My Science School

          Like treble, bass too describes a range of sound in terms of tone quality as well as musical notes. But they are opposite voices.

          Bass defines tones of low frequency, pitch and range from 16-256 Hz. Hence, it forms the lowest part of the harmony in songs. If we increase the bass up in a note, we get a deeper sound. On the other hand, if we volume up a treble, we get a higher sound.

          In choral music, bass is provided by adult male bass singers, while in an orchestra, the lines are played by the double bass and cellos, bassoon or contrabassoon, low bass such as the tuba and bass trombone, and the timpani or kettledrums. In popular music, the bass part or the ‘bassline’ provides a rhythmic support to the band.

           The main bass instruments used by musicians are keyboard bass and bass drum. 

            We know that all objects in the Universe have their natural frequencies. Some may be simple but some, complex. A renowned example for an object with a simple natural frequency is the tuning fork. It is an acoustic resonator that appears as a two-pronged fork with the prongs or tines formed from a U-shaped bar of elastic metal like steel. Depending on the length and mass of the two prongs, the fork produces a pitch. Generally, it is used as a standard of pitch to tune musical instruments.

            As mentioned earlier, a tuning fork has a natural frequency. When set vibrating by striking against a surface, or by an object, the fork resonates at a specific pitch and emits a musical tone once the high overtones have died out.

            Traditionally, the forks have been used to tune musical instruments. But today, electronic tuners are replacing them in applications.

            The tuning fork was invented in 1711 by British musician John Shore, who was a trumpeter and lute player. 

           Synthesizers are one of the most important musical instruments today. Although they look like small electronic pianos, the uses of synthesizers are much more than one can imagine.

           Technically, it is an electronic keyboard that can generate or copy, any kind of sound. For instance, it can mimic the sound of a traditional instrument like a violin or piano, or create brand new sounds like the crunch of footsteps on the surface of Mars!

           The very meaning of ‘synthesize’ is to make something new, often by putting together things from existing pieces. This is exactly what the synthesizer instrument does. It has got a number of oscillators or sound tone generators, each of which can produce waves of different shapes. They combine the waves to make complex sounds. Depending on this combination, the sounds vary, and mimic existing instruments.

             Based on how they function, synthesizers are classified into analogue and digital.

             The changes caused by synthesizers in the field of music are unparalleled. Since the 1970s, they have been used in popular music, and today, there is no pop record made without featuring an electronic keyboard of this kind. 

Mixing console is a device that used for mixing and changing the volume, and dynamics of audio signals. The sources of these signals could be many- microphones used by singers, or mics picking up the beats from drums.

The device is known by different names like audio mixer, audio console, or mixer.

There are numerous applications for which a mixing console is used. For instance, it is commonly used in recording studios, public address systems, sound reinforcement systems, musical concerts, broadcasting, television, and film post-production.

Let’s look at a few of its applications in detail. When two singers are singing, say a duet, a mixing console combines signals from the two microphones into an amplifier that drives one set of speakers. Then, during a live performance, the signals from the mixer go directly to an amplifier plugged into speaker cabinets.

Almost all bands use a mixer to combine musical instruments and vocals. This mix can then be amplified through a public address system.

Radio broadcasts too use it in order to select audio from different sources like CD players, and in-studio live bands. 

          The telephone is a communication tool that has become an integral part of human life since its invention in 1876.

          Technically, it is a device that transmits voices over a distance, using a wire or radio. The transmission is made possible by converting sound signals to electric signals.

          There are many reasons why the device is important to us. The first and foremost reason is that it enables communication without the hassle of travelling far.

             It is perhaps the cheapest mode of communication that facilitates talking to a person abroad at a relatively fair price. Hence, the device has played a major role in better socialization and interaction among people.

            Although it was originally meant for voice communication, telephones have evolved over the years. From wired phones emerged mobile phones that could be used anywhere.

             The telephone that we see around today was certainly not the first model developed for communication. Prior to its invention, many people had attempted to make different types of phones. However, Graham Bell’s telephone, invented in 1876 was the most successful.

             Most of the earliest models were mechanical acoustic devices that transmitted speech over a distance greater than that of normal speech.

             One important discovery during the 17th century was by Robert Hooke. He made an acoustic string phone in 1667. By the 19th century, various types of telegraphs were developed. It was after improvements of the electrical telegraph that the telephone emerged.

             There were many people who worked on this invention. However, it was Alexander Graham Bell, who won the patent for the device. 

          Sound recording and reproduction refers to the inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects.

          The inscription could be electrical, mechanical, electronic or digital in nature. The earliest method of music reproduction was done through mechanical systems.

          Today, there are two main classes of sound recording technology - analogue recording and digital recording.

               Acoustic analogue recording is done with the help of a microphone diaphragm that can detect and sense the changes in atmospheric pressure caused by acoustic sound waves. It then records the waves as a mechanical representation on a medium such as a phonograph record.

              In digital recordings, analogue signals picked by a microphone are converted to a digital form by a process called digitization.

              The first all-digitally-recorded popular music album, Ry Cooder’s ‘Bop till You Drop’ was released in 1979. 

            The phonautograph was perhaps the first device in history that could record sounds. It was patented by French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville in 1857.

            Phonautograms or phonautograph recordings made in 1857 were the earliest known recordings of the human voice. They consisted of sheets of paper with sound-wave-modulated white lines created by a vibrating stylus that cut through a coating of soot as the paper passed under it. That means the recordings were visual representations of the sound.

           The earliest known recording of intelligible spoken words is the phonautogram containing the opening lines of Torquato Tasso’s pastoral drama ‘Aminta’. It is believed to have been recorded in April or May, 1860.

           Luckily, a few recordings have been recovered over the past few years. The phonautogram of Au Clair de la Lune, a French folk song made in 1860 was played as sound for the first time in 2008. 

          Invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, the phonograph was a device meant for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound.

          The significance of this device was that it was the first to reproduce a recorded sound. Till then, other inventors had produced devices that could only record sounds.

          Edison’s phonograph originally recorded sound on to a tinfoil sheet wrapped around a rotating cylinder. He patented it in 1878. The invention became popular across the globe very soon. Over the next two decades, the commercial recording, distribution, and sale of sound recordings became a new international industry.

          The next important invention was the gramophone disc. The waveform of sound vibrations were recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved into the surface of a rotating cylinder called the ‘record’.

          To recreate the sound, the surface was similarly rotated. Then, the playback stylus would trace the groove, and start vibrating. As a result, the recorded sound would be faintly reproduced. 

          One of the most successful devices that initiated a technical development was the gramophone disc. Its invention is credited to Emile Berliner.

          By the end of World War I, discs became an important commercial recording format.

         In terms of speed of the discs, there was no universally accepted standard. For a few decades, the double-sided 78 rpm disc was the standard consumer music format.

          By 1948, the Columbia Records introduced the long-playing 33 1/3 rpm vinyl record, or ‘LP’. The advantage of vinyl discs were that they showed improved performance, and were long-lasting, although more expensive.

          By the 1970s, it paved way for the introduction of electrical recording, which was the most important milestone in the history of sound recording. 

             A compact disc (CD) as some of you might know is a digital data storage format. Released in 1982, it was originally developed to store and play sound recordings alone. Only later was it adapted for storage of data. 

           With the advent of digital sound recordings and the CD, significant improvements were made in the durability of recordings. The CD, particularly, initiated a massive wave of change in the music industry by the mid-1990s.

            When introduced, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard drive, which would typically hold 10 MB.

            As technology improved, better versions appeared, like write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Disc (VCD), Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD), Photo CD, Picture CD, CD-i, and Enhanced Music CD.

              Although they are being replaced by other forms of digital storage, CDs still remain one of the primary distribution methods for the music industry. 

          No matter how good a video looks, it cannot be complete without a perfect audio to accompany it.

         And supposing the sound track is weak or unimpressive, won’t it affect the video as such? Well, not really. There is a device that can help here-the equalizer.

         Technically, equalization means the process of adjusting the balance between frequency components within an electronic signal. In other words, it is equipment that pinpoints a range of audible frequencies, and adjusts the level of sounds that fall within the range. With this, one can minimize noise recorded in the field or boost the weak audio.

        There are different instances where an equalizer has to be used- in the recording studios, radio studios and production control rooms. It is also used for live sound reinforcement.

        Several types of equalizers are used for music production, depending on the needs. Two common ones are graphic and parametric equalizers.

          An isolation booth is a standard room in a recording studio. Typically, it is soundproofed to keep out external sounds, and keep in the internal sounds. It is also designed in such a way as to have lesser amount of diffused reflections from walls, in order to make a good sounding room. 

          In a professional recording studio, there may be one or more small isolation booths, along with a control room and a large live room. All of them are usually soundproofed with double-layer walls and insulation in-between the two walls.

          The first soundproof booth is said to have been invented in 1876 by Thomas A. Watson. He developed it to be used for demonstrating the telephone with Alexander Graham Bell. However, he did not patent it.

          Today, there are variations of the same concept, like a portable standalone isolation booth, and a compact guitar speaker isolation cabinet. 

          In film making, dubbing refers to the process of adding dialogues and other sounds to the soundtrack of a motion picture that has already been shot.

          In other words, it is a post-production process through which a complete soundtrack is created. That is, after the sound editor prepares all necessary tracks like dialogues, effects, music etc., the dubbing mixer proceeds to balance all of these elements, and record the finished soundtrack. This process typically takes place on a dub stage. 

          There is one more context in which the term ‘dubbing’ is used. It is something familiar to most of us as the technique used to translate foreign-language films into the audience’s language. This process is referred to as ‘re-voicing’ outside the film industry.

          Here, the translation of the original dialogue is matched to the lip movements of the actors. In the past, dubbing was applied mainly to musicals, when the actor had an unsatisfactory singing voice. Today, it is done not just in traditional films, but also in video games and television. 

            In its broadest sense, a soundtrack comprises everything you hear in a movie, like the sound effects, dialogues, music etc.

            The soundtrack of a film is created as part of its post-production process. At first, the dialogues, sound effects, and music are developed as separate tracks like the dialogue track, sound effects track and music track. They are then mixed together to make a ‘composite track’ which is what we hear in films. Hence its importance. In fact, the relation between films and music is such that a film remains incomplete without the other.

            Soundtracks, as we know, help to build the tone and mood of a film. At times when they are too good, the track remains as important as the film.

            One of the most quoted examples in this context is the soundtrack of the classic film ‘Titanic’. The song ‘My Heart Will Go On’ sung by Celine Dion successfully enhanced the story of the ill-fated lovers, and also gave a perfect aura to the film. Even today, not many of us can think of the film without the song lingering in our minds.