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A HANDY GLOSSARY FOR THE MUSIC PROS SOUVIK CHAKRABORTY
Working in the industry or a plaintiff curious cat, it's your right to knowledge to these swanky terminologies of the music industry. Be a nerd dig in.
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AAC Advanced Audio Coding or AAC is basically an encoding scheme for the next generation of the MP3 format. The AAC encoding helps in producing better sound qualities despite similar bit rates of an MP3 track.
A&R Artists & Repertoire is often used to call a division of a music company who are responsible for for seeing the scouting and overseeing the artist's image management and other business developments until the release of the records.
ABR Average Bit Rate can be interchangeably used for coining the bit rate of a song. It refers to the amount of dta transferred per unit of time. this is measured per second for a digital piece of audio.
Back-End Deal Also called as royalty-free music, backend deal usually categorizes only those songs which can be used without a fee or license for synchronization. The model for income from these kind of music varies with the deal.
Breakdown Notes Timing Notes or Breakdown Notes are the notes an editor makes. This is a very detailed timing for the scenes for a composer to use as reference for the cues spotted at a session. This Notes contain details like dialogue, camera moves and sync codes.
Bumper Bumper is probably one of the most popular term in the audio visual industry. These are extremely short stings which are used to the effect of a show identification, a short scene or something far more snappy yet impactful.
Click Track A very common studio term for a signal used to facilitate the artists perform to the exact tempo or beat of a song.
Cue Sheet A very important piece of information for any TV show or film; a cue sheet contains all markings like the title, durations, publisher, timings and kind of use.
Derivative Work This is one of the most important terms that musicians need to familiarize themselves with. It is important to know that it is only the owner of the copyright who can authorize someone else to create a new version of an existing work. So, coming back to basics; a derivative work is just another new version of an already extant piece of art.
Digital Sampler Synthesized sounds are often used directly from a machine to produce impact and give variety and texture to the overall arrangement. These are usually set template samples and are always to be kept handy.
FOH The Front of House, is a term used to refer to the area where the sound and lighting boards are usually located. It can be situated within 100 feet of the centre stage.
ISRC The International Standard Recording Code is for the music recordings. It consists of a 12 character alpha numeric code. It is kind of a mark for unique identification of each track. Despite any ownership changes, the track identification remains intact. The code helps largely in curbing piracies or other malpractices across the music industry. It also facilitates the collection of royalties of the tracks.
One-Off Agreement The OOA or the One-Off Agreement works between the publisher and the songwriter. It usually takes place when a writer assigns to the producer or publisher, the copyright of one song against a percentage of the royalty. It is also termed as a 'Single Song Agreement' or just a 'Song Agreement' as well.
Rider A rider is an important term to know for anybody dealing with legal documents of music. It comes as an addition to the preexisting clauses. It may alter or amend the pointers of the document attached.
Recording in The Studio Grand pianos are heard over a symphony orchestra, but they can also whisper like a lullaby. Here are some tips for recording them: • Let the style of the music dictate the microphones and mic placements. • Sometimes a given type of music will cause you to move the piano into a different physical space to take advantage of its distinct acoustic properties. • The best way to learn which of mic placement works best for you is experimenting.
Cutting Through a Mix If you need the piano to cut through a mix, try a spaced pair of small-diaphragm microphones with a cardioid pattern about six inches above the hammers. This enhances the percussive aspects and the sounds of the hammers hitting the strings. Begin with mics about 15 inches apart and listen to the balance between the low and high strings. Ensure two mics are spaced far enough so that both the highest and lowest notes are pretty similar in level, but close enough together that the notes in the middle of the piano don’t disappear.
Sitting in the Track When the piano’s primary role on a session is support rather than being the featured instrument, a spaced pair of large-diaphragm mics inside the piano can be great. To do so, place a pair of largediaphragm microphones with a cardioid pattern facing toward the strings, about 18 inches apart, four to six inches above the strings, and six to eight inches behind the hammers. The sound now will be mellower than mics placed directly above the hammers. If you want to darken the recorded sound of the piano even more, move the mics farther from the hammers, closer to the end of the piano. stereo mic configuration with two omnidirectional mics placed at the lip of the piano. The amount of ambience in the recording can be increased by moving the microphones farther away from the instrument. To do so, start with a pair of omni mics placed in the bend of the piano, 15–20 inches apart, and pointing at the piano lid (most of the sound the audience hears is the reflection from this lid). Experiment with the distance, the farther away you place the mics, the farther apart you can put them (up to about five feet, if the pair of mics is five or six feet back).
Contemporary Commercial Recordings For day-to-day work for rock, pop, or country radio, use a pair of AKG C414 microphones: one near the hammers up high and the other roughly where the bass strings cross the lower-mid strings. This setup combines some of the top end of a mic near the hammers with the enhanced low frequencies of a mic over the bass strings. The C414 microphones are large-diaphragm mics, one mic is placed about 18 inches into the piano from the highest strings and about four inches behind the hammers. The second mic is 18 inches into the piano from the low side and 36 inches away from the hammers, or almost 30 inches from the foot of the piano.
XY Miking Cardioid microphones in XY pattern is for phase coherence. An XY stereo setup is a coincident technique, meaning the capsules of the two microphones are as close together as possible and angled 90 degrees to each other to produce a stereo image. Experiment or start with the XY pair between four and eight feet in front of the piano and five or six feet off the ground. If that doesn’t work (or captures too much of the room), move the microphone closer to the piano.
