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Studio NecessitiesArticle from Recording Musician, November 1992 |
Leads, connectors, tapes and floppy disks might seem pretty mundane, but even the most modest studio is stuck without them.
Stephanie Sobey-Jones examines the items which we tend to take for granted — tapes, leads, computer disks and cleaning items — but without which a studio couldn't function.
Though recording equipment will inevitably absorb the majority of your budget, you don't get very far into its actual installation and use before requiring such vital resources as leads to connect various items together, tape to record your first efforts, floppy disks for the computer, and so on. This month I'm going to have a look at some of the important 'extras' which form an essential part of a technology setup.
There are three common types of lead which form the basis of connections between the main pieces of equipment. Keyboards, sound modules, drum machines and so forth have output sockets which are invariably designed to accommodate jack plugs. There are two common sizes of jack: 6mm (quarter-inch) and 3.5mm, most instruments and budget recording equipment being fitted with the quarter-inch variety. Quarter-inch jacks may be either mono or stereo and can be appropriately identified by checking whether there are one or two bands on the plug (Figure 1a). For the outputs on most keyboards, drum machines and sound modules, mono jacks are used.
Stereo jacks tend to be found on headphones, and are necessary with jack outputs and inputs which are actually labelled 'stereo'. However, most stereo outputs use two mono plugs, which keeps things simple. Some multitrackers and mixing desks have sockets marked 'insert', and these also require a stereo jack. Do not use a mono jack plug in a stereo socket unless the manual specifically says you can, otherwise you could damage the equipment. The smaller 3.5mm jack plugs are often used for plugging microphones and headphones into domestic tape machines.
If you are connecting a cassette multitracker to an amplifier or hi-fi, the Line Out sockets on the multitracker are usually designed to take Phono (sometimes called RCA) plugs (Figure 1b). Depending on what type of connector is required at the other end, it is always a good idea to have a small number of convertor plugs to hand which can turn a phono plug into a jack, and so on. This means you do not have to buy dozens of different types of lead in order to cope with every eventuality! (See the Buyer's Guide box in this article.) MIDI leads have 5-pin DIN connectors at either end, but not all 5-pin DIN plugs can necessarily be used with MIDI sockets, and all leads suitable for MIDI use do not necessarily include the word MIDI on the packaging! You need to look for a lead which has the following specification: 5-pin 180 degree DIN to 5-pin 180 degree DIN, non-reversed. This means that the wire connected to pin 1 at one end must connect to pin 1 at the other, pin 2 to pin 2 and so on (Figure 1c). Leads which connect to different numbers are not suitable for MIDI use.
With the above types of lead, length is not necessarily a crucial issue in determining quality of sound, but it is a good idea to try and choose a lead length which will do the job without having an extra two metres trailing round on the floor!
With microphone leads, however, the case is different, because microphone signals are very small and so more susceptible to interference. Microphone cable usually consists of a central conductor, or conductors, surrounded by a foil or braided 'screen'. The function of the screen is to reduce the risk of interference so that your performance will not also feature snippets of local radio and taxi cab messages! Again, it is advisable to keep cables short in order to further reduce any possible unwanted effects.
The connectors on the end of microphone cables vary depending on the type and impedance of the microphone itself, but for general classroom use, mics fitted with quarter-inch jack leads will ensure compatibility with most cassette multitrackers. Many low-cost microphones come ready supplied with a cable fitted with this type of plug.
Stephanie Sobey-Jones is Education Specialist at Systems Workshop, and a part-time Lecturer in Music Technology. She is currently running a series of courses for Primary and Secondary teachers, covering different aspects of technology in the Music curriculum.
If your microphone lead is not permanently attached to the microphone, the chances are that it will require a lead fitted with a three-pin XLR connector. In this case, it may be necessary to make or buy a microphone lead that has an XLR socket at the mic end and a standard quarter-inch, mono jack plug at the other. If you're making your own, solder pins 1 and 3 of the XLR socket to the screen of the mic cable and pin 2 to the centre core. XLR sockets are also used on many mixing consoles, even quite modest ones and, as a rule, low-impedance mics come with XLR connectors, whereas high-impedance mics are often available with jacks. To use a low-impedance mic with recording equipment designed for high-impedance microphones, an impedance matching transformer is required. These are relatively inexpensive and are often built into a connector so that you can plug an XLR into one end and get a jack feed out of the other.
Depending on the type of computer in your music system, it is likely that you will use floppy disks to store your MIDI (and other) files. (Apple Mac and PC owners will probably have an integral hard disk drive, but it is still likely — and advisable in classroom use — that work will be additionally backed up on floppy disk.) There are two main sizes of disk currently in use: 3.5" disks used with Atari, Apple Mac, Amiga and some PC-compatible machines, and 5.25" disks, which are generally only used with PC compatibles. A floppy disk basically consists of a flexible (hence the name) plastic disk, with a special coating, in a plastic outer casing. Before a computer is able to read or write onto the disk, it has to be formatted for use with your particular type of machine. Formatting a disk can be compared to drawing straight lines on blank pieces of paper, and numbering the pages ready for writing. Formatting instructions are generally fairly straightforward on most computers, but when you are formatting a disk, you may be given a choice between a single or double sided format. This is because some older machines — the original Apple Macs, and some old Ataris — only had a single sided disk drive. More modern machines have a double sided drive, and you should choose this option where appropriate. How much file storage space is available on a floppy disk depends not only on its size, but also on its type and there are two main types of disk which can be used — double density and high density. The difference between the two types of disk is basically that on a high density disk, information is stored in a more compact format, giving roughly twice the storage capacity. High density disks won't necessarily work in your particular machine so check the manual! However, machines that use high density disks can usually also read and write double density ones as well. If you are an Atari user, you will require double sided, double density (DSDD) disks.
Although sold as 1MB capacity disks, formatting uses up some of that space, so you actually get 720K of usable storage. Earlier PC compatibles used 5.25" DSDD disks with a formatted capacity of 360K, but fortunately most modern PCs (286 upwards) use high density 3.5" or 5.25" disks which offer 1,44MB or 1.2MB of storage respectively. (A word of caution: formatting a disk using a density different from the one marked on it may appear to work, but the performance of the disk may be unreliable.) Nowadays, all standard Macintosh machines are fitted with 3.5" high density Super Drives which will read Macintosh 400K, 800K and 1.44MB disks. They will also read and write disks from other computers using additional software.
When buying disks, you will be faced with a choice of bulk or branded products, the bulk disks invariably being much cheaper. I have used some very good bulk disks in the past, with no duds in my purchase, but there is obviously a bit more of a gamble involved in using them, so for really important work I would strongly recommend a box of good quality branded disks. Some software packages encourage you to make a back-up of the actual program immediately, whilst others come with a back-up disk provided. Either way, don't save work files on the program disk, have several formatted blank disks ready for work and always make back-ups of important work disks, such as those containing GCSE or 'A' Level compositions.
The best way to look after your disks is to invest in a disk storage box, preferably with a lock. These are not costly items and are well worth having, even if you only have a few disks. Treat disks with care and avoid the following; heat/sunlight, dust and magnetic fields — don't leave disks on top of the TV or speakers. Every now and then your computer will probably benefit from having the disk drive cleaned. This is not an expensive professional operation and there are a variety of disk cleaners around. The process usually involves putting a few drops of cleaning fluid onto a specially provided cleaning disk which activates and cleans the drive (rather like a standard cassette cleaning tape). Once every couple of months is probably sufficient for this activity, but continuous use of your computer may merit more frequent cleaning.
Although 3.5" disks are fairly robust, their 5.25" counterparts require more delicate handling. Think of the unfortunate company executive who, entrusted with an important 5.25" floppy disk, asked his secretary to mail it for him, which she did, with a compliments slip stapled firmly through the disk itself!
In general, the majority of classroom and home studio recording systems (4-track and some 8-track systems) will tend to use cassette tape as the principal medium for both multitrack recording and mastering. This is largely due to the fact that open-reel tape — for everyday classroom use — is generally not practical and tends to exceed the budget limitations of most Music departments!
Cassette tape exists in the following basic categories: Type I (Ferric); Type II (Chrome); and Type IV (Metal). There has been a Type III, but nowadays it is not so common. The types of tape differ in bias — the way in which the signal is recorded onto tape — and equalisation (see RM September '92) which means you have to choose a type of tape compatible with your recorder.
Within each category, manufacturers have produced a number of different quality types, hence the numerous kinds of Type II chrome tape now available. On the whole, you get what you pay for. Use a Type II chrome tape for your master copy (most multitrackers insist on Type II chrome anyway), and cheaper Type I ferric tapes only for demo copies. Remember that a tape actually runs for only half its stated length in a multitracker, since all four available tracks are used on the same side. Having said that, avoid using C120 length tapes, because the tape is too thin for rigorous use, and can give rise to problems.
Ferric and chrome tapes are recorded differently by a tape machine. Some machines allow manual selection of the different types, whilst others automatically 'read' the type of tape from the cut-outs in the shell. Some of the cheaper bulk tapes don't have the correct cut-outs, and can produce an over-bright sound, for example, when used in a machine that automatically reads the tape type. For important work, use a good quality Type II, or a metal variety if your tape machine is equipped to use it. It is also worth making test recordings with a few different brands to find which gives the best results before committing yourself to a large order for one type. Tapes should be stored in a dust-free environment at room temperature. They should not be exposed to excessive heat or humidity.
To get the best from your tape, you need to get the best possible performance from your tape machine, which means keeping the recording and playback heads free from dust and the build-up of tape particles, which occurs with frequent use. In professional studios, head cleaning is a daily activity, but in the classroom it will largely depend on your frequency of use, and every few weeks may be quite sufficient! However, failure to clean dirty tape heads will shorten their life.
Isopropyl Alcohol and cotton buds are common head cleaning materials and are far cheaper than the commercially available cleaning tapes. Most chemists will order a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol for you. Simply dip the cotton bud in the alcohol, rub the tape heads and guides to remove all the brown oxide powder and then dry the parts with a fresh bud. Leave the machine for a couple of minutes before inserting a new tape to let the alcohol evaporate. You won't do any damage, so don't be afraid to do it.
Tape heads also become 'magnetised' with frequent use, and this causes a loss in high frequencies as the tape passes over the heads, so your existing recordings can lose some of their clarity. This is rectified by demagnetising or 'degaussing' the heads. For cassette-based machines, you can buy a cleaning tape which also acts as a demagnetises making the entire process of tape head care both cheap and effortless. For open reel machines and those who like a bit of a challenge there is a demagnetising instrument which will do a rather more effective job. Unfortunately, if you fail to follow the instructions, the tape heads can become permanently magnetised, so the thing to avoid at all costs is turning the demagnetiser on or off while it is close to or touching the tape heads, and always switch off the tape machine before demagnetising.
At the end of the day, it is quite difficult to estimate what your annual requirements for studio 'consumables' are likely to be, and budgeting is probably going to be on a trial and error basis until you see what your actual requirements are. Making your own leads is an alternative solution to buying ready-made products, provided you are handy with a soldering iron. This can save quite a lot of money but requires care and can be time consuming.
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Feature by Stephanie Sobey-Jones
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