


WHAT DOES ANALOGUE GEAR DO TO SOUNDS?
Bruce Aisher explores the effects of analogue recording methods, explaining why they might be beneficial to your production process. On the face of it, there’s an interesting conundrum buried in the suggestion that analogue recording sounds better, most recently debated by Gregory Scott in his At
Ringing In Your Ears? Finally, Researchers Finding New Clues About Tinnitus
Alan Starr remembers being blown back by the bomb’s force. He had come to watch a friend cross the Boston Marathon finish line on that fateful April day. Starr, a 52-year-old audio engineer who makes his living by his ears, suffered no visible injury. But, like at least 70 other marathon bombing v
A Brief History of Recording to ca. 1950
By Roger Beardsley and Daniel Leech-Wilkinson In the beginning The story of sound recording, and reproduction, began in 1877, when the man of a thousand patents, Thomas Edison, invented the phonograph. In essence, his machine consisted of a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a cylindrical drum which, w
Hit Charade
The biggest pop star in America today is a man named Karl Martin Sandberg. The lead singer of an obscure ’80s glam-metal band, Sandberg grew up in a remote suburb of Stockholm and is now 44. Sandberg is the George Lucas, the LeBron James, the Serena Williams of American pop. He is responsible for
I Listened to Sennheiser’s Absurd $55,000 Orpheus Headphones
I’m one of the first people in the world to listen to Sennheiser’s new $55,000 Orpheus headphone system. The new hardware’s 20 years in the making. Real, real serious shit. I’m trying hard to concentrate on the music–trying to give this crazy thing the severe attention I think it deserves.
Mastering For Vinyl
The Vinyl Comeback There seems to be no end in sight for the resurgence of vinyl records. In 2015 the UK’s first Official Vinyl Albums and Official Vinyl Singles chart were established plus record players were among one of this years must have Christmas items, although obviously outshone by th
Everything You Should Know About Sound
I’ve always been a little confused about sound. So for “Tuesday’s” “mini” post, I decided to do something about that. We think of sound as something we hear—something that makes noise. But in pure physics terms, sound is just a vibration going through matter. The way a vibration “
George Martin and the Beatles: A Producer’s Impact, in Five Songs
When we hear a great recording, we tend to think of the music as having sprung fully developed from the imagination of the musician or band that cut the tracks. But that ignores the role of the producer, who translates the musician’s vision into the sound we experience. The contributions that Geor