Part 1, Fundamental Principles
1 Soundwaves
Enclosed Spaces
Performance Venues
2 Audio Chain from Sound Source to Listener
Integrity within an Audio Chain
Basic Concepts and Terminology
Part 2, Production
3 Microphone Types
The Behavior of a Pure Diaphragm
Condenser Microphones
Dynamic and Ribbon Microphones
4 Microphone Characteristics
Frequency Response
Directional (Polar) Patterns
Random Energy Efficiency
Distance Factor
Proximity Effect
Phase
5 Stereo Microphone Techniques
Coincident Pairs
Near-Coincident Arrays
Spaced Microphones
6 Tracking
Critical Listening
Setting Levels
Room Ambience
Part 3, Post-Production
7 EQ – Frequency Balance
Digital Filters
Common Practices
8 Control of Dynamic Range
Compressors
Limiters
Dynamic EQ
De-essers
9 Reverberation
Digital Reflection Simulation
Convolution
10 Delivery
File Types
Loudness and Meters
Part 4, Common Recording Strategies
11 Solo Piano
Recording in Stereo
Unfavorable Room Acoustics
12 Soloists with Piano Accompaniment
13 Small Ensembles
14 Sessions
Solo Piano
Solo Cello
Double Bass and Piano
15 Studio Techniques: Re-Creating the Aural Sense of Historic Spaces
Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production
Biography
Robert Toft teaches in the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University, Canada. His interests revolve around the notion of research informing practice, and he specializes in both recording practices and the history of singing. He has written five books on historically informed vocal performance and has given master classes at leading conservatories and universities in Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and the USA. Robert’s production company, Talbot Records, released its first recording in 2017. Inspired by the intensely dramatic performing styles of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, its main series, Radically Hip, connects modern audiences to the impassioned eloquence of the past.
"This book is packed with informed and useful information. If you need to know about how sound works, and read tons of information about how classical music is recorded in the real world, then you must read this book. Perfect for anyone interested in classical music." - Paul Baily - classical recording and post production, Re:Sound
