PROSE FOR PROS

Introduction to Professional Recording Techniques by Bruce Bartlett. Howard W. Sams & Co., 400 pp., paperback, $22.95.

Audio Production Techniques for Video by David Miles Huber. Howard W. Sams & Co., 368 pp., paperback, $29.95.

These new softcover books will be of interest to the more technically minded readers of Audio. Both are primarily aimed at the young professional-to-be who is just starting out in a career in audio or video recording. They cover a good bit of the same material, as would be expected, but from different perspectives which are equally valid and useful.

Bartlett's main focus is on the home studio, the site of that ever-growing segment of the industry once called "semi-pro" but now capable of really fine work. He methodically describes the agonies of room selection and acoustical treatment and then looks at consoles, monitoring, and electrical interface. Then come detailed chapters covering microphone selection and basic microphone techniques. Tape recorders are covered in some detail, as are noise reduction and various types of signal processing such as compression, limiting, noise gating, and reverberation.

Basic session protocol is covered, as are specific hints for recording the spoken word and recording on location. There is a useful introduction to MIDI (musical instrument digital inter face) techniques, which are destined to become even more important than they currently are in today's professional studios.

Bartlett writes in a very lucid style, and his explanations are clear and to the point. Overall, I find his discussion of microphone principles and applications to be first rate-not surprising, since this field is a specialty of his.

As for Huber, he gets right to the heart of audio for video, focusing on the tape recorder (both audio and video) and principles of synchronization.

Tape recorders are described in more detail in the Huber book than in the Bartlett, and digital audio recording is given more than passing coverage.

This is as it should be, inasmuch as the same equipment is often used for both video and digital audio purposes. Coverage of synchronization, time codes, and basic in-studio operations using these techniques is quite thorough.

Huber's discussion of audio techniques for video concentrates on those applications likely to be encountered in the field of video at large, such as news-gathering and on-location shoots. His subsequent description of recording equipment and techniques is pretty much shaped by this orientation. His succinct discussion of micro phones covers transduction principles as well as basic applications, and his coverage of M-S stereo really points up the advantage of this technique for video post-production.

Huber's chapter on audio post-production zeroes in on the problems of overdubbing, dialog replacement, and addition of sound effects, all in the context of putting together a final audio/video product. Detailed line drawings show how all the elements go together. Basic video editing operations are also covered in good detail, and a glossary is included.

Neither the Bartlett nor the Huber work provides a detailed bibliography, but this is not necessarily a limitation in books which stress applications. Both are highly recommended to those whose technical interests include home recording.

-John Eargle

The Audio Dictionary by Glenn D. White. University of Washington Press, 302 pp.; hardback, $30; paperback, $14.95.

The dictionary is a very interesting and useful form of reference work, and I particularly recommend them to be ginners at the audio game. A good one, like this present volume from Glenn White, Northwest District Man ager for Bruel & Kjaer can do a great deal for one's insight into the game's strategy. My own formulation of the problem is as follows:

TE = H (System Q x N Software)/$ Spent

… where TE is total enjoyment; System Q is system quality, which is nonlinearly related to one's self-assurance, the quality of one's magazine subscription list or library, and brand availability or town size; N is the number of records in linear feet, and $ Spent is self-evident. (H, of course, is number of hours spent, in fortnights.) A good hi-fi dictionary, then, will raise the System Q by recommending magazines such as this one, together with worthwhile books. This White does--to the point of gilding the Golden Ear by almost pointedly ignoring our competitors.

The earliest discussion of worth of dictionaries that I can remember having was with my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Munson, who thought poorly of my spelling. She also didn't think much of my response that it didn't matter how I spelled then because when I grew up, I was going to have a type writer and it was going to spell for me.

But she was right about my spelling.

Indeed, I spelled so poorly that I couldn't find most of the words I tried to look up in the class dictionary, which is too often true today as well. (How ever, the Managing Editor's notion that I cannot spell more than half the words in my vocabulary and her consequent refusal to let me proofread is mere bad humor at the size of my vocabulary.) Anyway, you won't have such problems with this book, as even the worst speller will land within a page or two of where the proper spelling is printed.

When I was in college, I remember, my English literature professor was able to attract my fleeting span of attention for more than a few mS with a story about Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of the first really good dictionary-makers. The point of the story was that it is very difficult to define words without using circular definitions. The prof. made his point by reading out the Johnson listing for "net," which was "reticulation." Now, Dr. Johnson lived in the last part of the 16th century in England, and mid-20th century freshman lit. students (particularly those who can't spell) have to look up the definition of "reticulation," which the good Dr. Johnson gives as "net." White doesn't make this fairly elementary sort of mistake. Rather like most of the good current dictionary-makers, he peppers his definitions with words found elsewhere in the volume, and his typesetter (or-perish the thought-his editor) has called attention to the fact by the use of small capital letters.

Some of White's choices of words for definition betray a bias toward professional sound. For example, take "MOS," which I immediately identify as the first part of MOS-FET, an acronym for Metal-Oxide Semiconductor, Field-Effect Transistor. For White, it is just "mit out sound," coming from the slang used by early movie-makers for silent films. (Interestingly, MOS-FET is not in the American National Standard IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms or directly defined in my fifth edition of the Sams/ITT Reference Data for Radio Engineers.) While there is lots of good (i.e., non-obscure) stuff on microphones, motion-picture sound, and recordings, there is also plenty of straight-ahead stuff on home audio. "Fringing," for instance, is flanked by "Frequency Response" and "Front End." New areas of interest to both pro and home audio users have been considered as well. There is a half page on the digital-to-analog converter which concentrates on factors influencing accuracy, and there is an excellent discussion of EFM, eight-to-fourteen modulation, which is used to code data on Compact Discs.

Lest you think that a dictionary must be a deadly dull affair, let me finish with an anecdote borrowed from the entry on "Editing."

"No less an old master than Vladimir Horowitz has said that in any performance he expects to miss several notes, explaining that to avoid this, he would have to play very carefully, with out taking any chances, and that the music would thereby suffer." The real worth of a dictionary is shown by how often it gets referred to, and I strongly suspect that the paper back version we have of White's work is going to have to be replaced by a hardbound version in short order. I might even buy a few copies of The Audio Dictionary for writers and other friends of the magazine, and that's about as strong a recommendation as I can give.

-Eugene Pitts

The Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, Third Edition by Vance Dickason. Marshall Jones Co., 96 pp., paperback, $19.95. (Available from Old Colony Sound Lab, Box 243, Peterborough, N.H. 03458.)

In the latest edition of this work, the author presents eight chapters chock full of recipes based on the modern loudspeaker design theory of Thiele and Small. This is a "how to" book, not a "why" book, and thus is principally addressed to the serious enthusiast rather than the experienced designer.

Nevertheless, the serious designer will find the book to be a convenient source of reference, thanks to the numerous charts, tables, and formulas it contains.

The author treats closed-box and vented-box low-frequency systems, passive-radiator and transmission-line low-frequency systems, cabinet construction, mid- and high-frequency drivers, passive crossovers, and small-signal loudspeaker measurements.

Active crossovers are given only a few paragraphs, as the author feels this subject area is beyond the scope of the present work.

The book is well organized and contains a generous supply of references to original sources for those readers desiring to explore any of the topics to a greater depth. It is physically large about the size of a magazine--and is well illustrated, with numerous diagrams and schematics that are clearly drawn.

The home builder of loudspeaker enclosures who remembers a little algebra and has some facility with a calculator will find this to be a very useful book, indeed.

--Eugene T. Patronis, Jr.

(adapted from Audio magazine, Sept. 1988)

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