notesdontmatter

Forum – Week 8 – “Peter Dowdall and Sound Engineering”

Mr Dowdall presented a scarily realistic overview of his life as a devoted sound engineer. Starting off with what seemed like a worst case scenario, he outlined a past experience of recording a Jazz Big Band in the EMU recording space at Adelaide University. The fact that Peter had extensive experience with a space that we are all familiar with proved particularly useful in visualising the various situations that arose (not to mention his fastidious photographic chronology of the session).

I find that many audio engineering lectures, when dealing with technical specifics, tend to cover similar issues repeatedly. Peter’s was no different on the surface – microphone placement, mic suitability, headphone monitoring availability, communication, sound bleeding etc – but his repeated reference to the signal to room noise ratio, that must be considered with all instruments, seemed to really hit me as something I’ve not given proper consideration to in the past. Coaching performers to minimise their movement for instance, is something I’ve mostly approached as a timbral quality control practice based on the sound a performer makes, not other sounds that may become more present as a result of their movement.


Reference:

Dowdall, Peter. “Sound Engineering and Session Management.” Lecture presented at EMU space, University of Adelaide, level 5, Schultz Building, 8th of May 2008.

posted by David J Dowling @ 4:53 PM