Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever

Author: Greg Milner

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2009-06-09

Total Pages: 566

ISBN-13: 1429957158

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In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented. Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix. From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.


Listen to This

Listen to This

Author: Alex Ross

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2010-09-28

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1429977612

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One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011 Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians. Listen to This, which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at The New Yorker. These pieces, dedicated to classical and popular artists alike, are at once erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music history—from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin—through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He vibrantly sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Björk and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing. Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, Listen to This teaches us how to listen more closely.


The Guide to United States Popular Culture

The Guide to United States Popular Culture

Author: Ray Broadus Browne

Publisher: Popular Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 1030

ISBN-13: 9780879728212

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"To understand the history and spirit of America, one must know its wars, its laws, and its presidents. To really understand it, however, one must also know its cheeseburgers, its love songs, and its lawn ornaments. The long-awaited Guide to the United States Popular Culture provides a single-volume guide to the landscape of everyday life in the United States. Scholars, students, and researchers will find in it a valuable tool with which to fill in the gaps left by traditional history. All American readers will find in it, one entry at a time, the story of their lives."--Robert Thompson, President, Popular Culture Association. "At long last popular culture may indeed be given its due within the humanities with the publication of The Guide to United States Popular Culture. With its nearly 1600 entries, it promises to be the most comprehensive single-volume source of information about popular culture. The range of subjects and diversity of opinions represented will make this an almost indispensable resource for humanities and popular culture scholars and enthusiasts alike."--Timothy E. Scheurer, President, American Culture Association "The popular culture of the United States is as free-wheeling and complex as the society it animates. To understand it, one needs assistance. Now that explanatory road map is provided in this Guide which charts the movements and people involved and provides a light at the end of the rainbow of dreams and expectations."--Marshall W. Fishwick, Past President, Popular Culture Association Features of The Guide to United States Popular Culture: 1,010 pages 1,600 entries 500 contributors Alphabetic entries Entries range from general topics (golf, film) to specific individuals, items, and events Articles are supplemented by bibliographies and cross references Comprehensive index


A Complete Manual of the Edison Phonograph

A Complete Manual of the Edison Phonograph

Author: George E. Tewksbury

Publisher:

Published: 2013-05

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 9781628450019

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A Complete Manual of the Edison Phonograph By George E. Tewksbury With Introduction By Thomas A. Edison The preparation of this modest work has been undertaken for two reasons. First, there is no guide to the standard Edison Phonograph as now manufactured in its perfected form. Mr. Andem's excellent book describes in graceful phrase the machine of several years ago, before the new shaving device and other changes had been adopted, and before the day of the spring motor. The instrument has since been perfected, and the field of its usefulness broadened. Improvements in motors, batteries, speakers, the use of special glasses, and the advent of many new devices, daily suggest questions which had not then arisen. The art of record making likewise has advanced, and more inquirers, amateur and professional, want to know about this fascinating employment. The attempt, therefore, is made to give practical directions in plain language as to various operations which an every-day experience of nine years has suggested or invited, and which are the subject of constant inquiry, particularly from beginners, such as adjusting the tension of the twin-nut spring, setting the diaphragm, the building-up of speakers, how to shave, the kinds and use of horns, the way to make records, the adjustment of sapphires, and other kindred subjects. Secondly, to save time, impossible as that may sound. For these pages have not been written in moments of idleness, but in the strife and stress of busy working-days, when sometimes the hours seemed too few for the daily task. To save time, then, by answering questions more faithfully than the hurry of a daily business mail would allow, when indeed many things could be touched upon not at all; to explain what obscure causes will produce simple results; to help where help is needed; and to make easier and more delightful that enjoyment which the great genius of Mr. Edison, and the work of his followers, has made possible. ..................................................................................................... The standard Edison Phonograph as now manufactured is made in two forms, known as the Electric Phonograph, or class M machine, and the Spring Motor Phonograph... CONTENTS Preface List of Illustrations Index of Phonograph Parts Introduction Types of Phonograph Phonograph Body Motor and Governor Operating the Machine Special Directions Index of Spring Motor Parts Edison Spring Motor Batteries Nickel-in-the-slot Phonographs Dictating and Transcribing Phonograph Cylinder Horns and Tubes Shaving of Cylinders Speakers and Glasses Index of Speaker Parts Record-making ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices. This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making. We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.