Assignment for Week 2 of Introduction to Music Production (IMP) MOOC.

1. Recording Audio
Ganesh Viswanathan
Bangalore, India.
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2. About Me
• Singer/songwriter from
Mumbai, India
• Currently, residing in
Bangalore and working
as a Designer at an IT
Firm.
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3. Lesson Overview
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4. Overview
• I’ll be recording an acoustic guitar with the help of
a Rode NT-2A condenser microphone.
• The DAW - Nuendo v. 4.3
• The Audio Interface - Focusrite Scarlett 8i6
• I do not use studio monitors. I’ll be monitoring with
the help of studio headphones.
• I have connected the microphone to the audio
interface with an XLR cable at the Left Input or
Input 1.
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5. Audio Interface
• My left input gain is turned all the way down and
phantom power is OFF.
Left Input Pre-amp Headphone Volume
Left Input (Input 1)
Phantom Power
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6. DAW-related Protocol
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7. • Opening the DAW – Nuendo..
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8. • First, I go to the Devices Menu and select Device Setup
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9. • I check my audio interface is correct. Always safe to check.
• I, however want a sampling rate of 48000.0 Hz.
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10. • I see that my latency is decent but where can I change my
buffer size and sampling rate?
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11. • I go to my Device Control Panel.
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12. • We have found the Audio Interface Control Panel to alter
our Buffer Size and Sampling Rate!
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13. • I change my Sampling Rate (or Sample Rate) from the
dropdown and..
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14. • Voila! Sampling Rate of 48000.0 Hz achieved.
• But why do I see Buffer Length in ms and not in number of
samples?
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15. • Let’s recall that as Buffer Length increases, the latency
increases. I want the Buffer Length to be AS SMALL AS
POSSIBLE while recording/tracking.
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16. • As we increase the Buffer Length to 2 or 3 ms, the latency
has increased.
• Best bet is to keep Buffer Length to lowest possible: 1 ms
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17. • On clicking OK, I get a message about the change in
Sampling Rate. I then click on OK and close Device Setup.
• So far, so good.
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18. Project-related Protocol
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19. • Let’s create a New Project from the File Menu..
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20. • .. and choose Empty if you wish to create a project from
scratch.
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21. • Create and Name the Project Folder. Unless you want a hard
time organising your project, do not create it in a folder that
has other project files too.
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22. • We have entered our project screen.
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23. • Few things to check. Go to Project Setup in the Project
menu.
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24. • It’s good practice to check the Sampling Rate, the Bit Depth
and the Recording File Type before we proceed.
• Nuendo refers to Bit Depth as Record Format.
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25. • We can also quickly check Sampling Rate and Bit Depth
here.
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26. Track-related Protocol
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27. • Let’s create a track. Since I’m recording an acoustic guitar
with a microphone, I’ll go for an audio track..
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28. • .. and choose Mono. If I choose Stereo, then the recorded
audio will be stuck to my left channel (I’ll hear only from the
left side of my headphones) and become difficult to centre.
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29. • Great, so our Mono Audio Track is created.
• We’re good to record right?
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30. WRONG!
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31. • We must first name our track. This is a really good habit to
cultivate and will save a lot of hassle while finding the
recorded audio on your hard-drive.
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32. • I’ve named the audio track - Acoustic01.
• I also see that the input chosen is the Left Input or Input 1,
which is correct.
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33. • Next is I enable the Monitor on the track so that I can hear
how it sounds like.
• Note that I’ve not Record Enabled it YET.
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34. Setting Levels
• We must set the levels now.
• Making sure that my gain on the Input Preamp is
turned all the way down, I turn on my Phantom
Power.
• I then start to increase my gain while checking to
see if there is any clipping. The best practice is to
play AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE while adjusting the gain
so that in any case that might occur, we’re well-
prepared for it.
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35. • My audio interface does not show any clipping for the
current gain but Nuendo shows that the audio is clipping.
• To be on the safe side, I lower the gain.
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36. • This level looks healthy. This is two steps behind the
previous gain where the audio had gotten clipped.
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37. • Before I ‘Record Enable’, I’ll take off my headphones to avoid
any feedback that may come, just to be on the safe side.
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38. • The last few things I do is enable the Click and the Pre-count
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39. • .. and change the Tempo to Fixed and adjust it to 90 BPM for
this lesson
• And now, we’re good to go!
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40. • Press the ‘Record Button’ at the top or the bottom of the
screen and you can start recording your instrument!
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41. Thank you!
Ganesh Viswanathan
Twitter: iyerPort
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ganesh.v
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42. Reflections
• The screen-recording software I had would not
record audio with Nuendo running. So I regret not
having the audio for this project.
• This lesson may have been too long, but I tried to
cover every step since Nuendo isn’t
straightforward.
• Thank you for reviewing!
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