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.
An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing.
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. The record producer, or simply the producer, is likened to film director and art director. The executive producer, on the other hand, enables the recording project through entrepreneurship, and an audio engineer operates the technology.
A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic instruments, or recorded sounds. Mixers may control analog or digital signals. The modified signals are summed to produce the combined output signals, which can then be broadcast, amplified through a sound reinforcement system or recorded.
A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production 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.
Multitrack recording (MTR), also known as multitracking or tracking, is a method of sound recording developed in 1955 that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources recorded at different times to create a cohesive whole. Multitracking became possible in the mid-1950s when the idea of simultaneously recording different audio channels to separate discrete "tracks" on the same reel-to-reel tape was developed. A "track" was simply a different channel recorded to its own discrete area on the tape whereby their relative sequence of recorded events would be preserved, and playback would be simultaneous or synchronized.
A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integrated stand-alone unit, all the way to a highly complex configuration of numerous components controlled by a central computer. Regardless of configuration, modern DAWs have a central interface that allows the user to alter and mix multiple recordings and tracks into a final produced piece.
Sound design is the art and practice of creating sound tracks for a variety of needs. It involves specifying, acquiring or creating auditory elements using audio production techniques and tools. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, video game development, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production, radio, new media and musical instrument development. Sound design commonly involves performing and editing of previously composed or recorded audio, such as sound effects and dialogue for the purposes of the medium, but it can also involve creating sounds from scratch through synthesizers. A sound designer is one who practices sound design.
In acoustics, the dummy head recording is a method of recording used to generate binaural recordings. The tracks are then listened to through headphones allowing for the listener to hear from the dummy’s perspective. The dummy head is designed to record multiple sounds at the same time enabling it to be exceptional at recording music as well as in other industries where multiple sound sources are involved.
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.
Dieter Dierks is a German record producer, sound engineer, music publisher, studio owner and musician. He became well known as producer of the rock band Scorpions who were signed to him between 1975 and 1988. Before that time, he had already successfully established Hamburg-based band Atlantis in the US. Between 1969 and 1975, numerous albums of the "Krautrock" era were produced at Dierks Studio. From 1975 onwards, more and more international artists started booking his state-of-the art sound and TV studios.
Professional audio, abbreviated as pro audio, refers to both an activity and a category of high quality, studio-grade audio equipment. Typically it encompasses sound recording, sound reinforcement system setup and audio mixing, and studio music production by trained sound engineers, audio engineers, record producers, and audio technicians who work in live event support and recording using mixing consoles, recording equipment and sound reinforcement systems. Professional audio is differentiated from consumer- or home-oriented audio, which are typically geared toward listening in a non-commercial environment.
Harrison Audio Consoles is an international company based in Nashville, Tennessee that manufactures high-end mixing consoles, Digital Audio Workstations (DAW), audio plugins, and other audio technologies for the post-production, video production, broadcast, sound reinforcement and music recording industries. The company is renowned as an industry innovation for its "in-line" mixing console design that has subsequently become the standard for nearly every large-format music console. Over 1,500 Harrison consoles have been installed worldwide, presenting a significant percentage of the overall world market share for high-end audio consoles. The company founder, Dave Harrison, was inducted as a Fellow in the Audio Engineering Society for this technical contribution of the recording industry and in particular the first 32-bus "in-line" console.
Harry Thumann was a German electronic composer, record producer and sound engineer. He designed and built groundbreaking synthesizers and studio equipment from the early 1960s onwards.
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."
AMS were a manufacturer of professional studio equipment. The company later merged with Neve Electronics to form AMS Neve.
The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences is a private for-profit technical school specializing in audio recording, audio engineering and production education with its main location in Tempe and a satellite campus in Gilbert, Arizona. It is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges and approved by the Arizona State Board of Private Postsecondary Education.
Tom Hidley is an American recording studio designer and audio engineer whose companies have been responsible for the design of hundreds of professional studios worldwide since 1965. Hidley coined the term "bass trap", and is credited with a number of recording studio design innovations, including soffit-mounted monitor speakers, and sliding glass doors between live and isolations rooms.
Eventide, Inc. is an American audio, broadcast and communications company whose audio division manufactures digital audio processors, digital signal processor (DSP) software, and guitar effects. Eventide was one of the first companies to manufacture digital audio processors, and its products are mainstays in sound recording and reproduction, post production, and broadcast studios.