Audival - Podcasting Tips & Tricks » Audio lingo

Audio lingo: Microphones

Stiff — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:07:06 +0000

While there are more types of microphones, the three useful for podcasting are dynamic, condenser and ribbon microphones.

Condenser microphones have been used for all kinds of applications for a long time, and quality varies a lot. They require some sort of power source, like phantom power. Dynamic microphones are often more directional than condensers (which can use different pickup patterns). Dynamics are also often more robust. They are the most common microphone for live use, but are used in studios as well. Ribbon microphones almost seemed to disappear for a while but have seen increased usage the last years. They typically use a figure-eight pickup pattern, meaning that they pick up both at the front and the back.

Audio lingo: Side-chain

Stiff — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:25:06 +0000

Side-chaining is when you use the dynamic levels of one source to control the compression of your signal. For podcasting ducking might be the typical use for side-chaining. But you can also use it with a compressor and an EQ to create a de-esser, or with a gate and create the opposite effect of ducking, i.e., letting sound through when the signal is sounding.

Audio lingo: Multiband compressor

Stiff — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:07:13 +0000

A multiband compressor is simply a compressor that can be set to operate differently on different frequencies. For instance, you could set it to a ratio of 4:1 on 500-1000 Hz and a ratio of 2:1 on 3 kHz. In the same way multiband limiters also exists.

Audio lingo: Expander

Stiff — Wed, 04 May 2011 07:25:22 +0000

An expander is in a way the opposite of a compressor. While a compressor uses the threshold setting to reduce the signal above the set value, an expander reduces the signal below the threshold value. This makes the signal more dynamic, and is thus expanded instead of compressed.

As with most audio tools, the parameters can vary between expanders. Typical controls found are ratio, threshold, knee, range and attack.

Audio Lingo: Gate

Stiff — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:29:00 +0000

A gate is typically the same thing as an expander, but set to a such high ratio (I.E. high compression) that it doesn’t let anything past the set threshold. In other words, it is almost to the gate, what the limiter is to the compressor. Gates are perhaps most often used as a noise gate, that is, to remove unwanted noise from recordings.

Audio Lingo: Notch filter

Stiff — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 07:44:52 +0000

Nothc filters, or “high Q notch filters” are basically EQ bands used to eliminate certain frequencies. Usually they have very high Q settings so that they only affect a very specific area of the frequency range. Notch filters are usually used to remove hum or other noise.

Audio lingo: DAW

Stiff — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:06:37 +0000

DAW is short for Digital Audio Workstation. The exact description of the term is somewhat vague as it can refer to a complete system consisting of both audio interface, controller and software, or just the software only. The most common features for a DAW is multi-track recording, editing and mixing possibilities. Some of the most popular systems out there are Digidesign Pro Tools, Steinberg Cubase and Apple Logic.

Audio lingo: types of noise

Stiff — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:00:52 +0000

To most people noise might just be noise, but in the audio world there’s more than one type of noise. The various types are named after colors, such as white and pink. According to Wikipedia, the color names for these different types of sounds are derived from a loose analogy between the spectrum of frequencies of sound wave present in the sound and the equivalent spectrum of light wave frequencies. That is, if the sound wave pattern of “blue noise” were translated into light waves, the resulting light would be blue, and so on.

The rest of this article (with a lot of technical explanations) can be found on this Wikipedia page.

The commonly accepted colors are white, pink, blue, brown, purple and grey. Sometimes the names differ, and some wants to add other colors to the list as well.

Audio lingo: Equalizer

Stiff — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:54:55 +0000

The Equalizer – or EQ for short – is basically a device that let’s you “sculpt” the sound by raising or lowering the volume at a specific frequency as opposed to lowering or raising the volume of the entire spectrum like a regular volume control does. When talking about EQs this is generally referred to as “boosting” or “cutting”. The number of “bands” decides on how many places the EQ can boost or cut. The width of the spectrum that the bands will affect is set with the “Q value”. There are a myriad of different EQs available that functions in different ways.

Audio lingo: Compressor

Stiff — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:06:43 +0000

The compressor is a device that basically compresses the sound , that is, reducing the dynamics. By doing so it is possible to better “glue” the sounds together and in the end also raise the volume.

Each compressor functions differently, but common controls are threshold which decides at what levels the compressor shall start working, ratio which decides how much compression will be applied, attack and release which are timing parameters for setting how fast the compressor will work, and finally gain (or makeup gain) which helps in setting the level of the compressed signal.