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When you turn up the gain on virtually any microphone preamplifier, it sounds noisy. Why is this? Before you blame the amplifier, let’s look more closely at this common phenomenon.
The Human Auditory System evolved as a survival tool and one of the vital functions of hearing is to establish where a source of sound is located. The oldest aspects of human hearing, from an evolutionary standpoint, are those concerned with direction. As we determine direction in everyday sounds, it is not unreasonable to think that direction information in reproduced sound is important to realism.
Since the beginning of broadcasting, announcers and narrators have spoken closely to microphones to boost the gravitas in their voices. They use proximity effect to sound richer, fuller and more intimate than they might naturally sound. But when they get too close, the result can be plosives. Here’s how to avoid them.
It is very tempting to take a laptop computer on location for live recording. It can work fine — until it doesn’t. Laptops, by their very nature, are more fragile and prone to failure than other recording devices. Be careful that you’re not the victim.
If you’re like me, making sense of evolving computer standards like Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C is confusing. These standards seem to change often and sometimes when plugging things in that ought to work, they don’t work at all. It’s all in the details. Here’s an overview of where we stand.
The impact of IP on the design of broadcast equipment and infrastructures is profound. Many broadcasters are replacing existing analog, AES3, MADI and SDI ports with a new class of interface for connecting to standard IT switch infrastructure, together with new control mechanisms for connection management and device discovery. In the process, they’re embracing an emerging set of open standards for interoperable, vendor-neutral signal transport.
If you’re like me, looking through layers of buried menus on digital devices for the one thing you need to do is enough to drive you batty. Yet, virtually every digital device in our lives today — from smartphones to cameras to simple audio recorders — comes with layer upon layer of menus in no certain order or place.
John Watkinson puts on his snake-oil-proof clothing and looks at speaker cables. Finally, some clarity behind the myths and magic that surround technical aspects of speaker interconnections.