20/11/13 art college session

In this session I was given the task of watching the camera feeds and telling the person controlling the tricaster what camera to switch to. I had to watch three screens, each showing the view from a different camera and call out the number of the camera to go to.

2/12//13 sound forge mixing

In this session we were told to mix together music to create three jingles, we had to cut and mix the music together. Mixing involved choosing what music segment should be louder and more noticeable.

Tuesday 19/11/13

In this session we looked at mixing a track to make it sound good and fit properly, one of the group sat at the sound board and based on suggestions from the group and instruction from our lecturer they worked to produce the right sound.

Chapel session 18/11/13 the grass snakes

In this session we had a group called The Grass Snakes in, we recorded them playing three songs, they seemed to be a country and folk group, they were using a mandolin, guitar, violin, double bass, banjo and vocals. On the first song one of the band members kept going out of time and got frustrated with himself, in the end they said couldn't do any more. They took between three and five takes per song.

Music tech assignment using sound forge 18/11/13

Today we started using sound forge, we learned the shortcuts for putting in markers, moving around the page, cutting bits out and mixing sounds.

Exploring a radio programme

I am looking at the Elaine Paige show on radio 2 for my exploring a radio programme, with regard to audience I would estimate that this show is for people 35 and up particularly those interested in musical theatre.

Tuesday 5th learning about sound engineer

We looked at a song from bob Marley and the wailers song and we attempted to mix it, each person having a go at it, interestingly none of us had the correct proportion of music to vocals.

Radio 2 listening figures notes for exploring a radio station

I looked into listening figures and they seem to be going down over each quarter.

Here is a link to the website I used to find my figures,

http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php

Monday 4th November setting up microphones

Today we looked at setting up microphones for a piano and drum kit and different types of microphones. We used two dynamic mic's and a condenser pencil mic for the drum kit and we used two pencil microphones for the piano. We also looked at different polar patterns, these are the reaches of the microphones.

Chapel session 21st October

When I turned up we were setting up for a band made of RTU's to perform, we then went through to the control room and set up the sound board, going through each instrument individually and raising the gain accordingly. One of the band decided they wanted to sing but wanted to hear themselves, josh and I had to find a mackie and set it up in order for them to hear themselves. We observed the tricaster and sound board being used and watched how it was used, we saw the people activating the recorder in conjunction with the tricaster. At the end of the session we were described as disorganised, this was due to the fact we didn't know how to mic up a drum kit or what a mackie actually was. The RTU's argued as to whether they were in time

Exploring a radio station part 1

I'm exploring radio 2

Today I considered the genre of radio 2 as well as the audience profile, as in who listened to it. I also looked at whether it was recorded or live. I wrote up some notes I will use in my presentation.

Chapel session Monday 14 October the salurians

I was unable to attend this session however I was told what happened. There were new members to the band and that meant they had to have lots of takes, they came to do two songs. We found we need a microphone for each vocalist, due to not getting good vocals. At one point the band were not singing the same song. The band were apparently uncomfortable being recorded as they had only just got two new members and they did not know the people recording them.

Art college chapel session Wednesday 9 October

We started the lesson by setting up microphones for the artists, then when they arrived we went through each artists sound and set the board up for them, arranging EQ, gain, pad and phantom power appropriately, using pad to lower the volume sometimes and gain to raise it, also activating phantom power only when there was a condenser microphone. When everything was set up the group had a practise, they originally tried to record with no guide vocals meaning the people playing instruments weren't organised, this was sorted when they decided to have the vocalist sing and play the keyboard whereas before she had only been playing the keyboard. This improved the group a lot and after a couple of takes like this they were happy with this. After this we started adding extra vocals and keyboard to the music, after they listened to it the group decided to remove one lot of vocals and were then happy with it.
We packed up putting down microphone stands, putting away microphones, tying up cables and hanging up headphones, then we finished.  

Music tech: Radio Jingle

We spent a lesson planning what to do for the music tech piece of our work, agreeing to work on a short jingle lasting no more than 20 seconds to advertise RNC radio we started thinking about what would be needed for this. We agreed on vocals, a keyboard and drum kit on the computer. Thinking about what type of jingle we thought we should work on a dance jingle. We then split up to look at different thing's, one group focuses on looking at and analysing other jingles the other started to make plans, such as look at what we would need and making a schedule, this was the group I was with.

ITV case study

ITV

ITV is owned by ITV plc, previously Grenada Plc and Carlton communications, ITV plc is owned by ofcom previously and was set up as competition for the BBC, they provide a wide range of channels and products from children's programmes, news and drama, such as Morse, Lewis, Endeavour, Doc Martin, downton abbey, Wycliffe. ITV player allows viewers to catch up on missed programmes.

http://www.itv.com

https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/coronation-street

BBC radio 1 Xtra analysis

We were sent away to listen to half an hour of a music or talk show that we would not normally listen to, I chose BBC radio 1 Xtra, it focuses on urban and hip hop music, it is likely to be listened to by younger people between their teens and mid twenties due to the kind of music being played, there are many people that listen to BBC radio 1 Xtra as can be seen in this link.

http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php

Art college chapel session Wednesday 2 October

Me and another student started to set up for a group of art college students who were about to record, plugging cables in and setting up microphones. We moved through to the recording studio and started setting up the sound board, asking each artist to play a bit and setting gain, pad and EQ accordingly. We went through the song several times changing the gain of the vocals so she could be heard over the musicians.

Friday 27 September BBC radio 2 analysis

We were sent out to listen to half an hour of talk or music radio and analyse the audience of the show and the radio station and the show itself. I chose BBC radio 2 ken Bruce as my radio station an show, I listened to it and based on what was on it I thought the target audience was both genders and an age of 30 and up though some younger listeners could be possible, the show mixed music, mainly modern with talking.

The link below shows quarterly listening population for a variety of radio stations including BBC radio 2

http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php

Art college chapel session Wednesday 25 September

Working with another student I spent three hours recording a group from the local art college.
I spent some time helping to set up equipment such as putting up microphone stands anduntangling cables that needed to be used. After that we moved through to the recording studio and went through setting up the sound board, I observed as this was done and learned how to go through each instrument or artist individually. After this we set up the multitrack recorder so we were ready to record, setting each track that we needed in ready record, I then was taught how to use the multitrack, holding the play and record buttons to start recording, tapping the play button to stop recording and triple tapping the stop button to stop and bring it back to the beginning of the track. The artists started playing while being recorded, due to lack of practice they had to have multiple takes but they succeeded eventually. We spent the last half hour packing up, putting microphones and stands away, tying up cables and defaulting the board.

Production roles

Two key production roles

Sound engineer
The sound engineer records artists and uses the sound board to manage the quality recorded from the microphones

Cameraman
The cameraman is in charge of getting the best shots to be used in production of the product, these are then picked to be used by the visual mixer

Chapel session 1 Richard Watson

Chapel session 1 Richard Watson

During our session we observed as the artist a singer/song writer and pianist called Richard Watson was recorded and how it was produced.
He came to record four songs in varying genres, some sad, some humorous 
There were many different roles that were needed to record this session, the cameraman in charge of getting the best camera shots in this case Dave Wood, the sound engineer in this case Paul Cobbold, who is there to manage the audio, for example setting up microphones.
There were three microphones, one lapel mic attached to the artist and two attached to the piano.
There were also three cameras, one roving camera and two still cameras.
There was also Jack Loisz on the multi track recording the sounds, and Phil Farr on the visual mixer putting together the best video.
The pressure on both the artist and the production team was large based on the fact that there was limited time before it had to be finished, also because of the repeated times the songs had to be gone through the artist got very frustrated and made the occasional mistake due to the fact he was not used to performing in front of an audience even if it's just people watching from a control room.

Here is a link to Richards website
http://richardwatsonmusic.co.uk