British Library Sounds: History and Key Facts
British Library Sounds (previously named Archival Sound Recordings) is a British Library service providing free online access to a diverse range of spoken word, music and environmental sounds fro
Music Production
Sourced music production reference: history, people and documented cultural context.
Balanced audio: History and Key Facts
Balanced audio is a method of interconnecting audio equipment using balanced interfaces.
Audio tour: History and Key Facts
An audio tour or audio guide provides a recorded spoken commentary, normally through a handheld device, to a visitor attraction such as a museum or an exhibition.
Audio letter: History and Key Facts
An audio letter is an audio recording sent by postal mail to a recipient.
Audio forensics: History and Key Facts
Audio forensics is the field of forensic science relating to the acquisition, analysis, and evaluation of sound recordings that may ultimately be presented as admissible evidence in a court of la
Ambience (sound recording): History and Key Facts
In filmmaking, ambience (also known as atmosphere, atmos, or background) consists of the sounds of a given location or space.
Sound recording and reproduction: History and Key Facts
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effe
Vinyl rip: History and Key Facts
A vinyl rip is a version of a recording that has been transferred from a vinyl record to digital audio or other formats.
Stutter edit: History and Key Facts
The stutter edit, or stutter effect, is the rhythmic repetition of small fragments of audio, occurring as the common 16th note repetition, but also as 64th notes and beyond, with layers of digita
Producer tag: History and Key Facts
A producer tag (sometimes simply called a tag) is an element of a song, typically at the beginning of it, inserted there by the song's producer – a short sound meant to familiarize the listener w
Pumping (audio): History and Key Facts
In sound recording and reproduction, and music, pumping or gain pumping is a creative misuse of compression, the "audible unnatural level changes associated primarily with the release of a compre
Prerelease cover version: History and Key Facts
In the music industry, a prerelease cover version is a type of cover version that arose during the "iTunes era" of the early 2010s when a cover artist released a version of a song before the orig
Overdubbing: History and Key Facts
Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording ne
Musician: History and Key Facts
A musician is someone who composes, conducts, or performs music, especially instrumental music.
Music executive: History and Key Facts
A music executive or record executive is a person within a music company, in particular, a record label who works in senior management and makes executive decisions over the label's artists.
Loudness war: History and Key Facts
The loudness war (or loudness race) is a trend of increasing audio levels in recorded music, which reduces audio fidelity and—according to many critics—listener enjoyment.
Lip dub: History and Key Facts
A lip dub is a type of music video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing (copying audio from an existing recording) to make a music video.
Dubbing (music): History and Key Facts
In sound recording, dubbing is the transfer or copying of previously recorded audio material from one medium to another of the same or a different type.
Demo (music): History and Key Facts
A demo (shortened from "demonstration") is a song or group of songs typically recorded for limited circulation or for reference use, rather than for general public release.
Bedroom production: History and Key Facts
A bedroom producer is an amateur musician who creates, performs, and records their music independently using a home studio, often considered a hobbyist opposed to a professional record producer i
Sound Synthesis Theory: Sound in the Time Domain: An Open Learning Guide
The metric (acoustical) definition of sound is variation in pressure waves and density caused by the propagation of the waves through a medium. Between about 25Hz, and 18kHz, human hearing s
Sound Synthesis Theory: Sound in the Digital Domain: An Open Learning Guide
Digital systems (e.g. computers) and formats (e.g. CD) are clearly the most popular and commonplace methods of storing and manipulating audio. Since the introduction of the compact disc in t
Backing track: History and Key Facts
A backing track is an audio recording on audiotape, CD or a digital recording medium or a MIDI recording of synthesized instruments, sometimes of purely rhythmic accompaniment, often of a rhythm
Audio engineer: History and Key Facts
An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics pro
Anchor point: History and Key Facts
In audio and recording, what is known colloquially as an anchor point is a center position in a stereo mix reserved for only three or four important tracks.
Wall of Sound: History and Key Facts
The Wall of Sound is a recording approach and style of music production developed by American producer and songwriter Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in the early 1960s.
Sound Synthesis Theory: Physical Modelling: An Open Learning Guide
Physical Modelling synthesis is not confined to a particular technique, but rather represents a family of approaches to synthesis. Physical modelling systems attempt to model the propagation
Sound Synthesis Theory: Modulation Synthesis: An Open Learning Guide
When we talk about modulation from an audio synthesis point of view, we refer to a time-varying signal (the carrier) being affected in some way by another (the modulator). Modulation can be
Sound Synthesis Theory: Introduction: An Open Learning Guide
This book covers a sub-field of Music Technology called sound synthesis. Although the tone is generally aimed at musicians and people with little prior knowledge of music systems, there may
Sound Synthesis Theory: Subtractive Synthesis: An Open Learning Guide
Whereas additive synthesis is the process of combining individual sinusoidal partials to construct a complex sound, subtractive synthesis is essentially the reverse of this process. By start
Sound Synthesis Theory: Additive Synthesis: An Open Learning Guide
As previously discussed in Section 1, sine waves can be considered the building blocks of sound. In fact, it was shown in the 19th Century by the mathematician Joseph Fourier that any period
Sound Synthesis Theory: Oscillators and Wavetables: An Open Learning Guide
An oscillator is a repeating waveform with a fundamental frequency and peak amplitude and it forms the basis of most popular synthesis techniques today. Aside from the frequency or pitch of
Digital audio workstation: History and Key Facts
A digital audio workstation (DAW ) is an electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files.
Turntablism: History and Key Facts
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes, and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipp
Mastering (audio): History and Key Facts
Mastering is a form of audio post-production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device called a master reco
Audio mixing (recorded music): History and Key Facts
In sound recording and reproduction, audio mixing is the process of optimizing and combining multitrack recordings into a final mono, stereo or surround sound product.
Sampling (music): History and Key Facts
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording.
Multitrack recording: History and Key Facts
Multitrack recording (MTR), also known as multitracking, is a method of sound recording developed in 1955 that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources reco
Record producer: History and Key Facts
A record producer or music producer is a music-creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles.