When we first wrote this book it was our genuine intention to make it an introduction to the topic of sound and recording that would be useful to students starting out in the field. However, we readily admit that over the years the technical level of the book has gradually risen in a number of chapters, and that there are now many audio and music technology courses that do not start out by covering the engineering aspects of the subject at this level. For this reason, and recognizing that many courses use the book as a somewhat more advanced text, we have finally allowed the book’s subtitle, ‘An Introduction’, to fall by the wayside.
In this edition we have overhauled many of the chapters, continuing the expansion and reorganization of the digital audio chapters to include more recent details of pitch correction, file formats, interfaces and Blu-Ray disk. The coverage of digital tape formats has been retained in reduced form, partly for historical reasons. Chapters 6 and 7, covering analog recording and noise reduction, have been shortened but it is felt that they still justify inclusion given that such equipment is still in use in the field. As fewer and fewer people in the industry continue to be familiar with such things as bias, replay equalization, azimuth and noise reduction line-up, we feel it is important that such information should continue to be available in the literature while such technology persists. Likewise, the appendix on record players survives, it being surprising how much this equipment is still used.
The chapter on mixers has been thoroughly reworked and updated, as it had become somewhat disorganized during its evolution through various editions, and the chapter on MIDI has been expanded to include more information on sequencing principles. Chapter 15 on synchronization has been revised to include substantially greater coverage of digital audio synchronization topics, and the information about MIDI sync has also been moved here. The section on digital plug-ins has been moved into the chapter on outboard equipment. A number of other additions have also been made to the book, including an introduction to loudspeaker design parameters, further information on Class D amplifiers, and updated information on wireless microphone frequencies.
Finally, a new chapter on sound quality has been added at the end of the book, which incorporates some of the original appendix dealing with equipment specifications. This chapter introduces some of the main concepts relating to the perception and evaluation of sound quality, giving examples of relationships to simple aspects of audio equipment performance.
Francis Rumsey and
Tim McCormick
January 2009