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A device that records and plays samples, often with features for editing, manipulating and storing the samples.
1) The point at which magnetic tape reaches full magnetization due to an excess of sound level. This creates some distortion that some audiophiles describe as “analog warmth” a desirable quality in certain instances. 2) The audio distortion that occurs by overdriving a signal through a tube amplifier or preamp—again producing color and warmth in the sound that engineers often find appealing. 3) A digital plugin that emulates tape or tube saturation.
A waveform that jumps from a zero value to a peak value and then immediately drops to a zero value for each cycle. (Sometimes also called “Ramp Wave.”)
1) A descriptive term meaning “temporary”. 2) A scratch vocal is a vocal done during a basic recording session to help the musicians play their parts. At a later date the final vocal track is overdubbed. 3) The action of a musician or disc jockey quickly moving a record back and forth on a turntable reproducing the stylus motion to create a rhythm pattern of sound.
The action or function of shuttling a piece of recorded audio back and forth while monitoring it, typically to locate a certain point in the recording. In earlier days, scrubbing was done with reel-to-reel analog tape by manually turning the reels to pull the tape across the playhead. Today, scrubbing is primarily done digitally on a DAW by dragging the cursor back and forth across the waveform.
An assistant recording engineer.
See “Auxiliary Send.”
A control determining the signal level sent to a send bus.
1) In audio settings, describes the amount of output that a microphone can produce from a standard level of sound, as compared to the output of another microphone from the same sound level. 2) In music, describes the artistic persona in general.
1) A pre-programmed set of musical events, such as pitches, sounding of samples, and rests, to be played in order by a device. Also refers to the action of programming the device to play this set of musical events. 2) Loosely referring to a segment of music in general.
A computerized device or software that can be programmed to play a stepped order of musical events, including playing of pitches, sounding of samples, and rests.
A digital data stream where individual bits are transmitted one after another over a single connection (as opposed to “parallel data,” in which multiple bits can be sent at once). Most data connections in the recording studio transmit serial data—for example, USB, Firewire and MIDI.
Connecting devices (especially circuit elements) so that the electrical signal flows from one thing to the next, to the next, etc.
The positioning of microphones, instruments, connections and monitoring in the studio, as well as the controls and levels on consoles, DAWs, etc., in preparation for recording.
A frequency response of an equalization circuit where the boost or cut of frequencies forms a shelf on a frequency response graph. A high-frequency shelf control affects signal levels at the set frequency and all frequencies above it; a low-frequency shelf does the same for signals at and below the set frequency.
