The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music.
An audio power amplifier is an electronic amplifier that amplifies low-power electronic audio signals, such as the signal from a radio receiver or an electric guitar pickup, to a level that is high enough for driving loudspeakers or headphones. Audio power amplifiers are found in all manner of sound systems including sound reinforcement, public address, home audio systems and musical instrument amplifiers like guitar amplifiers. It is the final electronic stage in a typical audio playback chain before the signal is sent to the loudspeakers.
Audio feedback is a positive feedback situation that may occur when an acoustic path exists between an audio input and an audio output. In this example, a signal received by the microphone is amplified and passed out of the loudspeaker. The sound from the loudspeaker can then be received by the microphone again, amplified further, and then passed out through the loudspeaker again. The frequency of the resulting howl is determined by resonance frequencies in the microphone, amplifier, and loudspeaker, the acoustics of the room, the directional pick-up and emission patterns of the microphone and loudspeaker, and the distance between them. The principles of audio feedback were first discovered by Danish scientist Søren Absalon Larsen, hence it is also known as the Larsen effect.
Live/Dead is the first official live album released by the rock band Grateful Dead. Recorded over a series of concerts in early 1969 and released later the same year, it was the first live rock album to use 16-track recording.
A recording studio is a specialized facility for recording and mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single singer-guitarist, to a large building with space for a full orchestra of 100 or more musicians. Ideally, both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician or audio engineer to achieve optimum acoustic properties.
An electric piano is a musical instrument that has a piano-style musical keyboard, where sound is produced by means of mechanical hammers striking metal strings or reeds or wire tines, which leads to vibrations which are then converted into electrical signals by pickups. The pickups are connected to an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to reinforce the sound sufficiently for the performer and audience to hear. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument. Instead, it is an electro-mechanical instrument. Some early electric pianos used lengths of wire to produce the tone, like a traditional piano. Smaller electric pianos used short slivers of steel to produce the tone. The earliest electric pianos were invented in the late 1920s; the 1929 Neo-Bechstein electric grand piano was among the first. Probably the earliest stringless model was Lloyd Loar's Vivi-Tone Clavier. A few other noteworthy producers of electric pianos include Baldwin Piano and Organ Company, and the Wurlitzer Company.
An instrument amplifier is an electronic device that converts the often barely audible or purely electronic signal of a musical instrument into a larger electronic signal to feed to a loudspeaker. An instrument amplifier is used with musical instruments such as an electric guitar, an electric bass, electric organ, electric piano, synthesizers and drum machine to convert the signal from the pickup or other sound source into an electronic signal that has enough power, due to being routed through a power amplifier, capable of driving one or more loudspeaker that can be heard by the performers and audience.
A DI unit is an electronic device typically used in recording studios and in sound reinforcement systems to connect a high output impedance unbalanced output signal to a low-impedance, microphone level, balanced input, usually via an XLR connector and XLR cable. DIs are frequently used to connect an electric guitar or electric bass to a mixing console's microphone input jack. The DI performs level matching, balancing, and either active buffering or passive impedance matching/impedance bridging. DI units are typically metal boxes with input and output jacks and, for more expensive units, “ground lift” and attenuator switches.
Keith Richard Godchaux was an American pianist best known for his tenure in the rock group the Grateful Dead from 1971 to 1979. Following their departure from the Dead, he and his wife Donna formed the Heart of Gold Band in 1980, but Godchaux died from injuries sustained in a car accident shortly after their first concert.
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electric pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate then.
Shure Incorporated is an American audio products corporation. It was founded by Sidney N. Shure in Chicago, Illinois, in 1925 as a supplier of radio parts kits. The company became a consumer and professional audio-electronics manufacturer of microphones, wireless microphone systems, phonograph cartridges, discussion systems, mixers, and digital signal processing. The company also manufactures listening products, including headphones, high-end earphones, and personal monitor systems.
Alembic is an American manufacturer of high-end electric basses, guitars and preamps. Founded in 1969, the company began manufacturing pre-amps before building complete instruments.
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 effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
The electric grand piano is a stringed musical instrument played using a keyboard, in which the vibration of strings struck by hammers is converted by pickups into electrical signals, analogous to the electric guitar's electrification of the traditional guitar.
One from the Vault is a live album by the Grateful Dead, recorded on August 13, 1975, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, California, for a small audience of radio programmers. Three weeks later, the concert was broadcast nationwide on FM radio through Metromedia, after which the radio show was widely traded by fans on cassettes, and sold in bootleg LP versions under various titles including Make Believe Ballroom, becoming the most widely circulated Grateful Dead bootleg.
An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano strings in a prepared piano. Some experimental instruments are created from household items like a homemade mute for brass instruments such as bathtub plugs. Other experimental instruments are created from electronic spare parts, or by mixing acoustic instruments with electric components.
AKG Acoustics is an acoustics engineering and manufacturing company. It was founded in 1947 by Rudolf Görike and Ernest Plass in Vienna, Austria. It is a part of Harman International Industries, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics since 2017.
An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts."
Electric music technology refers to musical instruments and recording devices that use electrical circuits, which are often combined with mechanical technologies. Examples of electric musical instruments include the electro-mechanical electric piano, the electric guitar, the electro-mechanical Hammond organ and the electric bass. All of these electric instruments do not produce a sound that is audible by the performer or audience in a performance setting unless they are connected to instrument amplifiers and loudspeaker cabinets, which made them sound loud enough for performers and the audience to hear. Amplifiers and loudspeakers are separate from the instrument in the case of the electric guitar, electric bass and some electric organs and most electric pianos. Some electric organs and electric pianos include the amplifier and speaker cabinet within the main housing for the instrument.
The Yamaha CP-70 is an electric piano manufactured by Yamaha Corporation between 1976 and 1985. The instrument was based on earlier electric piano technology, but took advantage of improved pickups along with the company's longstanding experience in manufacturing acoustic pianos.
