Home Recording Definitions + Terms


A/D Converter
converts an analog sound signal to a digital bitstream that computers can mess with.
Analog
sound or electronic equipment that deals with real sound rather than sound that's been transformed into bits and bytes.
Compressor:
a widely misused piece of electronic equipment that reduces dynamic range. A compressor will tend to make louder sounds the same level as softer sounds. Many Compressors also have Gates built in to eliminate background noise. Every home studio can improve their recordings greatly with this device.
DAW
Digital audio workstation - A piece of Hardware or Software that is a multi-track work station.
DI box
"Direct Injection" Box. Changes the line level of an instrument so that it can be plugged directly into the console.
Digital Recording
The process of taking a track or tracks into a digital interface, where future edits, cuts, splits, and effects will not degrade the signal each time they are done. Digital Recording can be done in portable devices as well as computers.
Equalization
or EQ - Equalization lets you boost or cut frequencies in any part of the audio spectrum. Computer Based EQ's give you even more flexibility than your standard 31 Band rack device
Multitrack
any recording device with one or more tracks that can be separately recorded and played back. This allows you to record many tracks with each other and later adjust independent volumes, or record each track as you like.
Normalize
A simple software algorithm that finds the mazimum amplitide in a waveform, calculates the available headroom to a user selected value (often 0db). The entire waveform is then "amplified" puting the max amplitide at the selected value.
Punch in/out
a pedal (or software control) that controls the recording signal so you can "go over" a short section of already-recorded material that you think could be improved. This records a new version without changing the recording outside of the punch in/out area.
White noise
random noise used in measurements, as it has the same amount of energy at each frequency, a random energy where there is an energy distribution so that the amount of energy is the same for each cycle, causing the noise level to increase with frequency.