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Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means. Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and the electric guitar.
Quadraphonic sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for the reproduction of sound signals that are independent of one another.
Ambisonics is a full-sphere surround sound format: in addition to the horizontal plane, it covers sound sources above and below the listener.
Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener. Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to surround sound, theater sound systems commonly had three screen channels of sound that played from three loudspeakers located in front of the audience. Surround sound adds one or more channels from loudspeakers to the side or behind the listener that are able to create the sensation of sound coming from any horizontal direction around the listener.
In music, tape loops are loops of magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound when played on a tape recorder. Originating in the 1940s with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, they were used among contemporary composers of 1950s and 1960s, such as Éliane Radigue, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who used them to create phase patterns, rhythms, textures, and timbres. Popular music authors of 1960s and 1970s, particularly in psychedelic, progressive and ambient genres, used tape loops to accompany their music with innovative sound effects. In the 1980s, analog audio and tape loops with it gave way to digital audio and application of computers to generate and process sound.
Matrix decoding is an audio technology where a small number of discrete audio channels are decoded into a larger number of channels on play back. The channels are generally, but not always, arranged for transmission or recording by an encoder, and decoded for playback by a decoder. The function is to allow multichannel audio, such as quadraphonic sound or surround sound to be encoded in a stereo signal, and thus played back as stereo on stereo equipment, and as surround on surround equipment – this is "compatible" multichannel audio.
Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration of two loudspeakers in such a way as to create the impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing.
Overdubbing 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 new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more available tracks of a digital audio workstation (DAW) or tape recorder. The overdub process can be repeated multiple times. This technique is often used with singers, as well as with instruments, or ensembles/orchestras. Overdubbing is typically done for the purpose of adding richness and complexity to the original recording. For example, if there are only one or two artists involved in the recording process, overdubbing can give the effect of sounding like many performers.
Nimbus Records is a British record company based at Wyastone Leys, Ganarew, Herefordshire. They specialise in classical music recordings and were the first company in the UK to produce compact discs.
The Soundfield microphone is an audio microphone composed of four closely spaced subcardioid or cardioid (unidirectional) microphone capsules arranged in a tetrahedron. It was invented by Michael Gerzon and Peter Craven, and is a part of, but not exclusive to, Ambisonics, a surround sound technology. It can function as a mono, stereo or surround sound microphone, optionally including height information.
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.
Peter Zinovieff was a British composer, musician and inventor. In the late 1960s, his company, Electronic Music Studios (EMS), made the VCS3, a synthesizer used by many early progressive rock bands such as Pink Floyd and White Noise, and Krautrock groups as well as more pop-orientated artists, including Todd Rundgren and David Bowie. In later life, he worked primarily as a composer of electronic music.
The Trifield process is a form of audio rendering in which a conventional two-channel signal is decoded to an additional number of loudspeakers, typically three in the form of a Left-Centre-Right front stage. The technique provides significant additional image stability, especially when the listener is moving or off-axis.
Ambisonic UHJ format is a development of the Ambisonic surround sound system designed to be compatible with mono and stereo media. It is a hierarchy of systems in which the recorded soundfield will be reproduced with a degree of accuracy that varies according to the available channels. Although UHJ permits the use of up to four channels, only the 2-channel variant is in current use. In Ambisonics, UHJ is also known as "C-Format".
Michael Anthony Gerzon is probably best known for his work on Ambisonics and for his work on digital audio. He also made a large number of recordings, many in the field of free improvisation in which he had a particular interest.
This page focusses on decoding of classic first-order Ambisonics. Other relevant information is available on the Ambisonic reproduction systems page.
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. In the process of combining the separate tracks, their relative levels are adjusted and balanced and various processes such as equalization and compression are commonly applied to individual tracks, groups of tracks, and the overall mix. In stereo and surround sound mixing, the placement of the tracks within the stereo field are adjusted and balanced. Audio mixing techniques and approaches vary widely and have a significant influence on the final product.
The design of speaker systems for Ambisonic playback is governed by several constraints:
The United Kingdom patent 394325 'Improvements in and relating to Sound-transmission, Sound-recording and Sound-reproducing Systems' is a fundamental work on stereophonic sound, written by Alan Blumlein in 1931 and published in 1933. The work exists only in the form of a patent and two accompanying memos addressed to Isaac Shoenberg. The text is exceptionally long for a patent of the period, having 70 numbered claims. It contains a brief summary of sound localization theory, a roadmap for introduction of surround sound in sound film and recording industry, and a description of Blumlein's inventions related to stereophony, notably the matrix processing of stereo signals, the Blumlein stereo microphone and the 45/45 mechanical recording system.
References
- ↑ Stephen Thornton, michaelgerzonphotos.co.uk retrieved 2014-01-01
- ↑ Paul Wilson and Adam Tovell, The Michael Gerzon Archive and the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings Project, eContact! Volume 10.x, 2010
- ↑ Michael Gerzon, Surround sound from 2-channel stereo, HiFi News, August 1970
- ↑ Michael Gerzon, Experimental Tetrahedral Recording: part one, Studio Sound, Vol. 13, August 1971, pp 396-398
- ↑ Michael Gerzon, Experimental Tetrahedral Recording: part two, Studio Sound, Vol. 13, September 1971, pp 472, 473 and 475
- ↑ Michael Gerzon, Experimental Tetrahedral Recording: part three, Studio Sound, Vol. 13, October 1971, pp 510, 511, 513 and 515
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