All language subtitles for 1 - An Introduction to Recording

Ever since we've been able to communicate
using speech, we've been able to hear our

own voice reproduced in the natural world
through echoes, sound waves that travel

to and bounce back from hard reflective
surfaces like these rock faces.

But being able to capture and store these
waves is a surprisingly recent invention.

Thomas Edison started it all with his
invention of the phonograph in 1877 Mary

had a little man which was quite as
small, and everywhere that Mary went, the

man was sure to go.

If we could travel back in time, imagine

how difficult it would be to explain to
somebody from the late nineteenth century

what sound recording was.

We could have said it's like the sound

equivalent of how the camera, invented
just a couple of decades earlier, can

store an image.

Or we could have said it's a bit like a

mechanical parrot that will squawk back
exactly what we say to it at the touch of

a button.

Mary had a little man which was quite as

small. When Thomas Edison first publicly

displayed his phonograph, it was to huge
acclaim and it instantly made him world

famous. Interestingly, Edison hadn't foreseen

that one of the principal applications of
his invention would be for the

reproduction of music.

If only Thomas Edison could have seen

what his creation actually developed
into.

Here at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles,
they've assembled exhibits and artifacts

that trace the history of recording all
the way from the tinfoil cylinder right

through to the iPod.

The rotating cylinder on the phonograph

developed into the flat disc on Emile
Berliner's gramophone that was patented

in 1887 In nineteen hundred, Valdemar
Poulson of Denmark patented the first

magnetic recorder, called the
Telegraphone, using steel wire.

But it was a long time, some 4 decades
before the basic principle was adapted

into machines using magnetic tape.

Soon after the turn of the nineteenth,

century discs had largely superseded
edison 's rather short lived cylinder

technology. Mass production techniques for cellulose

and shellac records made the hand wound
gramophone a common household object.

The development of electrical recording
spawned the concept of the sound

recording studio and recorded music as an
art form burst into life.

Celebrated British composer Sir Edward
Elgar recorded with the London Symphony

Orchestra at the grand opening of Abbey
Road Studios in November of 1931 For

movies to contain sound, audio was
recorded optically by a photographic

process onto the edge of 35 millimeter
film adjacent to the picture.

Incredibly, the soundtrack for Walt
Disney's Fantasia, made in 1939 was

recorded stereophonically on eight such
optical tracks.

The Ampex company started making magnetic
tape recorders in the nineteen forties.

Tape, in countless incarnations and
variations, became the standard recording

and playback medium from the nineteen
fifties through to the turn of the

century. The technology of magnetic tape opened up

sound recording to a whole new generation
of artists and along with them, a new

breed of professional technicians,
engineers, and producers.

But as the Grammy people will tell you,
it's not just the technology, it's what

you do with that technology that Counts 1
can't really live without the other.

The Beatles had a big influence on the
way that recording technology developed

when they recorded Please Please Me.

The whole album, amazingly was recorded

in a day, and as George Harrison famously
quoted, the second album took even

longer. In those days, they recorded on two track

quarter inch tape to make an overdub or a
superimposition.

Xavier Rode called it.

They would copy one tape to another while

adding the new material.

The rhythm track or instruments would

usually be on track one and the vocals on
track two.

These two tracks were then mixed down to
mono for the final master.

Somewhat hilariously, the two track tape
was also released as a socalled stereo

version, where the backing track was on
the left and the vocals were on the

right, right up to Sergeant Pepper stereo
was just an afterthought, but Pepper was

a big turning 4 track had arrived by
then, along with the ability to overdub

new material onto the same tape and
remain In Sync, a previously impossible

feat. The complexity of the album involved huge

engineering challenges, and Jeff Emmerich
was the recipient of a well deserved

Grammy for his work as engineer of the
album.

It's still hard to believe that it was
recorded on four track.

By the time I'd started to Debbie road.

We were recording The Beatles on eight

track. Then came sixteen track, the format we

used to record Pink Floyd's Dark Side of
the Moon.

Then 24 track.

Will it ever end we asked.

The answer was no it probably wouldn't,
because before long, digital technology

came along and allowed us to have an
unlimited number of tracks at our

disposal. Almost all of the great engineers and

producers whose work is celebrated here
spent years learning their craft at

places like Capitol Records here in Los
Angeles, Record Plant in New York, and

Abbey Road Studios in London.

Unfortunately, only a handful of large

commercial recording studios exist today,
which makes it very difficult for a young

engineer to get the experience that I had
recording an orchestra one day, a pop

band the next, an opera singer the next,
and so on.

One viewing of this program is not going
to turn you into Quincy Jones or George

Martin, but what we hope it will do is
help teach you the most important ability

an engineer and producer should have.

And that's how to listen.

That covers judging, sound quality, sound
balance, learning when something is

lacking and learning when enough is
enough.

Too many producers tend to be over
producers.

The Recording Academy's full name is the
National Academy of Recording Arts and

Sciences. That name was, naturally enough, an

influence for the title of this program.

The Recording Academy has always embraced

and acknowledged the countless composers
and artists that form our musical

heritage, but it also acknowledges the
producers, the engineers, and the

technologists without whom modern
recording would not be the same.

This program peeks behind the curtain and
unveils the tools and techniques that

music lovers don't normally get to see.

Our main objective was to make a How to

Video encyclopedia for those interested
in the technical side of recording.

Although you'll see plenty of knob
twiddling and parameter adjusting, sound

recording is not just a modus operandi
and hard and fast rules.

It's about developing an understanding
and a feel for both the artistic as well

as the technical, the art and science of
sound recording is more than just a

static presentation where I show you
things and you listen.

It's also more than just a reflection of
my own personal opinions.

I've tried to resist telling you what to
do so much as showing and suggesting a

range of approaches you might want to
consider.

And to keep it even more real, I've spent
a good part of the two years it's taken

to make this program, interviewing many
celebrated engineers, producers, and

artists about their experiences as well.

The Grammys and the Grammy Museum itself

are causes for celebration in the art of
music making, and so is this program.

We look at everything from how sound is
generated, how it reacts acoustically in

a professional studio or your garage, to
how sounds can be manipulated using EQ

and other forms of processing.

We also look at how the tools of sound

recording are used in practice.

Recording a drummer, a bass player, a

singer, or groups of people from a high
school choir to L A's top session Guys on

a live rock tracking session Of course,
the greatest technological stride in

recent years for everyone has been the
Internet.

The concept of reality has been stood on
its head.

In one section of the program, you'll see
an Internet recording session where the

performer is thousands of miles away from
the producer.

Our own website is an important partner
in the program as a whole.

The site contains uncompressed audio
demonstrations and examples, and it's

also a place where registered viewers can
get up to date bonus materials.

Discuss sound recording on the forums,
ask me questions in monthly webcasts and

even mixed tracks.

In a relatively short space of time we've

gone from this to this.

All that remains now is to look at the

tools, tasks, and techniques of sound
recording in detail onward.