The microphone placement playlist

Last week in music tech class, we talked about audio recording, and how the placement of microphones relative to the voices or instruments can shape the sound of a recording. Mics don’t just pick up the sound of the voice or instrument itself. They also pick up the sound of the voice or instrument bouncing …

Nahre Sol introduces Billie Eilish to the classical canon

In this fascinating video, Nahre Sol composes accompaniment for an isolated Billie Eilish vocal in the styles of various canonical composers. The combination of Billie Eilish and Mozart is predictably weird, but not for any “musical” reason. There is not such a wide disconnect between Billie Eilish’s melody and classical music. The weirdness is due …

Digital audio basics

Before you can understand how digital audio works, you need to know a few things about the physics of sound. This animation shows a sound wave emanating through the air from a circular source — imagine that it’s a drum or cymbal. As you can see, sound is a wave, like a ripple in a …