Video game music has been permeating popular culture for over forty years. Now, reaching billions of listeners, game music encompasses a diverse spectrum of musical materials and practices. This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of video game music by a diverse group of scholars and industry professionals. The chapters and summaries consolidate existing knowledge and present tools for readers to engage with the music in new ways. Many popular games are analysed, including Super Mario Galaxy, Bastion, The Last of Us, Kentucky Route Zero and the Katamari, Gran Turismo and Tales series. Topics include chiptunes, compositional processes, localization, history and game music concerts. The book also engages with other disciplines such as psychology, music analysis, business strategy and critical theory, and will prove an equally valuable resource for readers active in the industry, composers or designers, and music students and scholars.

Why is music so important to radio? This anthology explores the ways in which musical life and radio interact, overlap and have influenced each other for nearly a century. One of music radio's major functions is to help build smaller or larger communities by continuously offering broadcast music as a means to create identity and senses of belonging. Music radio also helps identify and develop musical genres in collaboration with listeners and the music industry by mediating and by gatekeeping. Focusing on music from around the world, Music Radio discusses what music radio is and why or for what purposes it is produced. Each essay illuminates the intricate cultural processes associated with music and radio and suggests ways of working with such complexities.

Every session, every gig, every day, recording engineers strive to make the most of their audio signal processing devices. EQ, Compression, Delay, Distortion, Reverb and all those other FX are the well-worn tools of the audio trade. Recording and mixing, live and in the studio, engineers must thoroughly master these devices to stay competitive sonically. Its not enough to just know what each effect is supposed to do. Sound FX explains the basic and advanced signal processing techniques used in professional music production, describing real world techniques used by experienced engineers, and referencing popular music examples released internationally. The reader learns not just how to, but also what if, so they can better achieve what they already hear in the productions they admire and chase what they only hear in their imaginative minds ear. Sound FX will immediately help you make more thorough, more musical use of your sound FX.
The accompanying website www.soundfx-companion.com includes audio exaples of FX featured in the book.
Features:
A chapter dedicated to each key effect:
Distortion
Compression & Limiting
Expansion & Gating
Reverb
Equalization
Delay
Pitch Shift
Volume
More than 100 line drawings and illustrations.
Accompanying website featuring examples of all FX covered in the book.
Discography of FX at the end of each relevant chapter.
From the Sound FX Intro:
The most important music of our time is recorded music. The recording studio is its principle musical instrument. The recording engineers and music producers who create the music we love know how to use signal processing equipment to capture the work of artists, preserving realism or altering things wildly, as appropriate. While the talented, persistent, self-taught engineer can create sound recordings of artistic merit, more productive use of the studio is achieved through study, experience and collaboration. This book defines the technical basis of the most important signal processing effects used in the modern recording studio, highlights the key drivers of sound quality associated with each, shares common production techniques used by recording engineers with significant experience in the field, references many of the touchstone recordings of our time, and equips the reader with the knowledge needed to comfortably use effects devices correctly, and, more importantly, to apply these tools creatively.
* Mixing and Recording, studio and live -- for everyone who uses signal processing in audio.
* Defines the technical basis of the most important signal processing effects used in the modern recording studio
* Highlights the key drivers of sound quality associated with each
* Equips the reader with the knowledge needed to comfortably use effects devices correctly, and, more importantly, to apply these tools creatively

A comprehensive guide to London's 60 independent record shops. Features extensive original photography by Sam Mellish that documents and celebrates London's record shop culture. From the author of the bestselling The 500 Hidden Secrets of London. Forms part of a wider series that explores creative London. London's record shop scene is at its most vital and buoyant point since the 1990s, following a resurgence of interest in vinyl over recent years. Tom Greig, who has immersed himself in the world of London's record shops for close to two decades, profiles and tells the story of 60 distinctive independent record stores, selling both new and used vinyl. Vinyl London is at once a practical guide, featuring maps, addresses, opening times and stock information, and an attractive visual celebration of London's record shops. The book is organised geographically, and contains the following chapters; Soho; North; East; South; West; Suburbs; Markets; Vinyl Cafes.

Dan Alexander Audio reveals the origins and history of vintage recording gear, told by the man who coined the term. It discusses the products of 22 manufacturers, illustrated with over 450 never-before-published photographs in full-color and reprints of original manufacturers' sales brochures from the author's collection. This book features: A list of over 7,500 pieces of vintage gear Dan Alexander sold from 1979 until 2000, including prices, serial numbers, and buyer A complete list of microphone types distributed by Telefunken from 1928 until 1980, including technical information on mics by Neumann, Akg, Schoeps, Rft, and Geffel A complete list of Trident A and B range console 40 pages on Neve modules and consoles Helios product information and photographs information sourced from Dick Swettenhams' personal sales binder.

The Recording, Mixing, and Mastering Reference Handbook provides an easy-to-read guide for music-making in the studio setting, from equipment fundamentals to recording and mixing almost any instrument. In six sections, lessons give a comprehensive introduction to microphone settings and techniques, audio processing and effects, controlling acoustics, and history lessons on songs recorded with a given technique. The second half of the handbook delves into background theory on microphones, EQ-filters, compressors, and acoustics to give the reader a general understanding of practical recording techniques before acquiring deeper comprehension of the tools and the recording processes. Throughout the chapters, lessons on recording methods gradually build complexity and detail to keep readers engaged and challenged. Whether a university student in an audio recording course, a novice audio engineer who needs to build technique, or a busy professional who requires a quick refresh on specific techniques, any reader will find an essential resource in The Recording, Mixing, and Mastering Reference Handbook.

Access and interpret manufacturer spec information, find shortcuts for plotting measure and test equations, and learn how to begin your journey towards becoming a live sound professional. Land and perform your first live sound gigs with this guide that gives you just the right amount of information. Don't get bogged down in details intended for complex and expensive equipment and Madison Square Garden-sized venues. Basic Live Sound Reinforcement is a handbook for audio engineers and live sound enthusiasts performing in small venues from one-mike coffee shops to clubs. With their combined years of teaching and writing experience, the authors provide you with a thorough foundation of the theoretical and the practical, offering more advanced beginners a complete overview of the industry, the gear, and the art of mixing, while making sure to remain accessible to those just starting out.

Recording Studio Design, Fourth Edition explains the key principles of successful studio design and construction using straightforward language and the use of practical examples appreciated by readers of previous editions. Updated to reflect new industry standards, this fourth edition addresses improvements in cinema sound, with specific attention paid to B-chain electroacoustic response and calibration. Using over 50 years' experience, author Philip Newell provides detail on the practical aspects of recording in various environments, not only exploring the complex issues relating to the acoustics but also providing real-world solutions. While the book contains detailed discussions about performing rooms, control rooms, and mobile studios, concepts of the infrastructures are also discussed, because no studio can perform optimally unless the technical and human requirements are adequately provided for. In this new edition, sound for cinema provides a platform for highlighting many, wider electroacoustic topics in a way that is relatively easy to visualise. The way in which sound and vision interact is an important aspect of many modern multimedia formats. The new edition includes: A new Chapter 22 that will thoroughly reflect recently published SMPTE investigations which will drastically impact standards for cinema sound; The inclusion of new academic research and its practical applications; An entire new illustrated chapter on room construction principles; and The consolidation of ideas which were only emerging when the earlier editions were published.

(Book). Sound on Sound editor Paul White delivers the definitive guide to recording and mixing in the project studio. Featuring 350+ full-color pages packed with pro techniques, practical photos, detailed illustrations and hands-on walk-throughs, The Producer's Manual brings together everything you need to take a mix from initial recording to final master. From vocals and drums to guitars, bands, and acoustic instruments, this is all you need to get great recordings. Choose the right mic, review classic recording techniques, learn how to tame spill and get the most from performers. The book features 101-style in-depth guides to dynamics and compression, reverb, pitch correction, studio acoustics, monitoring, and more. You'll also learn how to master your own material when the budget doesn't stretch to professional mastering. The Producer's Manual is supplemented by tricks and insights gleaned from over 20 years in the industry and interviews with some of the biggest producers, including Tony Visconti, Alan Parsons, and many more.

This book provides a broad overview of spaciousness in music theory, from mixing and performance practice, to room acoustics, psychoacoustics and audio engineering, and presents the derivation, implementation and experimental validation of a novel type of spatial audio system. Discussing the physics of musical instruments and the nature of auditory perception, the book enables readers to precisely localize synthesized musical instruments while experiencing their timbral variance and spatial breadth. Offering interdisciplinary insights for novice music enthusiasts and experts in the field of spatial audio, this book is suitable for anyone interested in the study of music and musicology and the application of spatial audio mixing, or those seeking an overview of the state of the art in applied psychoacoustics for spatial audio.

Recent years have seen not just a revival, but a rebirth of the analogue record. More than merely a nostalgic craze, vinyl has become a cultural icon. As music consumption migrated to digital and online, this seemingly obsolete medium became the fastest-growing format in music sales. Whilst vinyl never ceased to be the favorite amongst many music lovers and DJs, from the late 1980s the recording industry regarded it as an outdated relic, consigned to dusty domestic corners and obscure record shops. So why is vinyl now experiencing a 'rebirth of its cool'?Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward explore this question by combining a cultural sociological approach with insights from material culture studies. Presenting vinyl as a multifaceted cultural object, they investigate the reasons behind its persistence within our technologically accelerated culture. Informed by media analysis, urban ethnography and the authors' interviews with musicians, DJs, sound engineers, record store owners, collectors and cutting-edge label chiefs from a range of metropolitan centres renowned for thriving music scenes including London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, and especially Berlin, what emerges is a story of a modern icon.

The field of music production has for many years been regarded as male-dominated. Despite growing acknowledgement of this fact, and some evidence of diversification, it is clear that gender representation on the whole remains quite unbalanced. Gender in Music Production brings together industry leaders, practitioners, and academics to present and analyze the situation of gender within the wider context of music production as well as to propose potential directions for the future of the field. This much-anticipated volume explores a wide range of topics, covering historical and contextual perspectives on women in the industry, interviews, case studies, individual position pieces, as well as informed analysis of current challenges and opportunities for change. Ground-breaking in its synthesis of perspectives, Gender in Music Production offers a broadly considered and thought-provoking resource for professionals, students, and researchers working in the field of music production today.

How does sound work? How do I record a range of instruments? How do I record, mix and master a track? How do I use MIDI for sequencing and arranging? Music Technology from Scratch answers these questions, and more. Exploring both the theory and practice of music technology, it gives the reader clear information on how equipment works and how to get the best results from it. Fully illustrated throughout, diagrams and photos provide step-by-step guides to using your equipment. It includes tips and hints on polishing your recordings and making sure your sessions run smoothly, test yourself questions and projects at the end of each chapter, and a full glossary explaining all technical terms and concepts. It is also enhanced by online videos with explanations of equipment and techniques. This book will help you to achieve a better grade for any of these courses: GCSE, AS and A2 Music and Music Technology, BTEC Firsts and Nationals in Music and Music Technology, and the new Creative and Media Diploma.

Everyone wants to be a DJ. Playing records and MP3s isn't rocket science, but there's a universe of difference between doing it and doing it well. DJing is like modelling: most people could have a stab at it, some can earn money doing it, but only a very few can become supermodels. This book both forms the perfect introduction for the novice who wants a pair of Technics turntables for Christmas and contains enough spot-on advice and advanced instruction to be valuable to more experienced DJs. Written in an opinionated and entertaining no-bullshit style, with a healthy dose of realism, it shatters some illusions about the dance industry and offers in return some powerfully inspiring visions as it explains the true rewards of the DJ's craft. Includes everything you will ever need to know, from illustrated tutorials on mixing techniques and styles, digital mixing, tips on buying the right equipment and records, advice from superstar DJs aplenty, plus how to make your own tracks and how to throw the best party. Now all you need is to get out of your bedroom and do it . . .

Learn the basics of recording, processing, and mixing audio using Ableton Live software. This robust and innovative digital audio workstation opens your way to a musical toolkit used by musicians, performers, and producers worldwide. Audio Production Basics with Ableton Live will guide you through the essential audio production tasks you'll use to make the most of your Live software. The exercises in this book can be completed in any edition of Ableton Live, allowing you to get hands-on practice with Live's creative tools. With this book and the included online media files, you'll get working experience using Ableton Live, covering everything from setting up your computer to the fundamentals of audio production, including: Basic digital audio workstation operations and audio hardware options Principles of sound production and microphone use Essential Live concepts and operations MIDI fundamentals for playing and recording virtual instruments Working in the Arrangement View and the Session View Managing devices and routing signals in Live Using automation to create dynamic changes to audio Mixing your projects and exporting final mixed tracks Ableton Live is easy to set up, flexible, and fun to use. And everything you learn here will apply when you are ready to move on to more advanced study in audio production. Take a step to unleash your musical inspiration and creativity with Audio Production Basics with Ableton Live.

An Introduction to Music Technology, Second Edition provides a clear overview of the essential elements of music technology for today s musician. This book focuses on the topics that underlie the hardware and software in use today: Sound, Audio, MIDI, Computer Notation, and Computer- Assisted Instruction. Appendices cover necessary computer hardware and software concepts. Written for both music technology majors and non-majors, this textbook introduces fundamental principles and practices so students can learn to work with a wide range of software programs, adapt to new music technologies, and apply music technology in their performance, composition, teaching, and analysis.

Features:

• Thorough explanations of key topics in music technology
• Content applicable to all software and hardware, not linked to just one piece of software or gear
• In-depth discussion of digital audio topics, such as sampling rates, resolutions, and file formats
• Explanations of standard audio plug-ins including dynamics processors, EQs, and delay based effects
• Coverage of synthesis and sampling in software instruments
• Pedagogical features, including:
• • Further Reading sections that allow the student to delve deeper into topics of interest
  • Suggested Activities that can be carried out with a variety of different programs
  • Key Terms at the end of each chapter

  • "

  • What Do I Need? "Chapters covering the types of hardware and software needed in order to put together Audio and MIDI systems
  • A companion website with links to audio examples that demonstrate various concepts, step-by-step tutorials, relevant hardware, software, and additional audio and video resources.

The new edition has been fully updated to cover new technologies that have emerged since the first edition, including iOS and mobile platforms, online notation software, alternate controllers, and Open Sound Control (OSC)."

Pop Music Production delves into academic depths around the culture, the business, the songwriting, and most importantly, the pop music production process. Phil Harding balances autobiographical discussion of events and relationships with academic analysis to offer poignant points on the value of pure popular music, particularly in relation to BoyBands and how creative pop production and songwriting teams function. Included here are practical resources, such as recording studio equipment lists, producer business deal examples and a 12-step mixing technique, where Harding expands upon previously released material to explain how 'Stay Another Day' by East 17 changed his approach to mixing forever. However, it is important to note that Harding almost downplays his involvement in his career. At no point is he center stage; he humbly discusses his position within the greater scheme of events. Pop Music Production offers cutting-edge analysis of a genre rarely afforded academic attention. This book is aimed at lecturers and students in the subject fields of Music Production, Audio Engineering, Music Technology, Popular Songwriting Studies and Popular Music Culture. It is suitable for all levels of study from FE students through to PhD researchers. Pop Music Production is also designed as a follow-up to Harding's first book PWL from the Factory Floor (2010, Cherry Red Books), a memoir of his time working with 1980s pop production and songwriting powerhouse, Stock Aitken Waterman, at PWL Studios.

A clever resource for the ever-growing home recording market. The revised edition is updated with a greater focus on digital recording techniques, the most powerful tools available to the home recordist. There are chapters devoted to instrument recording, humanizing drum patterns, mixing with plug-ins and virtual consoles, and a new section on using digital audio skills. And since, many true "Guerrillas" still record to analog tape, we have retained the best of that world. This edition features many more graphics than in the original edition, further enforcing Guerrilla Home Recording's reputation as the most readable, user-frienly recording title on the market.

This book uncovers how music experience-live and recorded-is changing along with the use of digital technology in the 2000s. Focussing on the Nordic region, this volume utilizes the theory of mentalization: the capacity to perceive and interpret what others are thinking and feeling, and applies it to the analysis of mediated forms of agency in popular music. The rise of new media in music production has enabled sound recording and processing to occur more rapidly and in more places, including the live concert stage. Digital technology has also introduced new distribution and consumption technologies that allow record listening to be more closely linked to the live music experience. The use of digital technology has therefore facilitated an expanding range of activities and experiences with music. Here, Yngvar Kjus addresses a topic that has a truly global reach that is of interest to scholars of musicology, media studies and technology studies.

In this comprehensive guide, Brixen takes the reader through the complex and confusing aspects of audio metering, imparting the knowledge and skills needed to utilize optional signal levels and produce high-quality audio. Covering all aspects of this fundamental subject, Audio Metering: Measurements, Standards and Practice begins with the basics, such as audio definitions and digital techniques, and works up to more complex topics like hearing and psychoacoustics. This revised and expanded third edition includes: Updated information on loudness metering, covering both existing and new standards. Definitions of terms such as LKFS, LUFS, gating, LRA. Explanations of signal types and musical sounds and structures. Further details on immersive audio. Skills needed for both small-room acoustics and large auditorium sound design without loss of sound quality. Descriptions of measurement signals and systems for audio and acoustic sound. A chapter on listening tests from small set-ups to large-scale comparisons of PA/SR-systems. Packed full of valuable information with a wide range of practical applications, this is the essential reference guide to audio metering for technicians, engineers, and tonmeisters, as well as sound designers working with acoustics, electroacoustics, broadcast, studio recording, sound art, archiving, audio forensics, and theatrical and live-audio setups.

THE TIMES & UNCUT MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley's long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson. A BOOK OF THE YEAR SUNDAY TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, MOJO, LOUDER THAN WAR 'Compelling . . . befitting its extraordinary subject.' BRIAN ENO 'Bracing and often surprisingly tender . . . the perfect monument.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Via Morley's magical prose Tony Wilson comes back to life . . . inspiring.' RICHARD RUSSELL Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Hacienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. From Manchester with Love is the biography of a man who changed the world around him through sheer force of personality. In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre stage. 'An immersive experience . . . very moving indeed.' MIRANDA SAWYER, OBSERVER 'Not just a "biog" but the story of a city's history and culture and a unique and disappearing figure.' STUART MACONIE, NEW STATESMAN 'Morley's biography is as illuminating on Wilson's strange ability to hold others in his orbit, even after his death, as it is on the story of his life.' THE SPECTATOR 'The man/myth Wilson died aged 57 in 2006, but here he burns on fantastically bright.' UNCUT

Recorded music is as different to live music as film is to theatre. In this book, Simon Zagorski-Thomas employs current theories from psychology and sociology to examine how recorded music is made and how we listen to it. Setting out a framework for the study of recorded music and record production, he explains how recorded music is fundamentally different to live performance, how record production influences our interpretation of musical meaning and how the various participants in the process interact with technology to produce recorded music. He combines ideas from the ecological approach to perception, embodied cognition and the social construction of technological systems to provide a summary of theoretical approaches that are applied to the sound of the music and the creative activity of production. A wide range of examples from Zagorski-Thomas's professional experience reveal these ideas in action.

Digital Sampling is the first book about the design and use of sampling technologies that have shaped the sounds of popular music since the 1980s. Written in two parts, Digital Sampling begins with an exploration of the Fairlight CMI and how artists like Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel used it to sample the sounds of everyday life. It also focuses on E-mu Systems and the use of its keyboards and drum machines in hip-hop. The second part follows users across a range of musical worlds, including US/UK garage, indie folk music, and electronic music made from the sounds of sewers, war zones, and crematoriums. Using material from interviews and concepts from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), Digital Sampling provides a new and alternative approach to the study of sampling and is crucial reading for undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers from a wide range of disciplines, including music technology, media, communication, and cultural studies.

Modern MIDI equips you with everything you need to use MIDI in your music productions. With a particular focus on practical application and step-by-step explanations, this book does far more than tell you about how MIDI works. Simple explanations and real-world scenarios encourage you to test out the techniques for yourself. The second edition of Modern MIDI builds on the first, making sequencing approachable for absolute beginners, reinforcing the fundamentals of MIDI and expanding the coverage into new mobile technology and vintage gear. Modern MIDI is essential reading for beginners from all backgrounds, including students and professionals, as well as experienced users looking to develop their existing setups.