Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded MusicIn 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented. |
From inside the book
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... vibrations filled the cosmos with the sound of celestial bells. In the same manner that a handful of stones scattered in a pond generates overlapping ripples, the sound waves that caused the cosmic hum spread out through space as ...
... vibrations. An aeronautical engineer led the design team, which used advanced threedimensional shapeoptimization software—originally developed to study stresses in aircraft wings and fuselages—to determine everything from where.
... vibrations of the material world, they would have found it. Instead, they used two opposing magnetic plates that ... vibrations of the music, not the unwanted vibrations of the material world. It could release everything and add nothing ...
... vibrate. This diaphragm was attached to a stylus that responded to these vibrations by etching a pattern into wax paper. This pattern was “analogous” to—and therefore an “analog” of—the sound waves that caused the diaphragm to vibrate ...
... vibrations of the stylus on the record's grooves into a series of fluctuating voltages. Picked up by an amplifier, this current causes your speaker cones to vibrate in a way that mimics the original sound wave. Though separated by more ...
Contents
From the New World | |
Digital | |
Death and Other Dispatches from the Loudness | |
Liner Notes | |
Notes | |
Acknowledgments | |
Notes | |