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Chapter 4. Meeting 4, Recording: Microphones and Radio 4.1. Announcements • Next meeting: discussion workshop meeting • Next meeting: cover basics of using PD: bring your laptop • Next meeting: experiment with speakers, tape heads, microphones, and contact microphones • Things to bring (if you have): an open speaker, small conductive speakers, tape heads, old tapes you want to destroy, a resonant acoustic instrument • Next meeting: discuss readings by Pinch and Bijker, and Fouché 4.2. Reading: Horning • Horning, S. S. 2004. “Engineering the Performance: Recording Engineers, Tacit Knowledge and the Art of Controlling Sound.” Social Studies of Science 34(5): 703-731. • What is tacit knowledge, and why might audio recording require it? • What are some of the non-technical skills required of recording engineer, both in the past and present? • Horning describes the changing technical skills of audio engineers: summarize this trajectory. • Horning suggest that a focus on microphone technique, starting in the 1950s, was the result of “inadequacies of related technology”: explain and argue for or against this view. • Horning suggests, through quotes of Brian Eno, that presently technology is now a greater impediment to recording and creativity. Explain and argue for or against this view. 4.3. Quiz • 10 minutes 4.4. The Technology of Radio • Radio is a broadcast signal, using modulated electromagnetic waves • Other electromagnetic radiation: microwaves, visible light 82Image: NASA. • Oscillating electromagnetic fields pass through the air and space • We can imagine electromagnetic waves as similar to sound waves 4.5. Encoding Messages with Modulation • Take a sine wave as a carrier • When transmitting, vary (modulate) the sine wave’s amplitude or frequency in some pattern • Derive (encode) the modulator from a different signal (the message you want to send) • When the carrier is received, the modulation (the message) is decoded from the carrier 4.6. Amplitude Modulation • Encode by modifying the amplitude of the carrier in proportion to another signal; decode (demodulate) by finding the carrier frequency and measuring the change in amplitude • Carrier Frequencies between 300 kHz and 3 MHz • Common usage frequencies in US between 535 kHz and 1.7 MHz • Short wave radio: 2.3 MHz to 26 MHz: long distance • Frequency response from 40 to 7000 Hertz • AM modulation has applications in sound synthesis [modulationAmBasic.pd] 834.7. Amplitude Modulation with Sound Waves • Carrier is within range of hearing (20-20000 Hertz) [modulationAmTransmit.pd] 4.8. Frequency Modulation • Carrier Frequencies between 30 MHz and 300 MHz • Common usage frequencies in US between 88 and 108 MHz • Frequency response from 30 (50) to 15000 Hertz • Encode by modifying the frequency of the carrier at a rate in proportion to another signal; decode (demodulate) by finding the carrier frequency and measuring the change rate of change in the frequency 84• FM modulation has applications in sound synthesis [modulationFmBasic.pd] 4.9. The History of Radio • First called wireless telegraphy (Marconi) and used for transmitting telegraph messages with spark-gap radio transmitters • Numerous inventors and contributors: Guglielmo Marconi (1894-1897), Nikola Tesla (1893), Alexander Stepanovich Popov • 1897: First radio station established by Marconi • 1906: Reginald Fessenden employs Amplitude Modulation for radio broadcast • 1910: M. H. Dodd Wireless Receiver (Rogers 2009) 85Courtesy of Western Historic Radio Museum, http://www.radioblvd.com. Used with permission. • 1915: speech first transmitted from New York City to San Francisco • 1920s: first entertainment broadcasts • 1921: Westinghouse Radiola Senior and Radiola A.C. (Rogers 2009) 86Courtesy of Western Historic Radio Museum, http://www.radioblvd.com. Used with permission. • Edwin H. Armstrong invents Frequency Modulation, with help from Radio Corporation of Americas (RCA) in mid 1930s • 1934: RCA Victor Model 143 (Rogers 2009) 87Courtesy of Western Historic Radio Museum, http://www.radioblvd.com. Used with permission. • 1940s: regular use of radio to transmit television • By 1941 over 50 FM stations on the air • 1940: Scott Radio Laboratories: AM-FM Philharmonic 88Courtesy of Western Historic Radio Museum, http://www.radioblvd.com. Used with permission. • 1954: first pocket transistor radio, Regency TR-1 89Courtesy of Michael Jack on Flickr. Used with permission. 4.10. Radio, Music, and Speech • Used for entertainment • Used to market and distribute music • Competition with gramophones as medium of music consumption (from the 1920s onward) • Used as a unique aural medium 4.11. Radio as a Medium: Glenn Gould • Glenn Gould: Pianists and radio artists • Well known for piano playing: Bach: The Goldberg Variations, The Well-Tempered Clavier • In the early 1960s, grew disinterested in concert performance: “that way of presenting music is passe. If there is a more viable way to reach audiences, it has to be through recordings. Concerts as they are now known will not outlive the 20th century” (1965) • Series broadcast on CBC Canadian radio in 1960 • The Idea of North (1967), from The Solitude Trilogy 904.12. Listening: Glenn Gould • Audio: Glen Gould: “The Idea of North,” 1967 • What sort of musical features are shown in the use of speakers, voices, and stories? • What sounds, other than spoken words, are used? How do they contribute to the stories? • How is music used in this work? • What are some of the issues faced by people in The North • What are some of the features of the relationship between The North and the rest of Canada? • Is the ending of this piece climatic, and/or concluding? 4.13. Radio as a Medium: Joe Frank • Worked at WBAI in New York, National Public Radio • 1986: moved to Santa Monica and started “Joe Frank: Work in Progress” • 1986-2002: “In the Dark,” “Somewhere Out There,” “The Other Side” (over 230 hours) • Can still be heard weekly on WNYC AM, Sunday from 11 PM to 12 AM 4.14. Listening: Joe Frank • Audio: Joe Frank: “Eye in the Sky,” 1996 • What sort of musical features are shown in the use of speakers, voices, and stories? • What sounds, other than spoken words, are used? How do they contribute to the stories? •


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MIT 21M 380 - Study Guide

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