Studied by 1 personDefine signal to noise ratio
a comparison of the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise (noise floor).
define frequency response
a visual representation of how well an audio component reproduces the audible range of sound.
What is a clavinet
An electric piano
Also known as a clave
Manufactured from 1964
The timbre is harsh and Sharp, which sounds a little like a guitar
What is a theremin
An electric musical instrument controlled without physical touch
Has an eerie sound
What is a mellotron
An electro-mechanical musical instrumenr
Has a bank of samples (most note-worthy being the popular flute sound)
Illustrate the differences between a vocoder and a talk box
A vocoder is an electronic device used with synthesisers. You talk or sing into a mic usually while playing a synth. The electronics then apply the tone of the voice to the notes of the instrument. A talk box is a mechanical device - a small speaker connected to a plastic hose. When using a talk box, no actual talking or noise occurs, just the mouthing of words.
Define fuzz
a more aggressive style of compressed distortion achieved by heavily saturating and clipping your signal.
When answering Q5 (Evaluating and comparing the production techniques), what features of the song should you talk about
Production techniques not musical comparison
Capture
Synthesisier(s)
Texture - stripped back/ filled out
Instrumentation - acoustic v electronic/ heavily processed
Editing - samples/ cut-ups
Processing - eq, compression, mix, master, balance
Effects
10 marks for evaluation (impact of techniques used on production/ context)
What is the dolby noise-reduction system, and how did it effect tape/analog recordings
a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. When utilised it would improve the signal-to-noise ratio by pre-emphasising high frequencies before they are recorded onto tape in order to make them larger than the tape hiss noise with which they compete.
define sample rate
the number of snapshots taken to recreate the original sound wave
define bit depth
determine the number of possible amplitude values you can record for each audio sample
describe the process of analog to digital converters
an anlog-to-digital converter captures thousands of audio samples per second at a specified sample rate and bit depth to reconstruct the original signal. The higher the sample rate and bit depth, the higher the audio resolution.
define analog to digital converters
An electronic device that converts analog signals from a microphone or line level source into digital signals (digitizing or sampling them) so they can be stored to any number of storage media like hard drives, ADAT, computer ROM chip, or processed in a sampler, digital signal processor or digital recording device.
what’s the negatives of bouncing down a lot
Bounced audio is set in stone/ can’t be edited
Increased background noise
Loss in high frequencies the more you bounce
describe the differences between old school samplers and modern samplers
modern samples have a better bit rate and depth
different types of synthesis/ re-synthesis are available (e.g granular)
how did build in compression effects pop music
Producers expected compression to always be used on all tracks therefore resulting in most/if not all tracks are compressed leading to a loss in dynamic range.
Note
Flashcard