Desk Stereo
What is stereo
What is stereo?
Stereo is short for STEREOPHONY which by definition means, 'three dimensional hearing'. By modern standards, however, we have come to know this as really two- dimensional hearing, though there is an element of depth that can be heard and produced using a variety of production techniques. A recorded true stereo sound (true as opposed to artificially made from mono) requires two microphones, two channels on a desk and two speakers. To understand how it works you must first understand how we hear.
How we hear
The first connection that we can see between stereo and how we hear is the fact that stereo uses two mics, channels and speakers and guess what....we have two ears! What is involved in stereo sound is the ability to locate the direction from where a sound is coming from. In everyday life our ears work in such a way that we can detect, even with our eyes closed, the direction of sound. We can hear stationary sounds coming from one place, perhaps a door knock, or we can hear moving sound changing its position - for example a car passing in front of us or a train on its tracks moving across the countryside. The way our ears detect where the sound is coming from is by a difference in time of arrival of the sound. This means each ear hears the sound at a slightly different time and our brain is then able to distinguish where the sound is coming from. If there is someone shouting to our right then our right ear will pick up the sound first because it is closer to the noise being heard. The left ear hears it a fraction later as the sound has to travel that little bit further and also around the head before it goes in the ear and is registered. The speed of sound at sea level is 340.29 metres per second so you can see it really is only a tiny fraction of a second later.
Stereo in the studio
Stereo in the recording environment works in a similar way. We move sounds around in the stereo field from left to right by the use of panning. Panning takes the sound and adds changes in amplitude to the sound coming out of each speaker. So a sound that we hear as coming from the left speaker will have a greater amplitude than the sound that is sent from the right speaker. It was discovered that the same sound coming from different speakers into the same ear adds together and that this difference in amplitude creates a slight difference in time of arrival between the ears. The right ear will recieve the sound from the left speaker with greater amplitude slightly later than that of the left ear. Our ears are then able to distinguish where the sound came from.
Artificial Stereo
It is possible to create stereo effects in the studio by taking a mono sound and using delays to make the difference in time of arrival. The simplest way to do this is to copy your mono sound on to another track so that you have two. Then pan one sound to the left and one sound to the right and nudge one by a fraction of a second so that it is either later or earlier than the other. This creates the difference in time of arrival as one channel will always arrive before the other. This technique does have its problems though and these come in the form of phase. (See article What is phase?)
Written by www.song-production.co.uk
About the Author
www.song-production.co.uk is a music production company that makes song demos for writers and artists.
What is stereo
What is stereo?
Stereo is short for STEREOPHONY which by definition means, 'three dimensional hearing'. By modern standards, however, we have come to know this as really two- dimensional hearing, though there is an element of depth that can be heard and produced using a variety of production techniques. A recorded true stereo sound (true as opposed to artificially made from mono) requires two microphones, two channels on a desk and two speakers. To understand how it works you must first understand how we hear.
How we hear
The first connection that we can see between stereo and how we hear is the fact that stereo uses two mics, channels and speakers and guess what....we have two ears! What is involved in stereo sound is the ability to locate the direction from where a sound is coming from. In everyday life our ears work in such a way that we can detect, even with our eyes closed, the direction of sound. We can hear stationary sounds coming from one place, perhaps a door knock, or we can hear moving sound changing its position - for example a car passing in front of us or a train on its tracks moving across the countryside. The way our ears detect where the sound is coming from is by a difference in time of arrival of the sound. This means each ear hears the sound at a slightly different time and our brain is then able to distinguish where the sound is coming from. If there is someone shouting to our right then our right ear will pick up the sound first because it is closer to the noise being heard. The left ear hears it a fraction later as the sound has to travel that little bit further and also around the head before it goes in the ear and is registered. The speed of sound at sea level is 340.29 metres per second so you can see it really is only a tiny fraction of a second later.
Stereo in the studio
Stereo in the recording environment works in a similar way. We move sounds around in the stereo field from left to right by the use of panning. Panning takes the sound and adds changes in amplitude to the sound coming out of each speaker. So a sound that we hear as coming from the left speaker will have a greater amplitude than the sound that is sent from the right speaker. It was discovered that the same sound coming from different speakers into the same ear adds together and that this difference in amplitude creates a slight difference in time of arrival between the ears. The right ear will recieve the sound from the left speaker with greater amplitude slightly later than that of the left ear. Our ears are then able to distinguish where the sound came from.
Artificial Stereo
It is possible to create stereo effects in the studio by taking a mono sound and using delays to make the difference in time of arrival. The simplest way to do this is to copy your mono sound on to another track so that you have two. Then pan one sound to the left and one sound to the right and nudge one by a fraction of a second so that it is either later or earlier than the other. This creates the difference in time of arrival as one channel will always arrive before the other. This technique does have its problems though and these come in the form of phase. (See article What is phase?)
Written by www.song-production.co.uk
About the Author
www.song-production.co.uk is a music production company that makes song demos for writers and artists.
Desk Stereo
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what do I need to record my old analog records,albums,vinyl,l.p.'s,etc...?
I want to transfer my music (vinyl) to my computer's media library using my turntable and stereo system.Can it be done?Do I need special software, or cables to connect to my laptop or desk top to my stereo system.
I answered this once before answering about cassette tape, same for stereo if you have a turntable with usb output or an amp to feed the PC:
You don't really need to buy anything to transfer your (audio) tapes to digital on your PC.
You need a tape player, I assume you are using cassette tapes. I use a decent "boom box" (Sony am/fm/cd/tape player) connected to the sound input on my PC.
You need to download a program to record on your PC. I use Audacity (free at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download...
Then it is simply a matter of playing the tape and recording it on your PC. You can then go in and mark the beginning/end of tracks and if you add-in the mp3 (lame encoder), it will create mp3 files for you.
Yes, it's a little work, but reasonable to do. And, since the software is free, it's just your time you invest in the project.