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Largely, this research recording section of my project has been a success. I am fairly pleased with my results and outcome so far. I believe that my organisation skills have been improved by this project and that I am now more confident in using the recording studio as well as picking out a good microphone for the job I need it to do.

I am also pleased with my pre-production plan which is in a higher level of detail than any of my others from previous assignments. This has made the whole thing go very smoothly.

I am also pleased that I have come out of this research with a clear answer to my question and with new knowledge that will help me a lot going forward with this assignment.

However, I have had some setbacks and made a couple mistakes. I would like to be organised earlier in the project and write my pre-production plan as soon as the assignment starts so that I don't have to rush and panic. I must also not forget to take photos to evidence my work as I go since it is somewhat harder to evidence without them.

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After listening to all recordings and comparing them to each other, I have made a final decision on the microphone that I will be moving forward with and what placement I will be using.

First, I will talk about why I am ruling out the other three microphones.

Sontronics Sigma:

The Sontronics Sigma is a brilliant microphone and came in a close second to my microphone of choice. However, I found that it has a less clear sound than my first choice and isn't as versatile as you cannot chose the polar pattern you want to use.

AKG C1000s:

This microphone was always a poor choice, however, is it good to have a worse microphone to compare to your best which makes it slightly easier to find your favourite. This being said, objectively the C1000s is not a bad microphone, it just simply does not fill the role that I need filled.

Shure SM57:

The SM57 is usually a solid choice to pick for most recordings, however alike the C1000s it is poorly suited to record trumpet as it does not have the dynamic range that is needed. Although, if I were to be recording vocals I would either choose the SM57 or the SM58.

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Research recording pre-production plan ^

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The pre-production plan, how it helped and minor setbacks

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The pre-production plan, how it helped and minor setbacks

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This is my pre-production plan. I wrote this to ensure that my research recording session went smoothly as possible. It detailed all the equipment I needed, as well as the process of my recording session so that there would be no procrastination as to what to do during the session. It also detailed any possible problems I could foresee and how I would solve them.

Even though this pre-production plan was highly detailed, a few things still changed due to circumstance. These are; the date of the recording was pushed forward by 2 days since I could not book the studio session I wanted because it was already occupied at that time, two microphones had to be switched (the SM58 and AKG C414) this was on recommendation of the resident sound engineer and that one of the microphones was already in use at the time, the time slot that I wanted had to be changed from 1:00pm till 3:00pm to 2:15pm till 3:30 pm.

Even though I had some minor setbacks, the session went incredibly smoothly. However, I did overlook the fact that I had to evidence with photos as well as audio recordings. I will make sure to not make this mistake again.

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This recording session was on the 12th May 2023, started at 2:15pm and finished at 3:30 pm.

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This recording session was on the 12th May 2023, started at 2:15pm and finished at 3:30 pm.

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The purpose of this session was to gather evidence in the form of test recordings with different microphones to see which one is the best to work with for my main project recordings.

In this time, I managed to do a total of 20 recordings with 4 different microphones with 5 recordings each.

These microphones were the Shure SM57, Sontronics STC-2, Sontronics Sigma and the AKG C1000s.

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Test 2 Sontronics STC-2 (4 ft angle left)#01

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Test 2 Sontronics STC-2 (4 ft angle right)#01

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The microphone I have decided to use is the Sontronics STC-2. This is because I found it to produce the most clear, crisp and reliably repeatable sound of all the microphones I tested. With this microphone, I can also change the polar pattern that I would like to record with which increases versatility. I will be moving forward with this microphone for all three tracks that I am recording using the cardioid polar pattern.

With the knowledge that I have gathered from the research recording session, I felt that I am not only confident in setting up the studio myself but also being my own sound engineer. This being said, I will still employ a classmate to assist me with recording to make the process easier and quicker.

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Test 1 Songtronics Sigma (4 ft angle left)#01

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Test 1 Sontronics Sigma (4 ft angle right)#01