Thought that statement would get your attention! There are a plethora of free plugins out there, most of which are not worth the bytes they occupy. But every now and then a diamond is released to the world for a grand total of zero dollars. Memories of the free and quite amazing Blockfish compressor that came in very handy a good 8 (Or is it 18) years ago when it was released. There are a huge range of free plugins out there which is why I was immediately suspicious when I heard about a new free “virtual studio” room/monitor modelling plugin. “Bah” I though. Then I heard it has been developed and released by Beyer Dynamic. That got my attention. 

Beyer Dynamic are very well known for their Headphones. In fact Beyer Dynamic produced the very first set of dynamic headphones way back in 1938. The DT100 headphones made by Beyer have become the world wide industry standard, and are seen in studios from here to the Arctic Circle. The free plugin they have released is a “virtual studio” modeller, that allows you to reference your mix (through headphones) on a range of different modelled setups right from the comfort of your very own DAW. Really?

Download the free plugin here.

This is what Beyer say about it. 

Rather than packing up your mix and taking it to all of these places – which would take a long time and would be pretty expensive – rely on the ultimate solution from beyerdynamic:

A VST and AU-based plug-in that can be used with standard music programs such as Magix Samplitude, Steinberg Cubase, Apple Logic etc.

The plug-in virtually simulates real speaker systems (such as stereo or 5.1) in various environments (recording studio, concert halls, etc.) on your headphones.

No more long waiting periods and stress with appointments just to use a studio space which is only available for a limited time anyway – with beyerdynamic Virtual Studio you can mix and master your tracks whenever you want and wherever you are. Whether riding on the train, sitting at home on the sofa or hanging out at a friend’s place – you can take the studio wherever you go.

Well, its interesting, and not that bad considering its free. As far as the alternatives are concerned, the main competition comes in the form of the VRM box from Focusrite. Which attempts to model well known studio monitors, so one can mix on their headphones with greater accuracy. Not bad if all you have is a laptop and using the bog standard headphone out has never been a very good option anyway.  Also the price is quite reasonable for the VRM coming in at just under $100 including the pint sized USB D to A converter. (A better option if you ask me, as the sound of the D-A’s would obviously be taken into account.)

VRM Box Sound on Sound Review. 

The “Virtual studio” plugin that Beyer has released claims to do the same thing. It also claims that you no longer need a studio to get pro mix, these kinds of claims tend to make me very skeptical.  I guess im just going to have to give it a wirl and see what it sounds like. At the end of the day, it cant be worse than using the laptop headphone out. Or could it?

The downside? It only supports VST and AU no ASX or RTAS. So Pro Tools goes out the window unless you use the VST wrapper by FXpansion. Well, Im a poor person, so I will be using this plug through the trusty (kinda Free) but always amazing Reaper! Damn I love that DAW! At the end of the day I just need to reference, but the inclusion of a ASX version would be very nice indeed, I seem to be making tunes on my laptop more and more these days since Pro Tools has raised the bar when it comes to midi and virtual instrument functionality.

Is there a risk of recording studios one day becoming so automated and digital that they dont even exist? Instead of buying a range of esoteric mic’s and few racks of decent vintage compressors and pre’s, and a set of monitors that cost more than a medium budget family car, you get a small white box with an apple logo on the side that pumps out finished masters by just setting the band up in front of the little built in mic that uses “omnipresent immersive transducer technology” and pressing the “start” button. Or perhaps recording studios will become virtual reality environments where band members can all perform on an album, being recorded live, while they sit on their couches playing grand theft audio 28 and eat spacenacks. I suppose even then you will pay over $1000 for a virtual reality version of an LA-2A compressor.

That day sounds like a very sad day to me. If it is inevitable, then why not embrace it? Give your R 100 000 Genelecs to me and download a free plugin! Go on, do it! You know it makes sense.

Photo: Rob Piper.

Many Bands have been recorded here at the Cape Audio College over the years. Although we posses a huge amount of musical diversity from within our student body it is always a pleasure to see some experienced rockers taking the floor. The Bootleggers blues band (Just The bootleggers is fine) is a 6 piece blues rock outfit that have been around for quite some time and have been playing Cape Town festivals, clubs and music venues for a number of years. Our student this time round is Oliver Stutz, who recorded this band in our fantastic main studio facility, using some of the best tools in the trade. Enjoy!

Oliver Stutz reports

The Bootleggers are Cape Town based and have been playing clubs, festivals and music venues around the Cape Town music scene for a number of years. The band currently features the following members:

Vocalist and harp player Terry Porter

Lead guitarist Ralph Buddle

Guitarist/vocalist Hallam Lewis

Bass guitarist Dieter Stutz

Drummer Brian Mansell

Keyboard player Trevor Perrins

Oliver Stutz reports: “The whole experience was incredibly exciting. Waiting for the band to arrive, we started to prepare the microphones and equipment for the band. The tech-rider comprised of the following:”

Drum Mics:

Overheads           -                 3 x AKG C1000”s
Snare                       -                 Shure SM57, Shure Beta 56A
Kick                           -                 Shure Beta 91A, Audix D6
Hi-Hat                     -                 Rhode NT3
Toms                        -                 3 x Sennheiser MD421

Guitarist’s Set-up:

2 x Radial D.I.
Fender Twin Reverb        – Sennheiser MD421
Laney 50 watt                     – Shure SM57
Boss FX Pedal
Guitars                                   – Fender Stratocaster,  Line 6 JTV-59

 

Bass guitar and keyboard were both recorded with radial D.I.’s.

Bass Guitar was processed with a DBX 160a Compressor.

Vocals were recorded with Neumann U89’s.

Further processing on vocals included a Focusrite RED 2 EQ and Focusrite RED 3 Compressor.

All audio was recorded onto the Radar tracking system.

Mixed and Mastered in Pro Tools.

Jacques Foce reports: “We recorded the band together, allowing the musicians to ‘feed’ off of one another. Experience has shown that musicians tend to play better when playing in the same space.

Preparing for this, we placed the drums within the live room at Cape Audio College, with the other band members all positioned in the live room as well. Guitar amps were placed in the dead room, separating the bleed from the drums in the guitar amps. Bass and keys were fed into the desk via D.I.’s, so no problem was encountered with bleed there. Vocals were recorded after the band take in the dead booth”.

“After doing the ‘scratch’ takes, we layered all guitar and key solos in”.

In the mix with Ollie Stutz:

“I found mixing the band to be great fun. As a mix engineer, it gave me great creative freedom to make the mix as interesting as possible. Blues has given me the opportunity to be able to apply a lot of saturation to the vocals, harmonica and a few other elements, giving the mix ‘life’.”

“Overheads were compressed heavily to create a sense of continuity throughout the track, close mics then gave us the dynamic range that added change in the drum track”.

“Keys were ADT’d to create a wider stereo spread”.

“We had trouble getting the vocals to fit nicely in the mix, eventually after some more compression through the RED 3, using a fast attack and medium to slow release, we found what we were looking for, and the vocals gelled into the track without losing clarity.”

Mastering was done in the box.

Overall it was an enjoyable experience that we would be happy to repeat.

Here are links to the two tracks we recorded, mixed and mastered.

http://www.thebootleggers.co.za/media/mp3/1-Down-In-The-Hole.mp3?link=1

http://www.thebootleggers.co.za/media/mp3/2-T-Bone-Shuffe.mp3?link=1

Watch this space for further tracks from the Bootleggers.

We would like to thank Cape Audio College, Gaston Roulstone and Rae de Jager for the great experience, and for the hospitality. We truly had an awesome time.

Hand held field recorders have become very popular over the last few years. With the DSLR video making community growing and with the influx of budget movie productions making the big time, the need for quality location sound recording has become necessity for any budding Spielberg. It has never been easier to obtain professional results with a modest budget. Zoom has been a big contender in the hand held recorder market recently, possibly due to their ability the make cheap and cheerful products that get the job done. Zoom’s good reputation in guitar effects processing died along time ago, with the Zoom 9000 from the mid 90′s. Tascam however has had a good reputation for making professional field recorders for quite some time. And although entering the consumer market a bit late,  have managed to release some rather good contenders for the affordable location recorder  top dog award. Other contenders that are also releasing good gear in this niche are Sony, Marantz and Olympus. The Marantz PMD 661 being at the top of the range (RRP, 670 euro).

The Tascam DR-40 is a new model that boasts some of the professional features of the more expensive DR-100. Firstly, its quite a bit smaller than the DR-100, comfortably fitting into your hand or onto even the smallest of camera tripods. It features XLR/jack combo sockets for using external mics or line inputs. Phantom power,  recording resolutions of up to 24bit /96kHz. Direct Mp3 recording up to 320kbps.  It stores all of this on a SD flash card and can connect to your computer via USB. At first glance it really does tick all the boxes. And after a quick test recording and playback through the on board speaker,  it seems like quite a nice piece of kit.

Finding the features.

Turning the DR-40 on it felt immediate familiar.  The back-lit LCD display shows everything you would need while recording. Folder name, time clock down to milliseconds, speed and effect on/off indicators, some quite usable stereo meters, a decibel meter and lastly the name of the actual audio file that you are currently recording. Recording seemed logical and happened without the need to refer to the manual. So far, the DR-40 is a really easy recorder to use. With a little further tinkering I discovered that there are some surprising features that make the DR-40 a very useful compact recorder.

On the control front, the face of the DR-40 features a small back-lit LCD display, rather primitive by today’s standards but functional and easy on the batteries.  Pressing the menu button gives me access to the majority of the features available. Record settings allows me to alter format, sample and bit rate. Options here are WAV or Broadcast WAV (BWF), 16bit to 24bit, 44.1, 48 and 96 kHz. It will also record directly to Mp3 upto 320kbps, which comes in very hand for voice notes or song writing ideas on the road, you can fit a lot of mp3′s on a 2 gig SD card.  There is also the option off a low cut (80Hz) and an indication of available memory. Play back settings allows you to alter the way the recordings are played back, including a repeat function and a basic equalizer. heading back to the main menu you will find a browser to select and listen to your recordings, rename etc…. other options include a basic effects processor, remote and system settings. Recording is obviously a rather linear affair with no signs of useful editing, you can however record overdubs, and there is a “divide” function for basic edits, which kind of puts this recorder into amateur porta-studio market. I think it is assumed that any serious editing will happen in the users preferred DAW software.

More features on the device itself include your usual suspects on the transport side, stop play and record, the record button has an inset illumination that flashes when armed and solid red while recording. Mic input level selection can be made using the track/input buttons with actual mic gain controls on the left hand side of the casing.  Record mode’s are also accessible directly below the display which provide options for on board, mono, stereo, Dual file 2/4 mic,  or 4 channel (Internal and external mics) as well as an overdub mode. 4 Channel mode also gives you delay compensation controls for any ambient mics you are planning on setting up. This makes for a very professional feature, and as I look closer the DR-40 is turning out to be quite a feature rich recorder.

Also available directly from the front panel is the “quick” button, this gives you immediate access to basic editing and deletion tools as well as a mix-down tool that will combine all four of you channels to a single stereo file.  A basic mixer is also available from the face, that provides level, pan and effect send controls.  The “PB cont” button or Playback control, curiously gives you access to a loop function that allows you to loop a section of an audio file to overdub across. It will also allow to change the tempo of a file without changing the pitch. Time compression and expansion was not an expected feature, I can tell you. Although not all that advanced, it still provides some useful tools for the muso on the go. Hell! I can see armies of hipsters people recording entire albums with these things! On the left hand side panel we have mic, line and mic+ phantom power selectors, as well as a hold or “lock” function and the aforementioned input gain control.  The right hand side sports a simple weather proof SD cover as well as a curiously exposed USB point. Power is provided using 4 x AA batteries, which might seem a bit ancient in these days of lithium-ion rechargeable’s, but actually makes sense as location recording can often be a long way from a power outlet and easy obtainable power cells are a necessity for long shoots. This makes sense and eliminates the need for multiple lithium-ion packs on site as AA’s are available from any corner shop and rechargeable AA’s are affordable these days.

Results

Sound quality is subjective and to expect this recorder to replace a professional front end is just plain ridiculous.  Having said that, with a little tweaking and some careful positioning, useful and rather surprising results emerged from the DR-40. At first impression, the built in mic’s are a little harsh and thin, but I think this can be expected as we cant assume for premium mic capsules at this price point. Noise levels where quite audible, but acceptable and while using the built in tripod attachment, handling noise can obviously be omitted.

The differences with the XY and AB modes were obvious, AB providing a wider and more neutral sounding result. The XY configuration I found to exaggerate harshness in the higher mid range. And while this provides a little extra cut through for vocal recordings, it can sound a bit unnatural on some sources. The XLR inputs sounded as expected, reproducing the sound of my Oktava MK012 small diaphragm condensors  quite well. Although useful, I can compare results to that of a entry level audio interface, which these days is quite good.  A little bit fo processing goes a long way, and after some tweak’s, I found that after a touch of EQ and compression the results from the DR-40′s own mic’s are actually quite usable.

Anyhow, here is a little recording so you can make your own mind up. The first recording is completely un-processed and the second has some minor EQ and compression.

 Conclusion

The Tascam DR-40 is a fantastic addition to the handheld field recorder craze. For the price, I’m quite impressed with the results. There are a lot fo options on the market today when it comes to hand held recorders, and the Tascam DR-40 stands up against the best of them in my opinion. There are some very welcome professional features on the DR-40, and subjective results are very usable. Even on relatively quite sources like acoustic guitar picking. Which as you can hear the DR-40 handled with rather well.  Where I see the real use of the DR-40 is building exterior sound sample collections, recording a snare drum in an underground car park or generating a set of percussion samples from your kitchen appliances.  Creatively, the sky is the limit. And of course the DR-40 works quite well as a location recorder, although there is no way of locking to time code, recorded results beat the stuffing out of any built in mic found on modern DSLR cameras. So, if you are a budding Spielberg, you might want to consider getting yourself one of these, with careful use, the improvements you can make on your location recordings can make the difference between amateur hour and a serious production. And there are other (Perhaps better) options on the market than Zoom, despite what the guy at the shop might tell you.

Tascam products are distributed in South Africa by Wild & Marr and are available at good audio gear retailers nation wide. 

Hey Guys just an Update on a piece of software I was talking about awhile ago, Its called Plugin Update and basically their goal is pretty simple … keep your plugins up to date, well you’ll be pleased to know its officially gone into private beta testing and its currently operational with major plugin vendors setting up shop.  Here are a few words from the Lead Developer :

“Lots of exciting stuff is happening behind the scenes. We’re currently in fully functional private beta with developers for the PluginUpdate Store. While they get acquainted and start setting up their products, we’re hard at work on the Windows version of PluginUpdate.” – Courtesy of Pro-Tools-Expert

So keep your eyes open for this nifty little package.

The Cape Audio Colleges initiative to provide a professional sound rig for students personal development seems to be going quite well. The proposals have been coming in and it looks like our rig is making its way out into the clubs of Cape Town just about every weekend. This time round Mandla Mkaba and Co took advantage of the our JBL rig to organise an event in Observatory Cape Town. It was really great to see that the guys took things a step further and secured a Blackberry sponsor. By the look of the photos and the report, the event was very successful and we can expect to see more partys popping up from this new and exciting student formed company.

This is what Mandla had to say about the event.

We as Dopamene Productions are second year students at Cape Audio College, the members of Dopamene Productions are Mandla Mkaba, Mlandvo Mamba, Vusumzi Makalima. Being second year students at Cape Audio College and running our own company at the same time meant we had to give a proposal to head of the college to endorse/sponsor our company with the live rig, for the HIP HOP HOTTBOX which is an event we have initiated from the 27 April 2013 and will continue to have more around the Cape Town vicinity.

In the beginning or planning stage we had no sponsors what so ever but Cape Audio backing us up, meaning that all promotions, marketing, event planning , stage co-ordination, transport , budget we are an extreme weakness to us as we are sound engineering students so each member had to be delegated a “research ” task which none of us enjoyed and found very tiring and time consuming, eventually we had managed to over come the extensive paper work next step was implementation and acquiring a crowd pleaser or a sponsor that would boost the image of the event. Upon our research we had found out that BlackBerry was sponsoring student initiatives and we went for it we handed them over with our paper work and they responded immediately saying that they approve and would sponsor our event all they needed was they logo on our flyers, which also was a bit of a problem cause we had already been marketing the event and had printed out most of the flyers and we didn’t have the budget to print out more flyers with the Blackberry logo on them (havok/panic attack). Now that blackberry had agreed to sponsoring the event we couldn’t meet the requirements, we devised a plan that they should give the biggest banners they had and posters and back drops to make seem that they had most of the control of the event and our plan worked. Now that we had all sponsors in a row getting the crowd to the event should not be a mission and it wasn’t honestly the event practicaly promoted itself all we had to do was put our posters in the right places as we had defined our target market which was all the student hostels we know of. First spot was UCT we there handing out flyers hanging up posters through out the weeks and CPUT cape town campus and all over observatory we only stopped marketing the event on the day of the event at 8:00pm when the event was in full motion, the turn out was great the club could only host 150 the turn out was about 250 the club owner was ecstatic he started sponsoring the event with booze too handing out free shots to everyone who came through the door and we started looking like bosses now, the sound system was floorless with Vusumzi Makalima as the engineer for the night, Mlandvo Mamba as stage manager, Mandla Mkaba as the tickets collector and door guy for the day. As of agreement blackberry had agreed that they would sponsor the event with Blackberry smart and airtime with data bundles, the smart phone was going to be won by the best performer of the night and the bundles and airtime we won by the crowd whoever knew about blackberry and the questions they had on the night won bundles all in all it was a succesfull event beyond our expectations.

THANK YOU CAPE AUDIO COLLEGE FOR TRUSTING US WITH THE EQUIPMENT, THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT AND FAITH YOU GUYS HAVE IN US, THANKS TO BB ASWELL FOR GIVING US A BOOST.

DOPAMENE PRODUCTIONS

We Run Tingz

At the Cape Audio College we like supporting our students in and outside of the college. Valuable experience is difficult to find these days, which is why we feel it is important to provide a means for students to get practice outside of the college walls. This is why, the Cape Audio College has invested in a JBL audio rig that we make available to our students for live events.  Another first for South African audio colleges. If you study at the Cape Audio College, you too will be able to take advantage of our JBL rig. Whether you are planning small events or doing P.A. for a family birthday, our rig is available. But! It doesnt come entirely for free. We want to see how valuable the experience is for the students who use it. This is why we have a “student diary” requirement, basically meaning that evey student that takes the rig, needs to write a short report about how they did it and give us a small breakdown of the evening. These reports will be published in this blog to show you guys what our students get up to on the weekends.  This time round, its Craig Bokelman, who set up our rig for a 50th birthday party. Lets hear what he had to say.

Nicette’s 50^th Birthday Party:

We started by setting off early on Friday morning to go to Cape Audio College to fetch the equipment to get a fresh and early start. I was accompanied by Jason Smith and Skye Rhode which are both first years at Cape Audio and helped me with packing equipment in and setting up the equipment at the venue. We used the JBL rig which was sponsored by the college. The set up went well with the help of Jason and Skye which was a learning curve for all of us. 

The sound was very clean and crisp and was the type of sound that was needed. We had the full JBL rig with the tops and subs set up in the main venue with the stage wedges/monitors were placed outside so that the sound was clearly heard through the whole venue. When the party started, we set a basic EQ that would be suitable for the whole night but we still had someone by the desk watching the levels and doing minor adjustments on the EQ. The night was a great success thanks to Cape Audio College and the JBL rig; the people at the party were very impressed by the excellent sound quality. Thanks again to Cape Audio College for making this a memorable evening. 

Dave Pearce might be more familier to you as the one half of Pascal & Pearce. Pascal & Pearce are fast becoming one of South Africa’s top house exports, with UK tours and and two albums on offer. Dave graduated from the Cape Audio College diploma course 3 years ago and since then has been busy at work with his partner in crime Pascal Ellinas creating some serious tunes for the masses. Its great to see one of our graduates doing so well.  Dave started by giving the students some details on his musical history starting with his music studies from leaving school and studying drums then coming to Cape Audio College to complete his Sound Engineering diploma. Coming from a Rock music background Cape Audio College was a great platform for Dave to develop his newfound love for House music production.

The details of how he progressed from a student to a house hold industry name.

The students where interested in how he started by remixing Locain Ville Sun in my pocket as a way to get their foot in the door with the current record label. This remixing formula still works for them as they are currently nominated for a SAMA award for Toya De-laya re-mix of Heart. When asked about the creative methods him and his Partner Pascal go through when working on new tracks, Dave looked a bit confused and answered that the process creates itself. It has become more difficult with fame as deadlines now loom over them on projects that never happened in the past. This means that working on their time management in the process of production. This meant finding new ways of working with your DAW by means of templates, sessions layouts etc. On doing so he feels a producer gets to a musical idea faster with more detailed results. 

Living the DJ rock star lifestyle Dave has just returned from London and U.K gig the past weekend before heading back to South Africa. They are currently breaking into the international gig scene. This means finding the right-booking agents with the right timing to launch into the international market. They currently working on their marketing and building their local fan base. The DJ scene has a huge amount of politics that Dave says his personally avoids and tries not to get to involved with the Dark side of the scene.  His advice to all the students is to get an agent and not to deal with the club owners themselves. As DJ’ing  forms the main part of exposure and income for electronic music producers you need to find early on how to get a balance with business taking the preference if you wish to make a living as a DJ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGrO4vzt79I

Going back to his production methods Dave discussed how they prefer to use MIDI wherever they can as he is musically trained, they are open to using sample packs depending on the requirements of the specific track they working on. The standard plug-ins that come with DAW’s are very powerful and great sounding these days so nothing wrong with using them. They master their own tracks if they need to but prefer to get the tracks mastered by a professional. The first album was mastered in London and that really added to the appeal. Dave feels its easier to go from being a producer to DJ as through the process of production you get to have a greater understanding of where other peoples tracks are going along the transitions.   

Dave discussed how the local dance scene especially over the past two years has grown and expanded while starting to catch up, which can be seen by the recent increase in number of internationals DJ’s giging in South Africa. The advantage of this growth is how local producers can compare themselves to big international producers. “This helps to uplift your skills as a producer” Dave says laughing at the students “because technology allows you to have access to the international market thereby long gone are the times we lost in the dark with regards to latest musical trends and releases”.  We ended off the night with some great Pascal and Pierce tracks being played and broken down for the students. Dave went not only into the musical productions but also the history of the tracks how they started from a concept to the final released track. How unforeseen problems caused them to take a complete new route on the track or remix then they originally played. The history of how radio stations refused to play some of their music didn’t mean they stopped submitting them for play listing. Their first single was rejected for two months before being accepted then made it to the top 10 on the local charts. This is where Dave says the label was a serious asset as the experience and knowledge of the local scene allowed for them to over come issues they might not have if they were releasing totally independently. The insight and experience Dave’s short talk opened up a whole world of knowledge for the current students that could never be found in a book.

Ending off the night by playing and discussing some of their latest tracks soon to be released. Dave discussed some of the new ideas and sounds they experimenting with opening up new avenues in production for the duo. The latest collaboration with Riot Squad shows a new side to their musical creations by adding nastier element to the bass lines. Dave expresses how this keeps them inspired and helps them to keep progressing along their musical path. When asked what music he listens to on a daily bases Dave blew away minds when he said he comes from a punk rock background and listens to a large variety of genres and finds himself even going back to golden oldies. Its important he feels to stay in touch with the history of music while progressing forward but keeping it all pleasing to the ear.

Big thanks Dave for returning to the college to pass on some words of wisdom to our now current students leaving them inspired and motivated to keep working on their own productions.

Article written by: Gaston Roulstone. 

For those of you who dont follow whats happening on Ted Talks, LRAD or “Long range acoustic device”, is a portable long range acoustic amplification system currently being used by the military and coast guard as an acoustic deterrent in their battle against riot, pirate and crowd control. LRAD has had a lot of coverage in the news. It was famously used during the Seaborne Spirit piracy incident in 2005, effectively repelling pirates armed with rocket propelled grenade launchers.  It is an extremely useful tool, LRAD can render an area un-inhabitable by amplifying ear shattering audio signals from as far away as 9 kilometers. LRAD causes no long term ill effects to anyone who gets in the way of its sonic blast, but can send any living creature scurrying in the opposite direction with great effect. LRAD can be used for a variety of different tasks, as a long range communication device, LRAD can provide a solution for large crowd public address and can be seen as being vastly more effective than a megaphone. 

We were lucky enough to receive a demonstration of the smaller hand held LRAD system by LRAD SA’s Steve Bunker who showed us how effective the system can be at short range.  The hand held system can be used for riot control, wildlife / Bird control, mining and farming zone control as well as large scale public address.  Weighing in at a mere 6.8 kilograms which can be easily  mounted on just about anything or carried for ultra-portability. The demonstration caused quite a stir amongst our neighbours as a mock “chemical spill” warning message was used for demonstration purposes. The larger LRAD systems can  be found sporting the decks of large Navy and Coast guard vessels and can be an extremely valuable tool when deterring pirates from coastlines and away from cargo ships.

Andrew and Steve Bunker (Owners of the LRAD South African distributorship) are currently working on an advertising campaign for the LRAD system to be marketed here in South Africa. College friend and 20 year radio advertising veteran Greg Smith will be heading the LRAD campaign with a little help from some of our second year students. The best commercial produced by students will be aired on the radio as part of the LRAD advertising campaign. This is a fantastic opportunity for students to get their foot in the door as it were and this is the very first time the Cape Audio College is providing a “real job” opportunity as a course assignment and could very well pave the way for keen advertising audio engineers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ORW_k8fKs

Share ]]> http://www.capeaudiocollege.co.za/blog/?feed=rss2&p=2952 0 http://www.capeaudiocollege.co.za/blog/?p=2941 http://www.capeaudiocollege.co.za/blog/?p=2941#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:14:59 +0000 Richard Harriman http://www.capeaudiocollege.co.za/blog/?p=2941

It is quite important for developing audio engineers to have an understanding of component based signal flow. Much of the equipment we use in studio or on stage sits at the very cutting edge of modern electronics technology.  This is why, we think its is imperative for fledgling audio professionals to gain experience in the fantastic field of electrical engineering and audio device construction.  You will be amazed what you can build from the home work bench or temporary kitchen table work area. As part of second year diploma course during the Audio Technology fundamentals module, students are expected to build a working audio device based on a schematic and provided circuit boards. Students will not only populate their PCB’s with common components but also gain valuable experience with cabling, testing (Using the latest audio test equipment) and soldering. This project provide’s an understanding of “what happens when your signal enters the box”. A valuable knowledge set for any developing audio guru. At the end of the day, every student will take a working cable tester home with them to be used in the field.

The development of this project took some time. Thanks to the help of Barry Sanderman at Communica was are now the proud owners of our own cable tester design and circuit board. Circuit boards are professionally manufactured to provide students with real world examples of what they might find in the interesting world of audio processor construction. Every student engaged with this project extremely well and as the project supervisor, I can say that skill development is clearly rapid in the supervised workshop’s and it is a pleasure to see the improvements in workmanship even over a three hour session.  This is the first time the Cape Audio College is offering an assignment if this kind and so far it has been a huge success.