1. Audio Production
Michael Jackson interview, indoor location recording;
The recording of the interview took place in a 20m x 7m corridor in the Deanfield
campus at the Henley college, that was the size of the little block in the D3 building
on the campus in which we were stood there was also a connecting 30m x 7m
corridor with at least 5-6 classrooms branching off the corridors we were in all made
of the same plastic material but un like the section we were recording in it was brick
and wooden doors on each side, so the sound re production from where all the
students were working did not create the best recording atmosphere. The location
was deserted with no interference from students walking down the corridor or coming
out of the classrooms during the recording giving the room a live feeling, re creating
echo’s but due to lessons taking place at the same time there was a tiny bit of
interference from the classrooms. This location was not the best of paces to pick but
a lot of the other locations on the site would have had a lot more interference from
students and other activities, the reverberation in the room was the largest problem
due to most of the length of one of the walls being a window sound reflected of it
very well creating the echo which can be heard on the recording. The room had
plastic coated walls and flooring which is not ideal for recording an interview because
the sound just bounce all around the room, we did not pick the ideal location but the
quality of the sound reproduced was not bad but in future a lot of considerations
have to be taken into place.
In our recording there was minimal background noise, but through some parts of the
recording it is clear that there is a sound from the surrounding classrooms coming
through and doors closing but does not over power the recording some of the louder
sounds interrupted, the bangs from tables and chairs being moved about but
because of the sounds being further away from the microphone they are not picked
up as clearly. There is a muffled sound even though the muffler was left on so the
interview came through very quiet, also the interviewer and interviewee were not
close enough to the H2 recorder or speaking loud enough so when put onto the
computers had to be adjusted in adobe soundbooth so that the content was louder.
Throughout the interview it is obvious that there is reverberation in this room there is
an echo, which bounces off the walls, and windows in the corridor this is the sound
that is produced when low frequency sounds react with the microphone and the
environment, this was not the ideal sound re-production which we wanted to achieve
but gives a good example of a surrounding which creates feedback on the
microphone makes the voices sound as if there dragging depending on the pitch of
the speech the lower the pitch the more it drags on.
Only briefly throughout the recording were there tiny interludes where sounds
obstructed the recording the microphone is a high powered microphone which picks
up sound waves from a good distance this has its ups and downs, if recording

2. speech in a enclosed location with no interference you can achieve a incredible
professional quality recording but when in a circumstance where there you may be
outside or in a busy environment a lot of sounds are picked up and make the
reproduction on the microphone come through muffled and unclear, mainly a
microphone that should be used in studios or for studio purposes on a low budget.
When recording any contact with the microphone is picked up and made clear that it
has happened when the recording is played back, so taking this into consideration
when we recorded we put the microphone on a stand then on window sill in the
corridor to avoid the problem of having loads of interference noises with every object
that the microphone made contact or close contact too, doing this enabled the
interviewer and interviewee to be able to hold up the script in which they were
reading and not have to mess round with holding the microphone. If the third
member of the group we were in had been holding the microphone there also would
have been more problem with recording regarding the clarity of the speech, because
the microphone would not of been held in a stable position and remain the same
distance away from the characters in question then the recording would have been
effected due to there voices travelling from different distances recreating louder and
lower sounds when played back. When dealing with the Zoom H2 there are
problems which can be avoided such as the mechanical noise when contact is made
with the microphone, using the muffler on the top of the microphone creates a
surface around the microphone which does not allow some sounds to reach the mic
without having to travel through the muffler filtering out some of the unwanted
sounds, but when recording with this microphone the best technique in not achieving
interference when holding or having to move the microphone is placing it on a stable
surface with the legs supplied and basing your recording around the microphone not
the microphone around the recording this allows the best re production quality. A
problem which usually occurs when using a lot of these microphones is interference
from mobile telephones and other radio signals these make a sound which ruins the
recording, fortunately we did not face this problem when recording in the corridor, all
the participants in the corridors phones signals were switched off to stop this from
happening.
The headphones supplied with the microphone are good quality but not to an
amazing standard they re produce the sound well if you are doing a on location
recording but if they are being used or studio purposes then having better quality
headphones such as Bose they would allow the microphone operator to hear the
recording as the microphone hears it with the headphones supplied this is not
possible the headphones to not muffle surrounding sounds so until you are at
playback point that’s when you can hear what has been recorded. This does no re
create problems when recording short sound clips but when recording an interview
problems can be solved early on and changed instead of getting through the
recording and not knowing what needs to be changed until the play back stage.

3. If I were to re record this interview with Michael Jackson I would change the location
to a sound proofed studio or a classroom with minimal background noise and
reverberation which creates the echo sound, that makes the recording sound
unprofessional and feel as if the conversation is lacking interest, the way the sound
is recorded can change the listeners perception because they cannot see the
character they are going by the tone of the voice and the way there voice comes
across to them, if it is tinny and doesn’t sound to a great standard interest is lost very
quickly. Pre production and planning would have been done before hand into the
location needed to be used instead of spur of the moment and picking somewhere to
record because as heard the playback of people in surrounding classrooms had
effect on the final product, in the room which I would choose it would have carpet
floors with concrete underneath and the walls would be concrete with carpet on them
as well to reduce reverberation and creating a clearer and more crisp sound. The
layout of the room would be a square room with a table in the middle, microphone in
the middle of the table with the interviewer on one side and the interviewee on the
other, due to the microphones polar pattern it is able to pick up sound waves from a
360 degree radius with no signal and sound interference this layout will be ideal for
creating the perfect interview circumstance, producing the best possible recording
with the equipment available, if I wanted to achieve the best possible room
surroundings and recording quality I would instead of having flat wall 90 degree
angle walls they would be curved so that the sound could not bounce straight back
off the surface, all wall lengths would be different size and with adjustable wooden
panels on the wall to adjust the reverberation and treble to perfectly assist the tpe of
recording I am doing, which would be with no reverb at all, so the conversation
sounded as natural as it possibly could. Using a ribbon microphone which is
commonly used on radio shows where a lot of interviews and speech is used
creating the best possible sound, 2 would be used, one for each person so that the
microphone did not have interfering sound waves travelling through them getting
mixed up and so when the final recording is transferred onto computer each
response is a single recording so can be cut and edited a lot easier in post
production.