When a sound is produced by an instrument, a series of harmonics are created that determine the tone of that sound. All of the harmonics that aren’t the lowest (known as the fundamental) are known as overtones.
Something that can quickly reduce the input volume of a piece of hardware. Commonly found on microphones and preamps.
Panning is the act of placing or moving a sound anywhere in the sound field of an audio playback system.
Phantom Power, often seen as +48 Volts, is the power necessary to get a condenser mic to work. Most audio interfaces have a button that sends this power to a microphone that needs it. There is a 48V Phantom Power button on most preamps as well. If your microphone is running through a preamp before it gets to your DAW, press this button to get signal to your DAW.
The nature of the location of two similar waveforms in relation to each other. If two similar waveforms are “in-phase,” then the peaks and troughs of the waves are lined up with each other. If the waveforms are “out-of-phase,” then the peaks are in line with the troughs. This causes low and low-mid frequencies to get lost. Ultimately, out-of-phase waveforms sound bad.
A sound processor that removes certain random frequencies by creating a copy of the soundwave and moving it back and forth, causing a “phasing” sound.
A delay that alternates between the left and right speakers.
Pitch is a perceptual property of sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale, or more commonly, pitch is the quality that makes it possible to judge sounds as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies.
A sound processor that changes the pitch of a sound.
A playlist is an alternate list of the audio. This is useful while recording new takes, so you do not lose any old/alternate takes that may be needed later. It is also useful to use in mixing as checkpoints that can be reverted back to if a mixing move doesn’t produce the desired effect the mixer was going for.
Sounds made from the mouth that blow quick bursts of air. Common examples are words with p’s, b’s, t’s, k’s, and d’s.
A piece of software used within a DAW that processes the sound of a recording.
This is the direction of a waveform, ie. the peaks and troughs of a waveform. When you flip the polarity of a waveform, it turns the waveform upside down. Basically, the peaks are where the troughs once were, and vice versa. Polarity buttons (sometimes called phase buttons) are common on audio interfaces to keep stereo inputs in phase with each other. You may see this button on digital plugins and analog hardware as well. Also, if you have 2 identical sounds playing at the same time and you flip the phase on one of them, they will cancel eachother out completely and no sound will play, keep this in mind when choosing to use or not use this tool.
A pop screen is a metal or mesh screen, usually circular, that is propped in front of the microphone to help diffuse (soften) the plosives, such as “P”s, “B’s”, and “T’s”.
A short delay between a sound and when an effect begins. Usually measured in milliseconds, or ms. For example, a 50ms reverb pre-delay means that there is 50ms between the actual sound and when the reverberated sound starts.
A preamplifier, also known as a preamp, is an electronic amplifier that converts a weak electrical signal into an output signal strong enough to be noise-tolerant and strong enough for further processing, or for sending to a power amplifier and a loudspeaker. Without this, the final signal would be noisy or distorted. They are typically used to amplify signals from analog sensors such as microphones and pickups. Because of this, the preamplifier is often placed close to the sensor to reduce the effects of noise and interference.
This is the process of exporting each sound of a song individually, a deconstruction of the song that can be put all together to rebuild the song to match the final bounce of the song exactly. This process is what produces stems, whether for the mix engineer to use during the mix stage or to turn into the label for final delivery of the song after approval. This term is also interchangeable with “bouncing” or “exporting” ie. “Can you print a version of that mix for me?”
A panning parameter in pro tools that is used in immersive mixing sessions. The parameters of this panner allow the sound to be moved around in a 3D space, an alternative to using the Dolby Atmos Panner.
Any hardware or software that changes the pitch, speed, loudness, or tone of a sound.
The closer you get to the microphone, the more “boomy” or low frequencies get recorded. This phenomenon is only present when using a condenser or ribbon mic.
A punch in is when the performer wants to re-record a small part of a larger take instead of re-recording the whole larger take, such as re-recording one phrase or bar of a whole verse instead of re-recording the whole verse.
Also known as a TRS cable, these are cables that are commonly used for instruments like guitars and basses. Thicker versions of this cable are used for speakers.
A parameter of a compressor that determines how hard the compressor clamps down on the volume of the audio. If a ratio is set to 2:1, then for every 2dB’s of audio that goes above the threshold, 1dB comes out. If the ratio is set to 4:1, then for every 4dB’s of audio that goes above the threshold, 1dB comes out. And so on.
Sound recording is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording. In most cases recording/tracking includes the use of a microphone to capture the audio, this is then transmitted to an analog console or a DAW, or both.
This is the final mix at the mastering stage, it is used to make sure the mastering engineer has the right version and can ensure they are not getting too far away from the mix during the mastering process. In the mixing stage, this is the most current bounce of the recording session, this is to ensure the mixer doesn’t get too far away from the initial vision of the record during the mixing process and to ensure the stems sent are the most current version of the stems. This sets up the mixer for success.
