Recording Studio User's Guide

The recording studio consists of a control room and an adjoining recording studio. Equipment available currently includes three Tascam DTRS 8-track digital recorders, an Otari MX-80 2" 24-track recorder, an Ampex ATR-800 analog 1/4" stereo recorder, a ProTools HD system, a Mackie Digital Eight Bus (D8B) mixing console, an Apogee Big Ben word clock system, a Presonus M80 eight-channel mic preamp, a Universal Audio 2-610 mic preamp, a Waves L2 Ultramaximizer digital limiter, a Panasonic SV-3800 DAT recorder, a Tascam CD-RW700 CD-R/RW recorder, a Lexicon 224XL digital reverberator, an Eventide Orville effects processor, Westlake BBSM-10 and JBL 4206 monitors, and outboard gear including equalizers(Furman PQ-6 parametric, Rane GE-30 graphic), compressors (Teletronix LA-2A, Universal Audio 1176, dbx 166 and Ashly CL50), and digital effects processors including Yamaha SPX-1000, SPX-90 and Korg A-1 processors. All digital recorders and the mixer are synchronized to word clock from the Big Ben. All analog equipment in the control room is connected through a patch bay, and all connections are to be made through the patchbay: NEVER DISCONNECT ANY AUDIO CONNECTIONS IN THE RECORDING STUDIO. A Linux PC-based computer system is also available in the control room.

Microphones available in the recording studio include a Neumann TLM-193, two AKG C414B-ULSs, two Audio-Technica AT4049 omni condensor mics, 2 Josephson C42 cardioid condensor mics, a Beyer M-500, a Sennheiser MD-421, two Sennheiser E-604s, two Electrovoice RE-20s, an Electrovoice N/D868, two Shure Beta-57s, and several Shure SM-57s. Microphones are stored in the file cabinet in the control room closet; condensor mics in the top drawer and dynamics in the second drawer. There is a Yamaha C7 Disklavier MIDI grand piano in the studio. Two snakes connect microphone inputs to the console: one connects directly to the 12 Mackie mic inputs and the second connects to the Presonus mic preamp system. Channel 15 of the first snake sends headphone signals to the studio for monitoring. A talkback system operates between the control room and the recording studio, located on a panel in the patchbay rack. The talk switch is off in the center position and on in either the locking (up) or momentary (down) positions.

The studios are available 24 hours a day, but ONLY to registered CCRMA students (who are taking or have completed Music 192, Theory and Practice of Audio Recording), faculty, and staff. Priority is given to students currently enrolled in 192. During the school year, users are limited to 8 hours of studio time per week. Occasionally, larger projects may be undertaken with prior permission, but these must be planned well in advance. User sign-up boards are located outside the studios. The calendars allow sign-ups no further that four weeks ahead and are not to be advanced except by staff. If you need greater access, please talk with Jay.

Some Studio Etiquette

When using the studios, it is necessary to adhere to the CCRMA security procedures, especially those regarding building access: NO DOORS ARE TO BE LEFT OPEN UNATTENDED. Equipment may be brought in for recording, but it CANNOT BE STORED here. CCRMA is not responsible for loss or damage to any equipment left here.

Cables for studio use are stored on the wall inside the studio. These cables are for temporary use in the studios only: if you need "permanent" cables, see staff. The cables should be stored on the wall, either wrapped up with no ends hanging free (longer cables) or draped over the hooks (shorter cables). Please see that the cables you use are not tangled hopelessly when you return them. NEVER disconnect any audio connections in the studio (Exception: you may connect microphones to the mixing console directly to the mic inputs. Be sure to return the snake connections when you are done.)

Food and drinks are not allowed in the studio control room. This is necessary to prevent accidents from damaging the equipment. There are kitchen facilities upstairs and you should use that area for eating, as long as you clean up after yourselves.

If you sign up for time, you are expected to use it. If you cannot make use of a booking, you should erase it from the signup board. If you bring non-CCRMA people into the studio, you are responsible for their adherence to the CCRMA rules. Please be respectful of others working at CCRMA and limit disruption: keep the studio door closed to keep sound from disturbing others. Try to minimize the impact of your project on the general CCRMA community.

Recording Media

DAT, CD-Rs, and cassette tapes (as well as videotapes for the other digital recorders) can be purchased at appropriate retail stores. Tapes for the Tascam DA-88/38s may be purchased retail: it is best to Sony DARS-113MP tapes designed for the DA-88/38, however standard Hi-8 video tapes may be used in an emergency. For best reliability, use Fuji DPD-113 Hi-8 tapes intended for DTRS recording available from CCRMA. For using 24-bit mode recording on the DA-78HR, use only Fuji DPD DTRS tapes, which you may buy from CCRMA. NEVER use head cleaning tapes in the DTRS recorders...see staff if you have any problems.

Tape for the Otari MX-80 can be purchased on the internet from such sources as Tape World , US Recording Media and Encore Data Products among others. We recommend RMGI 468 tape. Expect to spend about $250 for a 2" roll and many vendors only sell by the case of two rolls.

Mackie D8B Mixing Board

The Mackie D8B is the mixing console in the recording studio at CCRMA. It has 24 input channels with digital direct outs, 24 tape returns, 8 bus outputs, 8 mono aux sends, 2 stereo aux sends, and a stereo mix output. It is an in-line design, which means that the input functions (line/mic and tape) share the same physical controls. The first Fader Bank consists of 24 input channels (12 mic/line and 12 line) with analog trim controls, the second Fader Bank returns 24 tape playback channels (16 digital TDIF/ADAT and 8 analog), the third Fader bank controls 16 Effects returns and 8 Aux inputs (AES/EBU digital), and the fourth Fader Bank controls eight assignable groups, 8 MIDI controllers, and the eight bus outputs. All four Fader Banks share the same physical controls, so only one bank may be accessed at a time. Full moving-fader automation is available on all banks.

In order to get sound into the system, select Mic/Line (1-24) on the buttons above the master fader. (Automation should be bypassed.) Each channel has an assign button, which must be lit to assign the channel to the stereo output. Master L-R should be selected in the Control Room section to hear the sound output. The individual input routing to tape, bus, and sends is controlled from the Fat Channel display on the CRT display.

The main Stereo L-R output is connected to the SV-3800 DAT and the Tascam CD-RW700 CR burner via the Waves L2 Ultramaximizer digital limiter. This AES/EBU connection allows the limiter to be applied to the stereo output recorded to the DAT without patching. If you do not wish to use the limiter, set it to bypass. To employ the limiter, take it out of bypass mode and adjust the threshold control. The lower you set the threshold, the more limiting you will get and the louder the output will be. You can set the maximum level to 0 dBFS or lower. Try the ARC automatic release function before you play with release times. Clocking should be set to Digital and the input must be set to AES/EBU. If you go to DAT or CD, you should use the L2 16-bit dither setting.

The D8B has two Mackie MFX and one UFX digital effects cards installed, allowing internal digital effects to be selected on the first four mono Aux sends. The stereo returns are faders 1-8 in Fader bank 3. Available MFX effects include mono and stereo delay, reverb, and chorus. IVL pitch correction is also available. UFX effects include TC reverb Level 1 (stereo) and mono delay. More UFX card effects may become available soon.

Two separate headphone mixes are possible: Phones/Cue Mix 1 is routed to the recording studio (snake channel 15) and Phones/Cue Mix 2 is available in the control room on the panel in the patchbay. Inputs to these are selectable in the Phones/Cue Mix section of the mixer.

Help! How do I get some light?

Lighting in the recording studio and control room is controlled by a pair of rotary switches, one for on and one for off. To turn on lights, push in and turn the "ON" switch. To turn off the lights, push in and turn the "OFF" switch. Each switch has numbers that correspond to the banks of lights, so each bank can be switched on and off independently. A map next to the switches details the location of the various banks. (This confusing system allows dimming the light level without using conventional dimmers, which contribute lots of electrical noise.)

Help! How do I get some sound?

So what's the simplest way to get some sound into the console? Line level signals are fed via the patch bay into line inputs or from tape machines into the tape returns. (The Tascam DA-78/38 recorders outputs are "normalled" -normally connected - to the first 16 tape returns digitally.) Microphone signals from the studio are directly connected to the first 12 mic inputs through a snake (multichannel cable), so that mic channel 1 goes to input channel 1 and so on up to channel 12. Mic inputs from the second snake go to the Presonus M80 Mic preamp and are normalled through the patchbay to D8B line inputs 13-20. You must adjust the analog preamp trim controls to get line and mic signals into mic/line inputs 1-24. A second DAT, for playback only, is connected to digital returns 1/2 (currently this will not be able to use DSP functions). There is also an Eventide Orville effects processor connected through the ALT I/O digital connections (2 stereo pairs 5/6 and 7/8), which are configurable through the ALT I/O setup window. The Eventide outputs return to the D8B on Returns 5-8. The CD-R recorder output is connected for monitor playback (Digital 2 AND 2 Track B) and the main DAT is played via Digital 1. [If you notice low-level clicks on Digital In 2 from the CD-burner, you can monitor it through 2 Track B instead.] Connection to the Lexicon 224XL reverb are made through the analog patchbay. Use one of the stereo sends (9/10 or 11/12) for a panable stereo feed to the Lexicon.

The Otari 24 track recorder is partially normalled to the line inputs of the D8B: the first 12 and last 4 (channels 21-24) line inputs are normalled to the Otari outputs while line inputs 13-20 are normalled to the Presonus mic preamps. These outputs from the Otari need to be patched to the line inputs on the patchbay. All inputs to the Otari must be manually patched through the patchbay.

The control room monitoring system is controlled by the control room section of the D8B. The six source selection buttons for the control room monitor system can be mixed by pushing multiple buttons. If you monitor the mix and the tape return from the DAT simultaneously, you will hear phasing. This is due to the time delay created by the DAT machine's A/D and D/A converters. Simply select one or the other. Sources available currently include DAT playback on Digital In 1, CD playback on Digital In 2, analog cassette playback on 2 Track A and CD-burner/player on 2 Track B. Selecting Master L-R plays the stereo mix to the monitor speakers. Near Field will connect to the JBL 4206 monitors and Main will play through the Westlakes. Studio talkback is available through headphones connected to the headphones return to the studio with the talkback button on the D8B. Another talkback system is located on the patchbay panel, which uses a speaker in the studio. This system is turned on by a switch which is momentary in one direction and locks on in the other. Be sure to turn it off when you're not using it or everyone in the studio will hear you.

For dubbing DATS, a second SV-3700 DAT recorder (outputs only) is connected via AES/EBU connections to ALT returns 1-2 of the D8B fader bank 3 (channels 41-42). These channels do not have DSP available (EQ, compressor, gate, effects), but they may be used to dub from one DAT machine to the other.

For more complete information, see the Mackie D8B manual in the control room.

Connected in parallel with the main DAT recorder is a Tascam CD-RW700 CD-R/RW recorder. The CD recorder may be used instead of the DAT or it can be used to copy DAT tapes to CD-Rs with preservation of start IDs as track numbers on the CD-R. To use the CD-R recorder as a stand-alone recorder, set its input to Digital 1, which is connected to the AES/EBU output of the Waves L2 limiter. The CD-RW700 can record track-at-once or disk-at-once in automatic or manual modes. See the manual for more detailed information. The simplest method is manual mode, controlling start and stop manually. To duplicate DAT tapes, the input of the CD-R recorder is set to Optical and the DAT machine must then be switched to optical S/PDIF output. This may be accomplished by placing the SV-3800 DAT machine into its menu mode by holding the mode and reset buttons while depressing tghe Pause button. The first menu item is the digital mode and it is toggled between AES and S/PDIF (IEC-O and IEC-C) by pushing the >>| (skip ahead) button to advance the selection. IEC-O is the optical S/PDIF mode to use. Be sure to return the mode to AES when you are done.

The CD-R recorder is also the CD player now, connected to Digital Input 2.

Help! How do use ProTools?

To log into the ProTools PowerMac G4, you can use you CCRMA system login. All sound files must be stored on the ProTools cmx1 and/or ProTools 2 cmx1 drive and not on the system drive. You can use your own external FireWire drive, but note that ProTools sessions may not span SCSI and FireWire drives in the same session. ProTools is connected to the first 16 channels of the D8B via ADAT lightpipe connections to the Digital 192 interface (There is no direct analog input to ProTools.) These channels share their outputs with the first 16 channels of DTRS I/O, so you can use one or the other but not both at the same time. You can convert from one to the other, for instance you can play DTRS tapes directly into ProTools. The I/O settings are established from the D8B setup menu under Digital I/O. Each bank of 8 inputs and outputs is individually assignable to TDIF, ADAT, TDIF->ADAT and ADAT->TDIF. All systems are clocked externally from the Big Ben and all recorders and mixers should be left in external word clock mode at all times. To monitor ProTools, you can use the ADAT tape return channels to send signals to the first 16 return channels on the D8B. You must assign ProTools outputs appropriately, depending on whether you mix to stereo in ProTools or wish to return the ProTools output channels individually to the D8B.

ProTools is mainly intended for recording and mixing through the D8B: if you want to do mixes in ProTools you should use either Studio C or Studio E as they have more complete collections of plug-ins. At present, you should burn CD- or DVD-ROMs of the recorded session files for transportation to the other studios but we hope to have network connectivity soon. Users are responsible for backing up ProTools files, and files may only be left on the ProTools disks while they are in current use. Disk space is limited and files may be deleted by staff when space becomes necessary. Be sure to back up any files you cannot afford to lose!!! An external DVD burner is available for this purpose.