I am redoing my Sound and Synth basic Series, I want to take it to the next level and so I expect this to take a fair amount of time (lots o video editing for these bad boys), but as part of it I am also writing a book with exercises and intend to have this for every chapter, this way things are really learned rather than just watching what someone else has learned and trying to figure out how you yourself would use it. (I am getting tired of people binge watching and then complaining they don't get it on like video 20 after doing literally no practice).
This is just the first chapter, it takes a pretty long time to write it all in a comprehensive way, but I think I found a nice balance. It urked me how in school they didn't have a book like this, we used MRT for our main text and when you've got a several hundred page book but only use like 50 pages of it I do not see why we continue to use it (in reality it was more like 6 or 7 important pages and the rest where a one time read). The acoustic books were way better but had math to advanced for the course, same for digital audio books.
Anyways, I hope to help people here and so I am just looking for some responses. I want to create something that will act as the ideal text for those finding a basis in sound.
My formatting got allllllll screwed up posting it on here, in reality words are bolded, italics are used and so forth to enhance the reading experience and direct the reader.
Later lessons involves many more links, lots of pictures and so forth so positing it here is not really an option, and I am still working on it heavily anyways.
Lesson 1 What is sound?
What is sound? What makes it? Is it something you can hold? Is sound made of something?
What are the properties of sound?
Most people have some idea about sound, but what if I asked you this;
What is the difference between sound and a vibration? Many people would have to modify their definition after this question is asked, many people’s initial answer is “Sound is a vibration”. After the second question many would probably then say “Sound is a vibration people can hear”. I want you to pause and really think about it. What is sound?
My definition of sound is - A pattern of vibrations through a medium perceived by an auditory system. (ooooo fancy definition!)
Sound requires an observer. If you played something in a room and no one was there then all that would be in the room is a collection of “vibrations”. A similar problem is that of color. If you see a brown chair but then look away, is it still brown? The answer surprisingly is no! It is now a chair (its shape is independent of observation) that absorbs all but a particular light wave. I say this because it leads to a very important understanding.
When we take measurements of “sound” we are not actually measuring “sound”, we are measuring the physical properties of compression waves. This means opinion statements like “louder is better” is completely opinion based and have no scientific meaning whatsoever (however some psychological studies are a different story).
Watch out for those people who declare opinions as facts and confuse these two things. Typical situations like teaching about compression or eq have statements that confuse physical quantity with perception all the time (usually well intentioned).
Sound is a set of waves, meaning it is not a “thing” but it does require “things” to exist. Consider the ocean. It has waves, but if there were no water would there be waves? No! Waves are a pattern in the water. We call the water in this case the medium. A medium is the substance that is necessary for the existence of these patterns (waves). Sound is a particular kind of wave. It's waves that we are built to detect, what is not sound to us may be sound to something else. Dogs hear higher than humans, and because of this what is sound to a dog may not be sound to a human, even further we do not all hear the same! What one sound is to you, may be a very different sound to me! This seems like a problem, and it is, but most of us hear close enough to the same thing that it is not an issue.
What kind of mediums does sound use? Well, air is the big one, then there is water, and even mediums such as steel! You have probably heard the high buzzing sound of an old TV or light. Each medium will have different effects upon the sound. Studios often have plate reverb which can take an initial sound and make it sound as if it happens in a different room! The plate affects the sound through its properties as a medium. Spring reverb works on the same principle.
What is the nature of the interaction of sound with a medium? This answer has numerous answers based on the medium and the origin of the sound. We are going to consider the movement of sound through the air. I don’t wanna go crazy with the physics here, but there are a couple things we should know.
If the density (how tightly packed an object is, picture a huge box full of nothing and another box of the same size only full of books. Which would you rather carry? The empty box of course! Why? Because it is less dense.) of an object remains consistent then sound will propagate (move through it) it at a consistent rate, if all other things are constant. If the temperature is constant then the propagation of sound will also be constant given all other things are constant.
There are a HUGE number of additional things we could add, but that is the field of acoustics! We just want a solid understanding of sound. We have neglected sound source, how sound is absorbed, reflected, and absorbed and by how much as well as how sound is affected by shape. This is only the start of acoustics! Plus there is a fair amount of math.
Our 2 observations have important applications. If density is high then sound will travel faster, if it is low then sound will travel slower. Sound travels through metal (high density) faster than air (less density). If you are listening to a song on a humid day (more dense) vs. a dry day (less dense) sound will actually be faster on the humid day! (this also makes you start to realize how incredible water is) You will hear a large number of figures for the speed of sound through air, because sound gets less dense as we increase in altitude and temperatures vary widely. We will use 1130 ft/sec, but you may hear others. 1130 ft per second means that if you were a little over 3 ½ football fields from me and I yelled to you it would take on average a second for you to hear my voice. You can image how this can be quite the ordeal for live sound. Now add to this the fact that temperature changes the speed of sound! A hot environment will have a faster speed of sound than a cool temperature. Now we can add if you are in a dense environment but the temperature changes radically then you will find the speed of sound changing! What's the big deal about the speed of sound? Well, the speed of sound changing will cause our perception of its pitch to change because the wavelength changes. This will be much more obvious after later lessons. These environments will also cause a spectral change, meaning the high, low and mid content of sound will respond differently in these different conditions. Humid air will cause high frequencies to be absorbed less. This means if you’re creating a song in a humid location and then play it in a dry environment it will sound different! Sometimes good, but usually this is a very bad thing.
Wikipedia Speed of Sound - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound
Google Gif of Sound in air - https://www.google.com/search?q=sound+in+air&safe=active&tbm=isch&source=lnt&tbs=itp:animated&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-uLvutdDWAhUUVWMKHfSbCEkQpwUIHw&biw=1777&bih=854&dpr=0.9#imgrc=pCvvbPzOX-bpbM:
Please look at several of these pictures in google. There are several that are excellent illustrations. I just want to point out that the air does not move with the sound. Picture a boat on a ocean. The boat may bob up and down on a wave, but it does not move forward with the wave. The water itself doesn't even move with the wave! Instead the particles are getting closer together (a process call compression) and then pulling apart (a process called refraction). Several illustrations even show the path of an individual particle with a circle.
Now you know! You have a pretty solid understanding of what is sound. You also now are aware of several additional branches of study dealing in sound and what they are concerned with.
Exercise Find 3 good gifs showing how sound behaves in different ways. Explain why they are each different.
What is sound? What is the figure we use for the speed of sound? Why is this figure not completely accurate? What 2 things affect the speed of sound? What does sound depend on? Give 3 examples of situations in which knowledge about sound is important.
I am looking for excessive suggestions (for all lessons) to, what do you think would be effective? I am considering adding project files with mixing challenges, beats with missing parts such as a melody, stem project ect.... I really want to be as comprehensive as possible and am finally at a stage where I think I can present what I have so far and benefit from input.
After a substantial amount of information has been taught I plan to do a test with an answer key, each test will be cumulative so that its a measure of how much you really understand so you can focus your efforts better.
Right now I have things in this order, Am I missing any topics?
What is sound? Map of Sound Structural (Burgessian) Analysis How We Hear Compression, Rarefaction, Oscillation Parts of a Waveform Volume Envelopes Phase The Sine Wave Pitch Wavelength Frequency Spectrum Oscilloscopes and Spectrum Common Overtones and Harmonic Series Filters Basic Filter Shapes and Uses Bandwidth Basics Bandwidth Audio Vs. Acoustics Digital Audio Signal Flow Mixer Intro to Critical Listening Intro to Psychoacoustics Types of Noise Noise Floor, Noise Vs. Distortion Frequency Response LFO Modulation Resonance, Formants, Sibilance dBFS and Clipping Delay Chorus Flanging Oscillators and Operators Analog Vs. Digital MIDI What is Synthesis Additive Synthesis Subtractive Synthesis Wavetable Synthesis FM AM RM Samplers What is Stereo Sound Design Intro DAW Types Sequencer Microphone Types Recording Mixing Intro EQ Compression Types of Notation Fundamental Workflows Music Theory Intro Function Harmony Intro Rhythm Intro File Management Musicianship (aural dictation) Instrument Basics
Thank you for your time.
Submitted October 22, 2017 at 02:50PM by Composing_Gloves https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/781q6j/what_is_sound/?utm_source=ifttt