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(More customer reviews)Jason Corey has created a collection of interactive software tools for training would-be audio engineers in his college-level courses. It's clear however, the tools and the accompanying text would benefit any musician who records their own work as well as interested listeners searching for a deeper appreciation of what goes into creating the recordings they enjoy so much.
It's important to say upfront what "Audio Production and Critical Listening: Technical Ear Training" is not: The book has nothing whatsoever to do with musical ear training: relative/absolute pitch, intervals, solfeggio, etc.
In Corey's view, technical ear training is highly focused listening meant to develop an increased awareness of how audio signals are commonly modified and enhanced during the recording process. Beyond simply identifying these treatments and effects by ear is the practical skill of reproducing and applying them by adapting to whatever recording technologies and environments the engineer finds himself in.
Accordingly, aside from some specific headphone recommendations, the book is largely hardware/software-neutral.
While the concepts covered in separate chapters: equalization, reverberation, compression, distortion detection, digital audio editing, etc. may seem like standard fare, the author repeatedly stresses there's much more to having "Golden Ears" than understanding abstract theory or having famous engineers' mixing recipes close at hand. Every recording presents a unique challenge and techniques used successfully elsewhere may simply not be appropriate to the goals at hand, technical or artistic.
One or more tools correspond to each chapter mentioned above. The tools allow you to import any WAV or AIFF file of your choosing as a sound source (as well as using the built-in pink noise generator in the equalization tool).
You first set the parameter boundaries the tool will use to generate random modifications of the playback (i.e. For the EQ tool, this might be the maximum decibel level to add or remove across a particular range of frequencies.).
You play the audio file and by pressing a Question button ask the software to apply a random change within the boundaries you specified. You then try to identify and replicate the particular change using your own fader-like controls or keyboard shortcuts. All the while you have the ability to toggle and compare three versions: the original mix, the software's randomly altered version, and your own attempt to reproduce it.
When you think you've got it, you submit your answer, the tool reports the result, and you can select the next question. By varying the parameters the questions can range from easily detectable to extremely subtle so if this is new listening territory for you, begin as simply as possible and allow time for your awareness to develop.
There is also an optional timer to encourage you to develop quick responses, but I wouldn't be concerned with that at first. This kind of focused listening is something you gradually increase your capacity for and initially 5-10 minutes may be your limit per session.
It's both easier to get started and appropriately challenging than it may sound, once you "level-set" and accept your current abilities. It's also a lot of fun once you get fluent with the keyboard shortcuts.
The author recommends a number of illustrative commercial recordings across genres as well as websites with freely available samples, but the analysis provided is applicable to many recordings and you won't feel you're missing out if you don't own this list.
One recommendation I would add: Begin with recordings you are not intimately familiar with, especially if you're a musician. I've noticed that, consciously or not, musicians tend to focus on their own instrument while listening, regardless of its relative placement in the mix, to the point where they'll actually mask other parts. If you've ever had the experience of hearing a recording you've known for decades and suddenly going, "Wow, I never noticed that keyboard figure behind the guitar solo before!", you know what I'm talking about. Later on it will be all the more fun to listen to recordings you loved as a kid with "fresh ears".
Corey teaches this material at the college level and the book appears to have been created as a course text. Unfortunately, it often reads like one, somewhat dry and pedantic. Think of this as a test of your passion for the subject. There are more entertaining books out there to get the theory from, but the tools are what set this one apart and really are worth it.
I also have to mention the clear pocket embedded in the hard cover front to hold the disk is a poor design. While holding the book to read, your fingers press on it, forcing the inside to pop out continuously. I had to store the disk elsewhere and was still annoyed with the back of the pouch constantly popping. It reminded me of children's books that come with small toys in a similar front compartment.
The software successfully installed and ran on Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium.
"Audio Production and Critical Listening: Technical Ear Training" amounts to a more concentrated and quantifiable learning experience than the traditional "learn on the job" method, opportunities for which have greatly diminished. Speaking for those of us not on track to enter the professional ranks, who labor away happily in our personal "Abbey Road Of The Mind", there's much to be gotten from this book and especially the tools.
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Owners of Audio Production and Critical Listening, please contact us for the Mac version: technical.support@elsevier.com.
Making decisions about how and when to apply sound processing effects and recording techniques can make or break your song mix. The decisions you make come down to your listening skills - what you hear and how you perceive it. Your ability to properly discern sound, identify a problem, and act accordingly - especially when the decision often needs to be made quickly - makes all the difference to the success of the final track.
Audio Production and Critical Listening develops your critical and expert listening skills, enabling you to listen to audio like an award-winning engineer. The interactive "ear training" software practice modules give you experience identifying various types of signal processes and manipulation - EQ, dynamics, reverb, distortion, delay, etc. The software sits alongside the clear and detailed explanations in the book, offering a complete learning package that will help you train your ears to listen and really "hear" your recordings.
* Learn how to immediately recognize audio problems and identify the 'fix' * Develop your critical listening skills for common audio signal processes * Includes interactive software modules to practice identifying commonly used audio signal processor effects.
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