Sound Engineering and Production Techniques

Sound Engineering and Production Techniques

Sound Engineering and Production Techniques

Arun Prajapat

Sound Engineering and Production Techniques

Arun Prajapat

ISBN - 9789361522017

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Preface

Audio Engineering and Sound Production is the course directly sync with the audio industry, which helps to produce a live or recording performance. It explores not only the fundamentals of sound and music production but also the operations of any kind of event audio production. In this music industry, using equalization of the sound sources and be balanced and adjusted. So, reinforcement of sound, reproduction, mixing, and audio effects are the special insights to learn within this course. The work of the audio engineers is mainly on the technical aspects of the recording of the audio by setting the levels and placing the microphones. Even though it a creative side of working audio in the form of music with different instruments to produce sounds in films, radio, television, and video games.

On the other side, Audio Engineering is a branch of science which deals with the study of music. Basically related to understanding sound or music on the whole. To pursue a career in the music industry, practical knowledge in the core skills of music is important to add in the portfolio. Today, technology evolves with highly sophisticated equipment, which makes to explore in music production and audio electronics.

This book helps you out with the combination of fundamentals of audio principles, including the practical side. To undertake a wide range of projects in the music industry, this book will give you comprehensive guidance and also ensures you understand what is required. Even you can find a wide range of opportunities with a broad perspective in many roles around the world easily.

Table of Contents

1 Engineering 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Audio Engineering and its Fundamentals 5

1.2.1 Sound Wave 8

1.2.2 Frequency 8

1.2.3 Pitch 9

1.2.4 Amplitude and Loudness 9

1.2.5 Wavelength and Speed of Sound 10

1.2.6 The Perception of Sound 11

1.2.7 Understanding Sound Basics 12

1.3 Electronics 15

1.3.1 Voltage (V) 18

1.3.2 Current (I) 19

1.3.3 Impedance (Z) 19

1.3.4 Resistors 20

1.3.5 Capacitors 20

1.3.6 Inductors 21

1.3.7 Transformers 21

1.3.8 Ohm’s Law 21

1.3.9 Analog Circuits 22

1.3.10 Voltage Divider 22

1.3.11 R-C circuits 23

1.3.12 Frequency Measurement 26

1.3.13 Amplitude Measurement 26

1.3.14 Distortion 26

1.3.15 Dynamic Range 27

1.3.16 Signal-to-noise Ratio 27

1.3.17 Analog versus Digital Signal Representations 28

1.4 Introduction to Sound/Audio 28

1.4.1 Sound Waves 29

1.4.2 Sound Equipment 30

1.4.3 Audible Frequencies 31

1.4.4 Sampling Frequency 32

1.4.5 Frequency and Wavelength 32

1.4.6 Measures of Sound 32

1.4.7 Watts 33

1.4.8 Decibels 34

1.4.9 Principles of Sound 37

1.4.10 Refraction of Sound 39

1.4.11 Reflection of Sound 39

1.4.12 Transmission of Sound 40

1.4.13 Sound Absorption 40

1.4.14 Music and Noise 40

1.5 Sound Production 41

1.5.1 Digital Sound 44

1.6 Exercise 49

2 Introduction to Electronic Music 50

2.1 Introduction 50

2.2 Fundamentals of Music 55

2.3 Audio and Acoustics Theory 68

2.4 Music Production Analysis 74

2.5 Producing Live Sound 84

2.6 Sound Aesthetics 92

2.7 Exercise 98

3 Introduction to TV, Radio, and Film Audio 100

3.1 Introduction 100

3.2 Applied Electronics 106

3.3 Audio Technologies 116

3.4 History of Western Sound Recording 126

3.5 Advanced Music Production Analysis 129

3.6 Exercise 132

4 Studio Concepts and Techniques 133

4.1 Introduction 133

4.2 Studio Environment 138

4.2.1 Studio Design & Acoustics 141

4.2.2 Advanced Audio System Design 147

4.3 Post Production Audio 156

4.3.1 LCRS 163

4.3.2 The Licensing of Surround Sound Formats 164

4.3.3 The Differences in Surround Sound Formats 164

4.3.4 Surround Sound Formats beyond L-C-R-S 164

4.3.5 The Differences in Digital Sound Delivery Methods 165

4.4 Exercise 170

5 MIDI 171

5.1 Introduction 171

5.2 Digital Audio Concept 177

5.3 Broadcast Audio 186

5.4 Audio Cables & Interconnections 193

5.5 Music Business Management 199

5.6 Exercise 216

6 Career Prospects 218

6.1 Introduction 218

6.2 Roles & Responsibilities 221

6.2.1 Critical Thinking 222

6.2.2 Manual Dexterity 222

6.2.3 Monitoring 222

6.2.4 Communication 222

6.2.5 Problem-solving 222

6.3 Exercise 223

Appendix 224

Glossary 226

Index 227

Chapter - 1 Engineering

1.1 Introduction

A branch of science and technology used to design and build by using certain principles. The word Engineering is derived from the Latin word, which means cleverness and igneniare. It deals with the operations which are utilized in the development of structures or any other processes with the help of machines and apparatus under specific conditions.

The history of engineering is part and parcel of the history of human civilization. The Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge, the Parthenon, and the Eiffel Tower stand today as monuments to our heritage of engineering. Engineering had existed since ancient times, when humans devised inventions such as the wedge, lever, the wheel and pulley, etc. The term engineering is derived from the word engineer, which itself dates back to the 14th century when an engineer (literally, one who builds or operates a siege engine) referred to a constructor of military engines. Today’s engineers not only build huge structures, such as the International Space Station, but they are also building maps to the human genome and better, smaller computers. Engineering is one of the cornerstones of STEM education, an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to motivate students to learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Engineers design, evaluate, develop, test, modify, install, inspect, and maintain a wide variety of products and systems. They also recommend and specify materials and processes, supervise manufacturing and construction, conduct failure analysis, provide consulting services, and teach engineering courses in colleges and universities.

The field of engineering is divided into a large number of specialty areas:

• Mechanical engineering involves design, manufacturing, inspection, and maintenance of machinery, equipment, and components as well as control systems and instruments for monitoring their status and performance. This includes vehicles, construction and farm machinery, industrial installations, and a wide variety of tools and devices.

• Electrical engineering involves the design, testing, manufacturing, construction, control, monitoring, and inspection of electrical and electronic devices, machinery and systems. These systems vary in scale from microscopic circuits to national power generation and transmission systems.

• Civil engineering involves the design, construction, maintenance, and inspection of large infrastructure projects such as highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, dams and airports.

• Aerospace engineering involves design, manufacturing, and testing of aircraft and spacecraft as well as parts and components such as airframes, power plants, control and guidance systems, electrical and electronic systems, and communication and navigation systems.

• Nuclear engineering involves the design, manufacturing, construction, operation, and testing of equipment, systems, and processes involving the production, control, and detection of nuclear radiation. These systems include particle accelerators and nuclear reactors for electric power plants and ships, radioisotope production and research. Nuclear engineering also includes monitoring and protecting humans from the potentially harmful effects of radiation.

• Structural engineering involves the design, construction, and inspection of load-bearing structures such as large commercial buildings, bridges, and industrial infrastructure.

• Biomedical engineering is the practice of designing systems, equipment, and devices for use in the practice of medicine. It also involves working closely with medical practitioners, including doctors, nurses, technicians, therapists, and researchers, in order to determine, understand, and meet their requirements for systems, equipment, and devices.

• Chemical engineering is the practice of designing equipment, systems, and processes for refining raw materials and for mixing, compounding, and processing chemicals to make valuable products.

• Computer engineering is the practice of designing computer hardware components, computer systems, networks, and computer software.

• Industrial engineering is the practice of designing and optimizing facilities, equipment, systems, and processes for manufacturing, material processing, and any number of other work environments.

• Environmental engineering is the practice of preventing, reducing, and eliminating sources of pollution that affect air, water, and land. It also involves detecting and measuring pollution levels, determining sources of pollution, cleaning up and rehabilitating polluted sites, and ensuring compliance with local, state, and federal regulations.

These are the main branches involved in Engineering. In political science, the term engineering has been borrowed for the study of the subjects of social engineering and political engineering, which deal with forming political and social structures using engineering methodology coupled with political science principles. Financial engineering has similarly borrowed the word. There is often considerable overlap among the different specialties. For this reason, engineers need to have a general understanding of several areas of engineering besides their specialty. For example, a civil engineer needs to understand concepts of structural engineering, an aerospace engineer needs to apply principles of mechanical engineering, and nuclear engineers need a working knowledge of electrical engineering. Particularly, engineers require in-depth knowledge of mathematics, physics, and computer applications such as simulations and computer-aided design. This is why most college programs include basic engineering courses in a wide range of topics before students choose to specialize in a particular area.

In the engineering design process, engineers apply mathematics and sciences such as physics to find novel solutions to problems or to improve existing solutions. More than ever, engineers are now required to have proficient knowledge of relevant sciences for their design projects. As a result, many engineers continue to learn new material throughout their career. If multiple solutions exist, engineers weigh each design choice based on their merit and choose the solution that best matches the requirements. The crucial and unique task of the engineer is to identify, understand, and interpret the constraints on a design in order to yield a successful result. It is generally insufficient to build a technically successful product, and rather, it must also meet further requirements. Constraints may include available resources, physical, imaginative or technical limitations, flexibility for future modifications and additions, and other factors, such as requirements for cost, safety, marketability, productivity, and serviceability. By understanding the constraints, engineers derive specifications for the limits within which a viable object or system may be produced and operated.

Fig.1.1: Engineering Design Process

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Teaching-Press-Engineering-8620/dp/B07MQC1H8N

Engineers use their knowledge of science, mathematics, logic, economics, and appropriate experience or tacit knowledge to find suitable solutions to a problem. Creating an appropriate mathematical model of a problem which allows them to analyze it and to test potential solutions. Usually, multiple reasonable solutions exist, so engineers must evaluate the different design choices on their merits and choose the solution that best meets their requirements. Genrich Altshuller, after gathering statistics on a large number of patents, suggested that compromises are at the heart of low-level engineering designs, while at a higher level, the best design is one that eliminates the core contradiction causing the problem. Engineers typically attempt to predict how well their designs will perform to their specifications before full-scale production. They use, among other things: prototypes, scale models, simulations, destructive tests, non-destructive tests, and stress tests. Testing ensures that products will perform as expected.

Engineering can be applied not only on the above topics but also included in some of the fields like computer purposes, social contexts to science, medicine and biology, art, and business management. Engineering is expected to be a growth sector in the upcoming decade, and it is considered to be a top career. Engineering is a broad term that covers a wide range of applications and industries.

Industry Audio Engineering and Sound Production is a creative side. It generally helps out to bring the most talented skills based on the interests. This Engineering will give extraordinary basics in the sound or music industry. When coming to the Entertainment segment especially in music

1.2 Audio Engineering and its Fundamentals

The audio engineering and Sound Production (AE & SP) course offered a full-time Diploma course, and it aims to bring a curriculum that is designed for the music producer looking to carve a niche in the audio and music industry using the ever-expanding toolkit of digital audio. The course presents information in a systematic and detailed format from the basics of audio and sound to modules dealing with In-The-Box production covering aspects of DAW-based recording, mixing and music production. The studios offer ample time and resources to students to practice the art of audio recording and music production on software such as Avid ProTools and Apple Logic Pro X. The students also get to work on the software of other developers such as Izotope and Slate Digital. The aim is to offer an Audio engineering program that will train the students in the standard everyday practices of the recording and production and scale up their professionalism to meet the expectations of the audio and music industry.

This audio program of the basics of audio is the first in the Audio Basics series of lectures. This lecture outlines the fundamentals of sound and its importance in music production work. The audio programs that follow will lend more detail to the topics outlined. The basics of audio are the fundamental principles of what makes up the sound and how it disperses in space. By understanding these basic principles, you can learn to make better decisions when recording, mixing, or designing your studio.

Understanding the basics of audio will take away a majority of the guesswork that comes when recording and mixing. Most great productions happen by design, not by chance. When magical performances occur, they are captured on a solid foundation of thinking and actions that preserve them well for others to enjoy. Sound is simply is a disturbance of molecules. These molecules can be air molecules or the molecules of solid objects. When any kind of event happens, that takes these mediums away from their restful state and forces them to vibrate, and you get a disturbance that is perceived as sound. When a disturbance happens, the molecules are compressed together, and they shoot off in every direction from the point of disturbance. These disturbed molecules will bump into each other and spread out in compressed waves. In their wake, they will leave an area where there are fewer molecules. Unless the disturbance is sustained, the particles will come back to a restful state. This is the elastic medium that is necessary for sound to exist. Air happens to be a very elastic medium, and it is also very easy to disturb. A wall is much more rigid but also has some elasticity and can also transmit sound. If you strike a wall with a hammer, the vibration will travel more quickly than in air because the molecules are so close together, but It will also decay much faster because the material is more rigid.

Fig. 1.2: Audio Engineering

Source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SCVNcUvRX98/maxresdefault.jpg

Resonance is a particular frequency range or area of frequencies that cause an object to vibrate sympathetically. The frequency or frequencies that an object vibrates at is determined by its basic physical properties and what is exciting. Those frequencies, when tuned, can be perceived as pitch. This is the fundamental design principle of the creation and development of musical instruments. Creating objects of different shapes and sizes that pleasingly resonate with the air is the art of the instrument manufacturers. Creating acoustic environments that best show off the quality of those instruments is the art of acoustics. Capturing and manipulating those sounds is the art of music production and engineering. All these art forms are working with the same basics of audio principles. Among the most fundamental basics of audio is the propagation of sound in a space. This is acoustics, the science of sound. An incredible amount of work has gone into quantifying and understanding acoustic principles.

These principles are used to design recording spaces, control rooms, concert halls, speakers, amplifiers and sound systems, all to make a balanced and pleasing listening environment. The musical design instruments and how they project in an acoustic space plays a huge role in the selection and placement of microphones to best capture the essence of that instrument. How you manage and control the acoustic space, the instrument, and the microphones that capture them, is the most important part of the recording. Understanding these basic principles allows you to make the best decisions. When scientists work with the sound, they use terms that described the physical attributes of sound. Frequency, pitch, amplitude, wavelength, and speed of sound are just a few. The following paragraphs outline these basics of audio terms.

1.2.1 Sound Wave

Sound waves are similar to water waves. If you think of a wave in water, the start of the cycle would be the beginning of the first wave above the waterline, continue with a wake below the waterline, and ending with the beginning of the next wave. The difference is that sound waves radiate in all directions, not just on a level surface as water waves do.

A sound wave is the completion of compression and a rarefaction cycle. The compression part of the wave is a grouping of bunched up air molecules and is similar to the wave above the waterline. Rarefaction is the separation of air particles like the wake that follows below the waterline. Sound waves, like water waves, repeat in succession with the later waves getting weaker and weaker as time progresses.

1.2.2 Frequency

Frequency is the number of wave cycles that occur within a period of 1 second. Our hearing mechanisms are only capable of perceiving a frequency range of 20 cycles per second up to 20,000 cycles per second. This defines the lowest bass frequencies and the highest treble frequencies we can perceive. The measurement term is called Hertz. In reality, most people cannot perceive sound at this full range. Nor do most need to.

The human voice occupies a range that is well within those limits. These are the frequencies we are most sensitive to because they define our ability to communicate through speech. People who work with music and recording and train their ears are able to keep this extended frequency response as long as they do not abuse their hearing mechanism. If subjected to loud or hurtful volumes consistently, those capabilities can be permanently lost.

1.2.3 Pitch

Another basic of an audio term is pitch. In general, most sounds transmit with a complex array of frequencies. When a particular frequency stands out, it can take on a musical value that is defined as pitch. Pitch is the relative highness or lowness of a frequency. Relative to any pitch is a series of other pitches that would define musical scales, chords, etc.

1.2.4 Amplitude and Loudness

The next basics of an audio term are amplitude. This term describes the loudness or softness of the sound that was listening to. Like the frequency range of our hearing, we also have limitations on the loudest and softest sounds, we can perceive.

Those limits are the threshold of hearing and the threshold of pain. The primary measurement for amplitude in an acoustic space is sound pressure level, which is measured with a decibel scale. 0dB SPL is the loudest sound we are able to perceive accurately is 120 dB SPL. Although we can hear at levels louder than 120 dB SPL, the sensation overexcites our hearing mechanism and causes a distortion that can permanently damage our hearing. 135dB SPL is considered the threshold of pain. 150 dB SPL would render you permanently deaf.

Fig. 1.3: Example of a Sound wave

Source: researchgate.net

Link:https://www.researchgate.net/figure/1-Sound-wave-http-wwwmediacollegecom-audio-01-sound-waveshtml-This-image-is_fig2_329027353

1.2.5 Wavelength and Speed of Sound

Wavelength and the speed of sound are the basics of audio terms that are dependent on each other. The length of a given frequency wave is dependent on the speed at which the sound wave travels. The speed at which sound travels is dependent on the