Quality In Sound Engineering

Table Of Contents

Quality Sound Engineering (QSE) is a book that picks up where my first book, Practical Techniques for the Recording Engineer, leaves off.

Chapter 1
Hearing and Sound Quality

• Hearing and sound quality
  • The ability to hear well
  • Protecting the gift
  • Hearing expertly

Chapter 2
What is Good Sound Quality?

• Faithfulness
  • Overly-massive transducers
  • The use of inferior amplifiers
    • Improper design from the outset
    • Improper carrying-out of the design
    • Fragile design
    • High quality parts
    • Listening tests
  • The mismatching of impedances
  • Use of a building-block amplifier that is not flat
  • Improper audio alignment
  • Use of poorly-designed cut-off filters
• Powerful low end where the fundamental is heard
• Clean high end without fuzziness
• Presence
• Definition
• Fatigue-free listening
• Level capability to suit the listener

Chapter 3
Impairments To Quality

• Harmonic distortion (HD)
• Intermodulation distortion (IM)
• Transient Intermodulation distortion (TIM)
• Saturation—soft clipping
• Clipping—hard clipping
• Induced radio frequencies (RF)
• Quantizing noise
• Wow
• Tape speed flutter
• Intermittence
• Phase-related distortion
• Speaker motion non-linearity
• Ringing
• Overshoot
• VU meter distortion
• Microphone diffraction effects

Chapter 4
The Management of Quality

• The listening test
  • A/Bing
  • The split/sum technique
  • Microphone considerations
  • Console design
  • Opamps
• Claimsmanship and specsmanship
• Avoiding and correcting audio difficulties
  • Doing the swap-out
  • Performing a redesign
  • Building your own
  • Working with ICs
  • Shortening the audio chain
• Expense/value considerations
  • Initial cost
  • Cost of upkeep
  • Resale value
  • MTBF (mean time between failures)
  • Quality of original manufacture
  • Level of factory support
  • Upgrade-ability

Chapter 5
Working For Quality In The Real World

• Mikes and instruments versus speakers and control rooms
  • Working with sound from speakers
    • Hearing fatigue
    • Consistent levels
    • Speaker component failure
    • Drugs
    • Control room empty or full
    • Treatment of control room (or studio) surfaces
• Noise reduction systems
• Multitrack heads
• Monitor system alignment
• Guarding against poor quality recording medium (tape)
• Handling tape media

Chapter 6
Getting Quality From Microphones

• High quality sound from mikes
  • Dynamic mikes
  • Condenser mikes
  • Electret condenser mikes
  • PZM mikes
  • Ribbon mikes
  • The qualities of microphones
    • Signal to noise ratio
    • Frequency response
    • Dynamic range
    • Output impedance
    • Proximity effect
    • Handling
    • Sensitivity
    • Polar response versus frequency
  • Separating mikes
  • Balancing leakage
  • The vocalist fortress
  • Circular miking
  • Localization of sound sources in stereo
    • Amplitude cues
    • Phase cues
    • Brightness
  • Amplitude stereo
  • Amplitude/phase stereo
  • Binaural recording
  • Spaced-apart mikes and “depth distortion”
  • Two criss-crossed bi-directional mikes
  • Twin cardioids
    • Coincident, angled apart
    • Small separation, angled apart
    • Large separation, aimed straight ahead
  • Stereo field checking
  • MS miking
    • Decoded MS input mode
    • Undecoded MS input mode
    • MS in / MS out console mode
  • Stereo / MS / stereo width adjustment
  • Adding point sources to overall stereo
• Generating acoustical delay summation anomalies
  • Frequency location of the combs
  • Depth of the combs
  • Avoiding comb filtration
  • Going to analog disk with comb filtered audio

Chapter 7
Checking Transducers for Quality

• The UREI Model 200 Chart Recorder
  • Plotting monitor systems
  • Checking microphones
  • Checking speakers
  • Other Model 200 uses
• Cleaning condenser capsules

Chapter 8
Examining Audio Systems for Quality

• Using the Oscilloscope
  • The trigger
  • The verniers
  • Scope probes
  • The vertical scales
  • The horizontal scale
• Finding the clipping level
• Measuring the rise-time
• Measuring slew-rate
• Measuring phase response
• Measuring impedances
  • Measuring output impedances
  • Measuring input impedances
• Testing common mode rejection

Chapter 9
Projects To Build

• The OhmLad scope shunt
• The OhmLad scope pot
• The OhmLad fixed and variable resistance boosters
• The Spectra Sonics Model 510 bandpass filter
• The Octopus
  • Using the Octopus
• A stage bridging box
• A series Y box
• Common mode rejection tester
• A common mode rejection transformer for transformerless consoles
• The Jenson Direct Box
• A complete microphone input circuit for demanding work

Appendix A
Cleaning Contacts

Appendix B
Subjectiveness of Sound Quality

Appendix C
The dB

Appendix D
Measuring Impedances

Appendix E
Glossary