Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever PDF Author: Greg Milner
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9781429957151
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented. Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix. From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.

Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever PDF Author: Greg Milner
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9781429957151
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented. Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix. From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.

Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever PDF Author: Greg Milner
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 1847086055
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
From our CD collections to iPods bursting with MP3s to the hallowed vinyl of DJs, recordings are the most common way we experience music. Perfecting Sound Forever tells the story of recorded music, introducing us to the innovators, musicians and producers who have affected the way we hear our favourite songs, from Thomas Edison to Phil Spector. Exploring the balance that recordings strike between the real and the represented, Greg Milner asks the questions which have divided sound recorders for the past century: should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? What does the perfect record sound like? The answers he uncovers will change the way we think about music.

Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever PDF Author: Greg Milner
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9780865479388
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented. Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix. From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.

Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever PDF Author: Greg Milner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781847081407
Category : Musical perception
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented. Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix. From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.

To Feel the Music

To Feel the Music PDF Author: Neil Young
Publisher: BenBella Books
ISBN: 1948836637
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Neil Young took on the music industry so that fans could hear his music—all music—the way it was meant to be heard. Today, most of the music we hear is com-pressed to a fraction of its original sound,while analog masterpieces are turning to dustin record company vaults. As these record-ings disappear, music fans aren't just losing acollection of notes. We're losing spaciousness,breadth of the sound field, and the ability tohear and feel a ping of a triangle or a pluckof a guitar string, each with its own reso-nance and harmonics that slowly trail off intosilence. The result is music that is robbed of its original quality—muddy and flat in sound compared to the rich, warm sound artists hear in the studio. It doesn't have to be this way, but the record and technology companies have incorrectly assumed that most listeners are satisfied with these low-quality tracks. Neil Young is challenging the assault on audio quality—and working to free music lovers from the flat and lifeless status quo. To Feel the Music is the true story of his questto bring high-quality audio back to musiclovers—the most important undertaking ofhis career. It's an unprecedented look insidethe successes and setbacks of creating thePono player, the fights and negotiationswith record companies to preserve master-pieces for the future, and Neil's unrelentingdetermination to make musical art availableto everyone. It's a story that shows how muchmore there is to music than meets the ear. Neil's efforts to bring quality audio to his fans garnered media attention when his Kickstarter campaign for his Pono player—a revolutionary music player that would combine the highest quality possible with the portability, simplicity and affordability modern listeners crave—became the third-most successful Kickstarter campaign in the website's history. It had raised more than $6M in pledges in 40 days. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, Neil still had a long road ahead, and his Pono music player would not have the commercial success he'd imagined. But he remained committed to his mission, and faced with the rise of streaming services that used even lower quality audio, he was determined to rise to the challenge. An eye-opening read for all fans of Neil Young and all fans of great music, as well as readers interesting in going behind the scenes of product creation, To Feel the Music has an inspiring story at its heart: One determined artist with a groundbreaking vision and the absolute refusal to give up, despite setbacks, naysayers, and skeptics.

Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever PDF Author: Greg Milner
Publisher: Le Castor Astral éditeur
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : fr
Pages : 434

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Book Description
« Très, très, très peu de livres changeront votre façon d’écouter la musique. Celui-ci est l’un d’eux. » Venant de Jarvis Cocker – fondateur du groupe Pulp et collaborateur de Nancy Sinatra, Brigitte Fontaine ou Charlotte Gainsbourg –, le compliment vaut de l’or. Greg Milner ne propose pas seulement de découvrir l’évolution de l’enregistrement sonore, il met en lumière une partie trop souvent oubliée de l’histoire de la musique. Occulté, l’enregistrement musical retourne désormais au centre du débat grâce à cet auteur habité par son sujet. Perfecting Sound Forever fait prendre conscience que, de l’amélioration des techniques, émanent d’intenses enjeux humains. De « Mary Had a Little Lamb » – premier enregistrement de Thomas Edison – aux tubes format MP3 des Red Hot Chili Peppers, en passant par Les Paul et Neil Young, l’auteur raconte le destin d’hommes fascinés par la musique et sa captation. Ce récit montre que derrière l’évolution des techniques se cachent des personnages passionnément épris de musique. Dès les premières lignes, Greg Milner manifeste d’ailleurs son amour pour cet art avec une écriture romanesque, pleine de verve, qui dévoile les liens qu’unissent la musique et ces moments jouissifs d’invention, ces Eurêka de la création. À l’heure du digital et du dématérialisé, le livre de Greg Milner pose enfin la question de l’authenticité et de la perfection acoustique. L’enregistrement absolu existe-t-il ? Si oui, quelle est la partition ultime ? À travers l’histoire du son, l’auteur nous raconte comment la musique a fait évoluer la technologie de l’enregistrement, mais également comment cette dernière a influencé la musique en retour. Avec Perfecting sound forever, Greg Milner marque un tournant dans l’histoire de la musique et sa narration. Ce texte a séduit l’ensemble de la critique anglo-saxonne. L’ouvrage, publié par les éditions Granta en 2010, a été plébiscité en Angleterre et aux États-Unis, comme en témoigne sa nomination au National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World

The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World PDF Author: Trevor Cox
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039324282X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
“A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening. . . . Anyone who has ever clapped, hollered or yodeled at an echo will delight in [Cox’s] zestful curiosity.”—New York Times Trevor Cox is on a hunt for the sonic wonders of the world. A renowned expert who engineers classrooms and concert halls, Cox has made a career of eradicating bizarre and unwanted sounds. But after an epiphany in the London sewers, Cox now revels in exotic noises—creaking glaciers, whispering galleries, stalactite organs, musical roads, humming dunes, seals that sound like alien angels, and a Mayan pyramid that chirps like a bird. With forays into archaeology, neuroscience, biology, and design, Cox explains how sound is made and altered by the environment, how our body reacts to peculiar noises, and how these mysterious wonders illuminate sound’s surprising dynamics in everyday settings—from your bedroom to the opera house. The Sound Book encourages us to become better listeners in a world dominated by the visual and to open our ears to the glorious cacophony all around us.

Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds

Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds PDF Author: Greg Milner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393244997
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"One of the most mesmerizing and exhilarating, yet alarming modern technology books…an extraordinary tale." —Gillian Tett, Financial Times Pinpoint tells the fascinating story of a hidden system that touches nearly every aspect of modern life. Tracking the development of GPS from its origins as a bomb guidance system to its present ubiquity, Greg Milner examines the technology’s double-edged effect on the way we live, work, and travel. Savvy and original, this sweeping scientific history offers startling insight into how humans understand their place in the world.

Chasing Sound

Chasing Sound PDF Author: Susan Schmidt Horning
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421410222
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The recording studio, she argues, is at the center of musical culture in the twentieth century.--Emily Thompson, Princeton University "Science"

Music as a Chariot

Music as a Chariot PDF Author: Richard K. Thomas
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351382071
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Music as a Chariot offers a multidisciplinary perspective whose primary proposition is that theatre is a type of music. Understanding how music enables the theatre experience helps to shape our entire approach to the performing arts. Beginning with a discussion on the origin and nature of time, the author takes us on an evolutionary journey to discover how music, language and mimesis co-evolved, eventually coming together to produce the complex way we experience theatre. The book integrates the evolutionary neuroscience of the human brain into this journey, offering practical implications and applications for the auditory expression of this concept—namely the fundamental techniques artists use to create sound scores for theatre. With contributions from directors, playwrights, actors and designers, Music as a Chariot explores the use of music to carry ideas into the human soul—a concept that extends beyond the theatrical to include film, video gaming, dance, or anywhere art is manipulated in time.