#u69c2

this is the advert I made of PPI using the made up ‘miskin solicitors’ to create this I used the programme logic pro 9 and used the sound desk to help me with the mic and the small monitor so I could hear myself as I was recording.

I wrote a small script which lasted about 30 seconds long, it gave me time to write all the relevant information down, I listened to other adverts such as Gladstone brookes and Have I got PPI.com just to get a basis of an idea for what to say. 

For The Beano comeback in October we had to record the show to be made into a radio that was to be broadcasted on Miskin Radio. For the show I had to set up the recording equipment to enable me to record the show and then edit it to make it sound good.

Tech Rider

To set up the equipment I first had to create a tech rider of all the equipment that I was going to use. In my tech rider I had the following 4 Sennheiser e835s, 4 condenser microphones 4 microphone clips, 4 microphone stands and 10 XLRs. Once I had collated this tech rider together I was ready to start setting up the microphones and connecting them to the desk.

Here is a picture of my tech rider; 

Set Up

When I set up the microphones I did something called spot micing, which is typical of most radio plays and where you place microphones on certain parts of the set in order to pick up what is going on on the stage. When placing my microphones I dropped three from the rig upstage, in order to pick up scenes being carried out in the upstage area and on the pier. The microphones I dropped from the rig were condenser microphones. In order to ensure these had power I ran three long XLRs from the microphone down the set, ensuring that the cable was as hidden as possible and into the wall boxes on centre stage left and right. Once I had placed these microphones I then put three microphones down stage all of which were on stands. The microphones on stage right and left were on smaller microphone stands whilst the one in the middle was on a larger microphone stand. I put these microphones here to pick up all of the acting that was happening on the front of the stage as well as the back. I then ran XLRs for all of these microphones into the wall boxes on stages left and right. I finally placed two microphones on the far of stages left and right to pick up the scene that took place on the side platforms. Again I plugged these into the wall boxes in centre stage left and right. Once all of the microphones had been place and plugged in I then tapped all of the lose cables down to prevent any actors from tripping over during the show. Once everything had been made safe I then moved up onto the desk to plug all of the microphones into the desk. To do this I had to match up each microphone that I had plugged into the wall boxes into the patch bay. The patch bay allows us to run microphones into the desk without having to run loads of cables. Each of the ports in the patch bay match up to the ports on the wall boxes, so to plug everything into the desk I ran XLRs out of the patch bay and into the back of the desk. Once all of the microphones were plugged into the back of the desk the condenser microphones had been given phantom power and they had been line checked I then set about connecting the microphones to Logic Pro 9. This can be done though the use of a MADI cable which comes out the desk into a Mac. The MADI cable copies the channel inputs on the desk (so in my case it copies all 8 of my microphone channels) which are direct outs into the Mac which then allows you to create outputs on Logic. The outputs are direct copies and will not be effected if the channels are EQ or compression or gating is added on the desk.

Here is the set up with the soundcraft and the computer set up with logic; 

Here is the set with the microphones set up;

Recording and Editing

For this criteria I had to set up and use recording equipment, as from a previous post our task was to create a radio advert which would have to be about 30 seconds long. We could advertise anything as long as it included a voice over, sound track and a sound effect. I worked with Alec and we advertised the UG Club. For our advert Alec would advertise whilst music was played under his voice and adding in sound effects between certain lines he said. To make this all happen we had to get all of our stuff together to then use in the recording. For the the advert Alec was speaking so we had to set up the sound desk to a computer program called logic. Logic is a program we use to record, edit and cut sound. We done this by connecting the desk to the computer with a MADI cable  this lets the desk control some of the features in logic. The cable does not tell both devices that they are working together so through the desk you have to go through inputs, direct out, MADI 1. Then you have to select  a channel on the sound desk then on the computer in logic you have to select input channel then select the channel you have chosen on the desk this then links the channel on the desk to the channel in logic. For our recording we needed to connect a Mic into the desk we did this connecting the Mic with an XLR and plugging it in to the input channel on the desk. We set this up on channel one, this channel then showed up in logic and we renamed it Vocals. We could then record as we had inserted the Mic into the desk and connected the desk to the computer to logic. We then recorded the first section of vocals on the the first track. We then inserted the sound effect on the next channel down in logic. Using the little buttons on the channel in logic we could record, solo or mute the channel. In our advert we used three channels, One for vocals, sound effects and then one for the music playing through out the advert in the background. In logic we also had to turn down the volume of the music by selecting the channel and changing the volume interdependently to the other channels. When we reviewed our work we discussed that ALec's voice was not load enough so instead of re recording we clicked on all of the dialog and increased the gain. Once we was happy with what we had created we then bounced it out of logic and formed it as an MP3 and that was our finished product.

Radio advert for Logic practice

Unit 69 c2 - Set up recording equipment under supervision and minimal support to create material