Matakuliah
Tahun
: O0372 - Dasar-Dasar Produksi Siaran Radio
: 2010
RECORDING and PLAYBACK DEVICES
Book: “Modern Radio Production” by Hausman, Benoit,
Messere, & O’Donnell: Chapter 4
Pertemuan 3
SAMPLING
Sampling is the process of converting analog audio
signals into numerical representation.
• Basically it involves taking a snapshot of the audio
wave and breaking it down into very small
segments of the signals that can be expressed in a
form computers can use. The sample sound is going
to be converted into a computer word, called a bit.
•
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MAGNETIC TAPE
•
•
•
AUDIOTAPE is a strip of material with a thin coating of
iron oxide (a fancy name for rust) on one surface.
The iron oxide particles are in powdery form, they line up
when they are exposed to an electromagnetic field, and they
are the elements that holds the magnetic information.
The backing of the tape-the material over which the coating
is applied-is made of Mylar, which is a resilient, extremely
tough substance that will stretch before it breaks.
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MAGNETIC TAPE
• Digital Audiotape (DAT) is the tape corolarry of
the compact disc: It is recorded using the same
kinds of sampling and coding methods described
earlier.
• However, DAT has an advantage over CD’s by
being readily available for recording as well as for
playback and the tape can be used over and over
again.
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TAPE MACHINE CONTROLS and INDICATORS
• PLAY: Depressing the Play button will cause the
machine to play back the recording on the tape.
• RECORD (REC): When record is activated, the
record head impresses a signal on the iron oxide
particles on the tape; this is the signal that can be
read back by the play head.
• VOLUME UNIT (VU) METER: The tape
machine’s VU meter monitors the signal coming
into the tape machine so that proper levels can be
maintained when recording.
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TAPE MACHINE CONTROLS and INDICATORS
• FAST-FORWARD (FF): Control moves the tape
forward at a high rate of speed.
• REWIND (REW): Control moves the tape
backward.
• STOP: Brings the motion of the mechanism to a
halt.
• PAUSE: Temporarily stop the play mechanism
without disengaging the tape from the heads.
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TAPE MACHINE CONTROLS
and INDICATORS
• OPEN/CLOSE: toggles the sliding door
holding the DAT cassette.
• SHUTTLE: A dial that allows you to
play the tape at faster than normal so as
to find cue points on the tape.
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TAPE MACHINE CONTROLS and INDICATORS
•CUEING a TAPE:
– Sometimes, there’ll be a countdown or a cue tone on prerecorded tapes
to help the operator in cueing. Learn to listen to the countdown on cue,
stop the tape machine after the last countdown, and be set to put the
program on air.
•DAT PLAYBACK:
– A DAT machine’s tape head places the signal at a specific location on
a stripe called a track. It is a function of recorded or player
configuration, not a property of the tape itself.
– In the playback mode, tape is pulled across the head in the same
fashion as in the record mode.
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DISK DRIVE RECORDING
• A hard disk drive has one or more self-contained,
glass disk that have been coated with iron oxide and
then polished to a high-precision, smooth surface.
The record/play heads move over the disks without
actually touching the surface.
• When playing back an audio file, the hard drive
head moves across the data along a path determined
by the hard drive’s file directory.
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DISK DRIVE RECORDING
•
•
•
The pulses represent a series of 0s and 1s, and the data is
accumulated within the computer in a “Buffer,” then
transferred to the data registers within the computer.
Then, the data is converted into audio pulses by the digitalto-analog converter (D-to-A) within the computer’s sound
card.
Modern disk drives have extremely fast ‘seek’ times; can
retrieve the data fast enough to allow the computer to
accumulate the audio data and play it back as an audio file in
real time.
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DISK DRIVE RECORDING
• Digital Audio Workstations (DAW):
– Software that provides recording and mixing capabilities
turns a computer into a DAW.
– With DAW, a producer can perform editing functions far
more easily and expertly than was possible using splicing
and editing.
– The major advantages of this technology are the
automatic functions that can be built into the software by
making use of the computer’s lightning fast power.
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HEADS and TRACKS (Analog tape Machines)
• An analog tape machine’s heads place the signal on
a specific location on the tape, a stripe called a track.
• Many track machines place the signal across the
entire width of the tape; sensibly, this is called a
full-track recording.
• The most common reel-to-reel configuration for
broadcasting is known as two-track. Two stripes are
recorded for stereo, the left track is track one, the
right is track two.
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HEADS and TRACKS
• Each tracks is placed onto the tape by means of a
separate head. However, multiple heads can be
situated on the same structure. The element that
actually puts the signal on the tape is a tiny
rectangle on the structure that holds the head.
• When you see more than one head, the structure
holding them is called a headstack.
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CARTRIDGE MACHINES
• The advantage of using carts is that the units designed to
play them are able to sense a cue tone on the tape that will
stop the tape automatically after it has played through full
cycle.
• The tape will be all set to start again from the beginning. In
essence, the tape cues itself up. This is why cart machines are
so useful in radio production.
• A mono cart machine has two tracks; one contains only the
cue tone. Stereo cart machines have two tracks of audio and a
track for the cue tone.
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BULK ERASER
• Often called a bulker; is a large electromagnet that
scrambles the impulses on the iron oxide coating of
the tape. The bulker also works with reel-to-reel
tapes and cassettes if you want to erase them
completely.
• Magnetism from the bulking operation can also
damage your wristwatch, so be sure to remove your
watch before you begin to erase tapes.
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