General Production

• Vocal cords


  Vibrate to produce sound (talking)
• Sound waves


  Received in our ears at our eardrums, interpreted by our brain as sound
• Compression and rarefaction


  Creates sound waves
• Wavelength (λ)


  The distance between the highest points (peaks) on two waves
• Frequency (pitch)


  Measured on the X axis of a wave graph
• Amplitude (displacement)


  Measured on the Y axis of a wave graph
• Frequency


  Measured in Hertz (Hz), 1000Hz = 1kHz
• Ranges of human hearing

  • 20Hz-20kHz (young)
  • Up to 16kHz (60 years old)
  • Up to 175kHz (whales and dolphins)
  • Slightly lower frequencies for echolocation (bats)
• Frequency ranges


  • Sub-audio rate (<20Hz)
  • Audio rate (20-20kHz)
  • Ultrasonic (>20kHz)
• Frequency ranges and their characteristics

  • Low Frequencies (Warmth)
  • Lo-Mid Frequencies (Punchiness)
  • Hi-Mid Frequencies (Clarity)
  • High Frequencies (Brightness)
• Pure tone


  A Sine Wave in nature
• Timbre


  Describes a sound's character and harmonic content, influenced by the material the instrument is made of, size, and way it is played
• Low frequencies


  Can be heard from further away due to their lack of compression compared to higher frequencies
• Fundamental wave


  The sine wave that gives a sound its pitch (if it has one)
• Harmonics/overtones


  The rest of the waves stacked on top of the fundamental wave
• Reverb


  The acoustic space that surrounds a sound, created by sound waves bouncing off all objects
• Creating more natural reverb in a room


  Cover walls with white glossy tiles and remove all furniture, objects and carpet
• Removing natural reverb in a room


  Add more furniture and place foam across all the walls to absorb more sound waves
• Reverb in music production


  Used to create ambience and depth to a track
• Echo Chamber


  A hollow enclosure used to produce reverb for recording purposes
• Plate reverb


  Turns the input signal into vibrations that are transferred to a large metal plate, the sound of which is recorded by an attached pickup
• Spring reverb


  A more compact version of plate reverb, with a transducer and pickup placed at each end of a spring mounted in a small box
• Main reverb parameters


  • Early reflection
  • Decay or Reverb time
  • Pre-Delay
  • Room Size
• Convolution Reverb


  Takes a sample from a real-world space and uses this to simulate the reverb from that space digitally
• Delay


  The same concept as an 'echo', defined repeats of a sound which gradually dies away
• Common delay parameters


  • Delay Time
  • Feedback
  • Pan
  • Dry/Wet
• Main types of delay


  • Slapback
  • Multi Tap
  • Ping-Pong/ Stereo Delay
• Synthesisers


  Produce sounds from scratch
• Samplers


  Play pre-existing sounds from a library
• Oscillators


  Generate sound waves via an electrical current in synthesisers
• Main types of sound waves


  • Sine Wave
  • Square Wave
  • Triangle Wave
  • Sawtooth Wave
• Pulse Width Modulation


  Can be used to alter square waves
• Second oscillator


  Can be used to control other oscillators, such as creating a vibrato effect
• Coarse Tuning


  Tuned in semitones
• Fine Tuning


  Tuned in cents (100 cents between a semitone)
• MIDI


  Musical Instrument Digital Interface, a common language used for sequencing developed in the early 1980s
• Main MIDI messages


  • Note/Pitch of the note
  • Velocity of the note
  • Note On/Off
• VCF (filter)


  Voltage Controlled Filter, removes harmonics out of a sound
• Cut off point


  The point above which frequencies are filtered
• Resonance


  Accentuates the frequencies at the cut off point