Unit-III

Radio Production and Transmission

Process
Lesson 4
Recording, Broadcasting and
Troubleshooting
 Recording- An Introduction
• Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical
inscription and recreation of sound waves, such as spoken voice,
singing, instrumental music, or sound effects.
• The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog
recording and digital recording.
• The audio signal from the transducer (microphone) is passed through
one or more processing units, which prepare it for recording (or
directly for amplification).
• The signal is fed to a recording device for storage.
• The stored signal is played back and fed to more processors.
• The signal is amplified and fed to a loudspeaker.
Audio Mixer (Contd..)
 Audio Mixer
• Sound mixer is a device which takes two or more audio signals, mixes
them together and provides one or more output signals.
• As well as combining signals, mixers allow you to adjust levels,
enhance sound with equalization and effects, create monitor feeds,
record various mixes, etc.
• Mixers come in a wide variety of sizes and designs, from small
portable units to massive studio consoles.
• The term mixer can refer to any type of sound mixer; the terms sound
desk and sound console refer to mixers which sit on a desk surface as
in a studio setting.
 Seven tips for preparing to go into the
studio to produce
• Available studio
• Clean studio
• Rehearse before going in
• Make arrangements for the studio guest
• Scripts available: Make sure that there are scripts printed out for:
a. Self (studio producer)
b. Sound technician
c. Presenter(s)
• Water
• Audio ready
 Six tips for running a good recording session

• Monitoring
• Audio Levels
• Energy
• Structure of the programme is clear
• Feedback
 Acoustics
• The term “acoustics” describes how sound behaves in an enclosed
space and one could devote a lifetime to its study.
• On the surface, it considers the direct sound, reflections and
reverberation. The sound waves travel out and strike a multitude of
surfaces the floor, ceiling, walls, chairs, windows, people, and so on.
• A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing.
• Ideally, the space is specially designed by an acoustician to achieve
the desired acoustic properties (sound diffusion, low level of
reflections, adequate reverberation time for the size of the ambient,
etc.).
 Acoustics (Contd..)
• Types of surfaces: There are three types of surfaces which come into
play while talking about acoustics
• Reflective
• Absorbing
• Diffusing
• Fine-tuning sound quality inside a studio setting requires strategic
placement of sound absorption surfaces to control reverb time and
diffusion materials to control "placement" of the sound energy.
• Today’s state of the art acoustic materials include fibre based (fibre
glass, Cotton /Polyester), foams and a variety of alternative products.
Selection of the proper materials is dependent on room size,
composition, building codes and desired finished appearance.
 Sound Perspective

• The sense of a sound's position in space, yielded by volume,

timbre, pitch, and, in stereophonic reproduction systems,
binaural information.
• Perspective refers to the apparent distance of a sound.
• Clues to the distance of the source include the volume of the
sound, the balance with other sounds, the frequency range
(high frequencies may be lost at a distance), and the amount of
echo and reverberation.
 Sound Perspective (Contd..)
• Direct sound: Direct sound issues from the source itself, such as those
frequencies coming from an actor’s mouth.
• When a person is close to us, we hear essentially direct sound including
low-frequency chest tones. As the person moves farther away, we hear
more of the reflected sound.
• Close perspective sound contains a high ratio of direct sound to reflected
sound.
• Reflected sound: Reflected sound is produced by the direct sound
bouncing off the walls, floor etc.
• Reflected sounds much more complex in character than direct sound
because the surfaces are at different distances from the source and have
widely varying reflective properties.
 Sound Balance

• Balance is the relative volume of different sound elements in a scene.

• Since background sound effects can usually be added separately in post-
production, the best original recording of dialogue or sound effects is often
the cleanest recording, with the least background noise and reverberation.
• Placing the microphone close to the sound source is the best way of reducing
the relative amount of reverberation in an interior recording.
• Quilts or other absorbent material will also help reduce reverberation off
hard surfaces. Interiors that contains a lot of hard surfaces - glass, stone,
metal, etc. - are said to be "live" because their high reflectivity.
 Ambience

• Ambient sound in relation to audio refers to the background noise present

at a given scene or a location.
• This can include noises such as rain, traffic, crickets, birds, et cetera. In
audio recording sometimes there are unwanted ambient sounds in the
background that you might want to remove from the recording, such as a
hiss, tapping, or some other unwanted noise.
• Interiors are usually reverberant ("wet") to some degree, indicating the
size of an enclosed space.
• Exteriors are usually flat, layered elements of sound in a non-reverberant
("dry") space.
 Noise
• Ambient noise, sometimes called “background noise,” refers to all noise
present in a given environment, with the exclusion of the primary sound
that an individual is monitoring or directly producing as a result of his or
her work activities.
• Noise is usually defined as unwanted sound pollutant which produces
undesirable physiological and psychological effects in an individual, by
interfering with one’s social activities like work, rest, recreation, sleep etc.
A sound might be unwanted because it is:
• Loud
• Unpleasant or annoying
• Intrusive or distracting
 Thank you
Presentation by- Dr. Atul Upadhyay