A beyond-cool look at the world of high-end audio design for passionate collectors, obsessive audiophiles, and design fans At a time when sales of vinyl records have hit a 25-year high, and analog technologies are providing the kind of extraordinary audio experiences that our increasingly digital world has started to remove, Hi-Fi is essential reading. This unique book explores just how, when, and why the world fell in love with the look, feel, and sound of top-of-the-line audio equipment. Hi-Fi traces this fascinating evolution from the 1950s to today (and tomorrow), taking readers right up to the current renaissance of all things analog and the emergence of cutting-edge designs for die-hard audiophiles.

In 12 fact-filled chapters--covering everything from stereo to multichannel music to home theater--discover how to choose the best components for the money, how to match components fore the best sound, and how to set up and fine-tune a system for maximum performance.

Deals with issue of sound in audio-visual images

A practitioner's guide to the basic principles of creating sound effects using easily accessed free software. Designing Sound teaches students and professional sound designers to understand and create sound effects starting from nothing. Its thesis is that any sound can be generated from first principles, guided by analysis and synthesis. The text takes a practitioner's perspective, exploring the basic principles of making ordinary, everyday sounds using an easily accessed free software. Readers use the Pure Data (Pd) language to construct sound objects, which are more flexible and useful than recordings. Sound is considered as a process, rather than as data—an approach sometimes known as “procedural audio.” Procedural sound is a living sound effect that can run as computer code and be changed in real time according to unpredictable events. Applications include video games, film, animation, and media in which sound is part of an interactive process. The book takes a practical, systematic approach to the subject, teaching by example and providing background information that offers a firm theoretical context for its pragmatic stance. [Many of the examples follow a pattern, beginning with a discussion of the nature and physics of a sound, proceeding through the development of models and the implementation of examples, to the final step of producing a Pure Data program for the desired sound. Different synthesis methods are discussed, analyzed, and refined throughout.] After mastering the techniques presented in Designing Sound, students will be able to build their own sound objects for use in interactive applications and other projects

David Gibson uses 3D visual representations of sounds in a mix as a tool to explain the dynamics that can be created in a mix. This book provides an in-depth exploration into the aesthetics of what makes a great mix. Gibson’s unique approach explains how to map sounds to visuals in order to create a visual framework that can be used to analyze what is going on in any mix. Once you have the framework down, Gibson then uses it to explain the traditions that have be developed over time by great recording engineers for different styles of music and songs. You will come to understand everything that can be done in a mix to create dynamics that affect people in really deep ways. Once you understand what engineers are doing to create the great mixes they do, you can then use this framework to develop your own values as to what you feel is a good mix. Once you have a perspective on what all can be done, you have the power to be truly creative on your own – to create whole new mixing possibilities. It is all about creating art out of technology. This book goes beyond explaining what the equipment does – it explains what to do with the equipment to make the best possible mixes.

Chairman at the Board is an intimate, funny, and absorbing look at the music business by an insider who has recorded a host of the greatest musical artists from the 1970s to today. Bill Schnee takes the reader inside the studio--behind the curtain--and through the decades with a cavalcade of famous artists as he helped them realize their vision. After his high school band was dropped by Decca Records, Schnee began his quest to learn everything he could about making records. Mentored by technical guru Toby Foster, mastering guru Doug Sax, and recording legend Richie Podolor at his American Recording Studio, he immediately began recording the top acts of the day as a freelance engineer/producer in Hollywood. Clive Davis soon hired him to work for CBS where he partnered with famed music producer Richard Perry. Schnee went on to record and/or mix many of Perry's biggest albums of the '70s and '80s, including those by Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, Art Garfunkel, and The Pointer Sisters. With his deft personal touch with musicians, he continued to engineer and/or produce the likes of Marvin Gaye, Thelma Houston (the Grammy-nominated, direct-to-disc album I've Got the Music in Me), Pablo Cruise, Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs, the Jacksons, Huey Lewis and the News, Dire Straits, and Whitney Houston. With over 125 gold and platinum records, and two Grammys for Steely Dan's Aja and Gaucho, Schnee has been called a living legend--recognized and respected in the industry as the consummate music man with an incomparable career that he lovingly shares with his readers in humorous detail.