Audio Engineering

Recording Consoles

Richard Brice

27.1 Introduction

This chapter is about recording consoles, the very heart of a recording studio. Like
our own heart, whose action is felt everywhere in our own bodies, consideration of a
recording console involves wide-ranging considerations of other elements within the
studio system. These, too, are covered in this chapter.

In pop and rock music, as well as in most jazz recordings, each instrument is almost
always recorded onto one track of multitrack tape and the result of the “ mix ” of all the
instruments combined together electrically inside the audio mixer and recorded onto a
two-track (stereo) master tape for production and archiving purposes. Similarly, in the
case of sound reinforcement for rock and pop music and jazz concerts, each individual
musical contributor is miked separately and the ensemble sound mixed electrically. It is
the job of the recording or balance engineer to control this process. This involves many
aesthetic judgements in the process of recording the individual tracks (tracking) and
mixing down the fi nal result. However, relatively few parameters exist under her/his
control. Over and above the offi ce of correctly setting the input gain control so as to
ensure best signal to noise ratio and control of channel equalization, her/his main duty is
to judge and adjust each channel gain fader and therefore each contributor’s level within
the mix. A further duty, when performing a stereo mix, is the construction of a stereo
picture or image by controlling the relative contribution each input channel makes to
the two, stereo mix amplifi ers. In cases of both multitrack mixing and multimicrophone
mixing, the apparent position of each instrumentalist within the stereo picture (image) is
controlled by a special stereophonic panoramic potentiometer, or pan pot for short.

CHAPTER 27