Sound Engineering
- 11 Feb 2025
Sound Engineering
I recently signed up for a certification course in sound Engineering. This was a very basic course that taught how to get sound in and out of the DAW ( Digital Audio Workstation )through the Sound system. To pass the exam ( and get access to the sweet sweet audio studio ) you need to pass 3 modules.
- Get the Digital audio system configured for the task at hand
- Get sound from a microphone into the DAW and add an insert or a send to the sound
- Tie the wire properly.
Configuring the Digital audio system
Getting sound from the physical hardware to the computer is quite challenging and a lot of engineering is involved, especially in a studio where there are lots of parts like a MIDI input, amplifier and a mic that need to work in tandem. The software that does this is called Dante, or a digital controller, which basically is a virtual orchestration of the physical parts. The most important part is to make sure this is working. Usually the studio you are operating in has presets saved for the setup and these presets can be loaded in. We have to make sure the bit rate is right ( usually 44.1 Khz ). Once the preset is loaded and the bitrate is verified, congratulations, you have passed 1/3 rd of the test.
Getting sound from a Mic
If you have tried connecting a device to any sort of system to get it working, be it the 2000’s nintendo consoles or transfering data from digital camera, you’ll know how hard it is to get each part working smoothly and getting output is a pain. This part of the test is supposed to test your problem solving skills. The Goal is to get the microphone output into the DAW and add an insert or a send to the original audio.
To get sound from a mic, You first connect the mic to one of the input channels through the microphone wire. This input will now enter something called the patchbay. This is a bunch of wire sockets that connects to each part of the physical system. The next thing to do is connect the mic output to an amplifier. The amplifier picks up the signals from the mic and basically amplifies it. Here Gain is how sensitive the amplifier is to the mic audio and sound is just the volume level it outputs. This output is then taken to whichever effect you want to add. These effects can range from delay to orchestral reverb. There are a lot of choices here, but once this is given, you take the output from this and send it back to the input channel that goes to the computer.
Once this is done, within your DAW, you have to select that particular audio channel and voila, you have the sound added with the effect on top. You successfully did an insert.
To do a send, you can digitally add a send by getting the raw input into the DAW and then use a channel splitter, that essentially duplicates the signal. This duplicated signal can then be passed on in the same way to a send to get the effect added. once this is done, the amount of effect added can be controlled by adjusting how much of each signal gets passed. The processed signal with the effect is called the “wet” signal and the raw signal is called the “dry” signal.
Insert - An insert is basically a direct addition of an effect onto your original track Send - A send is two parts. You duplicate the original audio and then apply the effect on the duplicated track
| Insert | Send |
|---|---|
| You can’t control how much of the effect gets applied after application | The effect can be controlled by controlling how much of the entire channel gets added |
| Is equivalent to a filter on a signal | It is like a feed forward loop with a separate filter on the loop |
Congratulations! you are now 2/3rds of the way there.
Tying the wires
In the final part you are taught how to tie a wire chord. This could be the easiest part or the hardest depending on your mindset. But essentially, the best way to tie a chord so that it doesn’t get tangled is to use something called an over / under method. In this method you extend your non dominant hand and with your other hand start going over the other hand. Next you twist the chord slightly so that you have a chord that’s twisting and you have to go the other way under your hand. It sounds complicated on text but is fairly straightforward. What this enables is that the wire is now tied in such a way that the chard automatically untangles itself without getting caught in other parts of the chord.
Link to a good tutorial on youtube
Once you are done with this, Congratulations! You essentially gain access to the studio facility and record in peace. I got interested in the sound engineering and digital audio world because of my video game music course I took and am now a very avid music enthusiast. Go have fun with this! It’s very exciting and equally challenging.