DONE Unit 2.1:Communications (Research Log)

Research Log

To write my blog posts I needed to do a lot of research about several things, such as; microphones, production techniques, polar patterns artists and sound engineering. I used a lot of sources during my research, which were very helpful.

I annotated these articles to extract important information, which would be beneficial for me to add to my blog.

The first source I annotated was from ‘The Pop Textbook’, this was useful as it gave me some background information about Michael Jackson. The information that I learnt from this source was included in the opening paragraph/introduction of the blog post. Some of the information read was irrelevant to my blog as it went into detail about previous albums, or albums produced after Thriller. I decided not to include most of this information in my write up.

The second source I annotated was the ‘Bruce Swedien: Recording Michael Jackson’ article from Sound on Sound magazine. As this article is quite long (8 pages), I only annotated some of the most important parts of the source that were most relevant to my blog post. Due to ths source being from a professional music tech magazine, it used a lot of key words and terms. I found this extremely useful as it gave me an idea of who I should be writing my blog for and how it should sound. The article included a big section about the ‘Acousonic’ recording technique. I took a lot of information from this post and it helped me understand the production characteristics of Thriller.  I also used a section about how the production team experimented in Thriller. This helped me explain what made Thriller so unique, and give a more detailed description of a songs production characteristics. Towards the end of the article, there was quite a lot of information about the microphones Bruce Swedien has and what he has used for what. From this I extracted information about the mics he used to record Michael Jackson and why he used them.

After reading the Sound on Sound article I was a bit confused about some of the terms and key words mentioned in the post. Something I was in particularly confused about was the ‘Acousonic’ technique, so I used the Sound on Sound website again to research this technique. This article was extremely helpful as it defined the technique,  stated the advantages and disadvantages and explained the impact of the technique on music.

The purpose of my research was to have a clear understanding of the topics focused on in the blog. I also wanted to develop and stretch my knowledge of the subject overall.  I believe that I have achieve this by creating a blog explaining different aspects of music technology and sound production.

Secondary Source	Relevance to my blog post
Profile: Micheal Jackson (Page 83) The Pop Textbook- by Julia Winterson, Peter Nickol and Toby Brincheno.	This source of information gave me a lot of background information about the performing artist. I included information extracted from this source in the introduction of my blog as it gave a good explanation of the artist and previous albums. This post also allowed me to understand the impact Thriller had on future Michael Jackson albums and how it contributed to the overall success of  the artist.
‘What is the Acusounic Recording Technique?’ Sound on Sound magazine- written by David Mackay, information from technical editor Hugh Robjohns.	I found this resource extremely helpful as it gave me good understanding of the technique, which helped me explain in my article about the technique and why Bruce Swedien decided to use it.
Bruce Swedien: Recording Michael Jackson. Sound on Sound magazine- Mike Senior.	This article covered a wide variety of information.  I only needed certain sections of information for my blog post. This article mainly explained to me the production characteristics, techniques and microphones used in the production.
Microphones: Polar Pattern/ Directionality. Shure	This source included definitions and explanations of different polar patterns and directions which either me or Bruce Swedien used in recordings. I found this article helpful toward my post as it enables me to understand what microphones need to be used in certain situations.  I included this information throughout my blog, especially when talking about microphones. I trusted this site because its run by Shure, and they are a trust and well established brand for microphones.
Dynamic Microphones and Condenser Microphones Media College	This website contains information about the two microphone types. The information on the site was very simple and straight the point, so it was quite easy to understand. But this meant it lacked in detail. I did all of the information on these two mics in my blog post, but I knew that it would be necessary to carry out further research into the topic to expand my knowledge.
Microphones: Frequency Response. Shure	I  used the Shure website again to find out more about microphones and their frequency response. Here I found two frequency response graphs which I then used in my blog to explain flat frequency response and tailored frequency response.
Acoustic Glossary Acoustic-Glossary.co.uk	This website is perfect for finding definitions of key music technology words. I used this source to help me to define the main key words which I wanted to use in my blog. By doing this, I knew exactly what I was going on about, whilst using key terms in my blog.
Shure SM57 Dynamic Instrument Microphone Shure	By using this source I got to learn a lot more about one of the mic that we were using in the studio. Not only did this help me write about the mic in my blog, but it also enabled me to use the mic to its full potential and know what instruments it suits.
AKG C1000S and AKG D112 AKG.com	Similarly to the Shure website, this source gave me information about one of the mics that we were using in recordings.
Samson C01 Samsontech.com	Again, this site gave us information about one of the mics that we were using and also allowed us to use the mic correctly in practices.
Zoom H2 Handheld Recorder The Manual	Alternatively, to source information about this piece of equipment I used the operation manual. This gave me a detailed understanding of how to use the mic and explained the different settings on the recorder.