AUDIO PRODUCTION AND LIVE PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP

Teacher: Felipe Muoz

BASIC Audio Concepts

INTRODUCTION

(Sound, Waves, Frequency, Amplitude, AD/DA)

B.A.C.

Sound The perception of sound in any organism is limited to a certain range of frequencies. For humans, hearing is normally limited to frequencies between about 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz (20 kHz)[ In physics, a wave is a disturbance or oscillation that travels through space time, accompanied by a transfer of energy.

FREQUENCY

Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. The frequencies an ear can hear are limited to a specific range of frequencies. Amplitude

AD/DA

Analog

Refers to recording audio in a format of continuous vibrations that are analogous to the original sound waves. Before audio recording became digital, sounds were "carved" into vinyl records or written to tape as magnetic waveforms.

AD/DA

Digital

Sound waves that have been sampled, digitized and stored in the computer. Common formats are music CDs, MP3, WAV and AIFF, and software-based players play the largest variety of audio formats

BOUNCE INFORMATION

Bit rate: 44.1 KHz Bit depth: 16 Bit

Bit rate : 48 Khz Bit depth: 24 Bit

AUDIO AND MIDI INT.

MIDI

Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) Although digital, the MIDI format differs from all other digital audio formats. MIDI files contain a coded version of the musical score, not the actual sound. MIDI does not record analog sound waves like a tape recorder. MIDI encodes keyboard functions.

AUDIO AND MIDI INT.

AUDIO AND MIDI INT.

A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs.
MIDI interfaces Used to connect MIDI devices to devices without built-in MIDI capability. A common usage scenario is enabling MIDI support on a computer via an external sound card, which connects via USB or FireWire.

FREQUENCY FILTER

a filter is a device or process that removes from a signal some unwanted component or feature. Filtering is a class of signal processing, the defining feature of filters being the complete or partial suppression of some aspect of the signal. An audio filter is a frequency dependent amplifier circuit, working in the audio frequency range, 0 Hz to beyond 20 kHz. Many types of filters exist for applications including graphic equalizers, synthesizers, sound effects, CD players and virtual reality systems.

TYPES OF FILTERS

The frequency response can be classified into a number of different bandforms describing which frequencies the filter passes (the passband) and which it rejects (the stopband):
Low-pass filter low frequencies are passed, high frequencies are attenuated. High-pass filter high frequencies are passed, low frequencies are attenuated. Band-pass filter only frequencies in a frequency band are passed.

Band-stop filter or band-reject filter only frequencies in a frequency band are attenuated.
Notch filter rejects just one specific frequency - an extreme band-stop filter. Comb filter has multiple regularly spaced narrow passbands giving the bandform the appearance of a comb. All-pass filter all frequencies are passed, but the phase of the output is modified.

Cutoff frequency is the frequency beyond which the filter will not pass signals. It is usually measured at a specific attenuation such as 3dB. Roll-off is the rate at which attenuation increases beyond the cut-off frequency.

OSCILATORS

Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a repetitive, often a sine wave or a square wave.[They are widely used in many electronic devices. AFO's are often used as test signal sources in laboratories. By simple electronic trickery, the normally pure sinewave output of an AFO can be made to produce 'square', 'sawtooth' and other strange signals! A low-frequency oscillator (LFO) is an electronic oscillator that generates a frequency below 20 Hz. This term is typically used in the field of audio synthesizers, A voltage-controlled oscillator or VCO is an electronic oscillator designed to be controlled in oscillation frequency by a voltage input. The frequency of oscillation is varied by the applied DC voltage, while modulating signals may also be fed into the VCO to cause frequency modulation (FM) or phase modulation (PM);
FM is also used at audio frequencies to synthesize sound. This technique, known as FM synthesis, was popularized by early digital synthesizers and became a standard feature in several generations of personal computer sound cards.

DAW

A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic system designed solely or primarily for recording, editing and playing back digital audio. DAWs were originally tape-less, microprocessor-based systems. Modern DAWs are software running on computers with audio interface hardware.

DIGITAL AUDIO EDITOR SOFTWARE

Ableton Live ACID Pro Adobe Audition FL Studio GarageBand Logic Pro Tools REAPER Reason Steinberg Cubase Audacity

CONNECTING YOUR EQUIPMENT

MIDI

RCA

CONNECTING YOUR EQUIPMENT

USB

Firewire

TRS (tip, ring, sleeve)

CONNECTING YOUR EQUIPMENT

XLR

S/PDIF

SOFTWARE FOR PRODUCTION AND LIVE PERFORMANCE

Reason

SOFTWARE FOR PRODUCTION AND LIVE PERFORMANCE

Fruity Loops

SOFTWARE FOR PRODUCTION AND LIVE PERFORMANCE

Ableton Live

SOFTWARE FOR PRODUCTION AND LIVE PERFORMANCE

Traktor

SOFTWARE FOR PRODUCTION AND LIVE PERFORMANCE

Serato