold of pain is
140DB between frequencies of 200Hz and
10kHz. !

Hearing loss is a big issue when it comes to

musicians as it can often get hard to protect
your ears and keep them at a comfortable
hearing level all the time. Gigs are often
massively loud due to PA systems and if
your standing in front of a speaker that is meant for a whole crowd this may damage your ears if
exposed to it for a long time. Temporary or permanent hearing loss may be a risk. !

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Psychoacoustics!
Psychoacoustics relates to the
previous topic very well as it is
basically the study of how we perceive
sound and how our brains interpret
music. Although a lot of research has
gone into discovering and finding out
how the brain does this still a lot is
unknown about the subject. We know
somethings such as the frequency
response of your ear is directly related
to the volume of the sound so for
instance if you hear a dog barking from
far away but also at the same time you
drop a pan in from in front of you your
going to hear the pan quicker and more clearly as it is louder. Also our ears can actually create
there own form of distortion when sound waves are above a certain level. So some sounds at
some frequencies may sound different harmonically due to your ears. If you had ear damage to
your ear drum like talked about previously and you listened to music at the right frequency range
you may be hearing something which is much different to what someone else is hearing due to the
frequencies you can hear and also any additional harmonics which your ears have created. !

Beats are two tones which are different in frequency by very small amounts and have the same
amplitude this occurrence makes an effect which is called beats. Beats slows down as notes
approach a pitch and then stop when the all the pitches match. However this only happens due to
the ears fault in not being capable of separating closet linked notes. This is also evidence of our
ears affecting our work as because of this fault what we hear sounds different to what is actually
happening. !

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Ideal Music Studio!

So taking all that ive talked about into consideration in this
article if your planning to make music then you need a
great way to listen to it back and be able to analyse your
music without blasting your ears and possibly damaging
them with concert PA Systems as your main speakers in
your studio so here is a guide that adapts the qualities of a
specific room. !

So lets say you have a square room like this one here in
this picture. There are two door ways in this room now to
make this the best it can be you'll have to first start with
some real basic soundproofing using things such as foam
and bass traps to help you listen to your mix and take away
any characteristics that may be harming your mixes such
as an echoey room. Now this room doesn't look particularly
big so this wont be such a problem but for other spaces
this might be so, so the first materials you would need are
some sound proofing foam. !

Something like these Studiospares Bass traps and

absorption tiles should do the trick. The chosen room looks
to be around 18ft by 12ft so you would want to get them
spread evenly around the room taking into great
consideration speaker placement. You may also feel the
need to buy some speaker isolation which are pads that
can go underneath your monitors which stop and bleed or
vibrations into the desk or stands that you could have them
placed on. !

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Also your going to need a computer and a set of speakers. When choosing a computer there really
is no match in my opinion for a mac, considering this is a studio there isn't really any need for
portability so an iMac from apple would be the chosen computer that way you can pretty much get
and DAW you decide to use whether it be Logic, Cubase or Abelton. For the speaks you want
active monitors as passive monitors need power amps and they cost extra money, depending on
how much money you have you could spend a a couple thousand on a set of speakers and your
music sound exceptional right of thee bat or you can buy a lower price better value for money set
of speakers which show you more accurately compared to other audio systems how your mixes
sound as after all not everyone can afford 5 grand speakers. A pair of Alesis M1 Active MK2s
should do nicely due to there clean sound they give a much more clean mix and do not boost
frequencies like some monitors do, its a nice clean and natural sound given off by these monitors.!

Also you will need an Audio Interface and a microphone to help you record whatever you desire
guitars vocals etc. Your going to want these 2 pieces of equipment to be very high quality as they
are the essentials for your recordings. To have high quality recordings you're going to want to find
an audio interface with high conversion rates meaning the quality of audio recorded will be better in
this case a Foucswrite Saffire Pro 40 coupled with a Rode NT1-A will work wonders. A condenser
microphone is generally better for recording vocals and acoustic guitar recordings so if you plan to
do recordings such as drum or amp recordings you may want to get an dynamic microphone such
as the Shure SM57 which is the industry standard for dynamic microphones. Condenser
microphones are music more sensitive and pick up sounds much more clearly due to there
frequency range and responses and also because of phantom power. !

Now Due to the rooms size i estimate the rooms RT-60 to be around 1.8 seconds but with more
sound proofing it would be reduced. Standing waves are a cause of this RT-60 times extra reverb
occurs creating other identical waves travelling in opposite directions in the same location.
Standing waves are displaced and each wave can have a positive and negative displacement.
However due to the standing waves having nodes which there are points of no displacement the
antinodes therefore take on maximum displacement from the rest position. !

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