Recent years have seen not just a revival, but a rebirth of the analogue record. More than merely a nostalgic craze, vinyl has become a cultural icon. As music consumption migrated to digital and online, this seemingly obsolete medium became the fastest-growing format in music sales. Whilst vinyl never ceased to be the favorite amongst many music lovers and DJs, from the late 1980s the recording industry regarded it as an outdated relic, consigned to dusty domestic corners and obscure record shops. So why is vinyl now experiencing a ‘rebirth of its cool’?Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward explore this question by combining a cultural sociological approach with insights from material culture studies. Presenting vinyl as a multifaceted cultural object, they investigate the reasons behind its persistence within our technologically accelerated culture. Informed by media analysis, urban ethnography and the authors’ interviews with musicians, DJs, sound engineers, record store owners, collectors and cutting-edge label chiefs from a range of metropolitan centres renowned for thriving music scenes including London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, and especially Berlin, what emerges is a story of a modern icon.
Making great audio recordings requires striking the right balance between technical know-how and practical understanding of recording sessions. Even in the digital age, some of the most important aspects of creating and recording music are non-technical and, as a result, are often overlooked by traditional recording manuals. The Art of Digital Audio Recording teaches readers what they really need to know in order to make great sound recordings with computers - both the practical and the technical information, including: DT What to look and listen for in a recording environment DT Straightforward advice on recording almost any instrument DT Essentials of digital audio workstations DT Essentials of recording gear: microphones, mixers, and speakers DT Fundamentals of understanding and applying EQ, compression, delay, and reverb DT Secrets to running creative recording sessions DT Practical application of digital editing, mixing, and masteringA special section identifies solutions to the most common challenges in the recording studio, and the book also features an addendum with essential tips and reference information including: DT How to walk into a commercial studio and be the engineer DT Researching and buying gear: Internet vs. brick and mortar DT Digital formats: A handy referenceAs a whole, The Art of Digital Audio Recording is an essential resource that gives recordists the tools they need to let technical understanding serve greater musical goals.
While some qualitative methods texts touch upon online communities as a potential data source, show how to conduct interviews and focus groups online, or select recording devices and analysis software, no book to date has guided readers in the creation of a comprehensive digital workflow for their research. By working through each chapter in this book, readers will be able to generate a unique digital workflow for designing and implementing their research. The book provides a deep exploration of the relationship between theories of technology, substantive theories, and methodological theory, and shows how together these inform the development of a quality research design. The authors include vignettes—narratives written by qualitative researchers describing cutting-edge use of digital tools and spaces—and also give examples of published studies, which together provide practical illustration of the content. Woven throughout is explicit attention to ethical challenges that are likely to be faced by researchers when adopting digital tools. The book invites readers to engage in a critical appraisal of the role of technology in qualitative research through reflection, conversation, and engagement with the larger community of researchers.
An NPR Best Book of 2017 "This is not a book about why vinyl sounds better; it's way more interesting than that . . . it] is full of things I didn't know, like why people yell into cellphones . . . Ultimately, it's about how we consume sound as a society - which is, increasingly, on an individual basis." --NPR "If you're a devoted music fan who's dubious about both rosy nostalgia and futuristic utopianism, Damon Krukowski's The New Analog is for you." --The New York Times Book Review "A pointedly passionate look at what's been lost in the digital era." --Los Angeles Times What John Berger did to ways of seeing, well-known indie musician Damon Krukowski does to ways of listening in this lively guide to the transition from analog to digital culture Having made his name in the late 1980s as a member of the indie band Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski has watched cultural life lurch from analog to digital. And as an artist who has weathered the transition, he has challenging, urgent questions for both creators and consumers about what we have thrown away in the process: Are our devices leaving us lost in our own headspace even as they pinpoint our location? Does the long reach of digital communication come at the sacrifice of our ability to gauge social distance? Do streaming media discourage us from listening closely? Are we hearing each other fully in this new environment? Rather than simply rejecting the digital disruption of cultural life, Krukowski uses the sound engineer's distinction of signal and noise to reexamine what we have lost as a technological culture, looking carefully at what was valuable in the analog realm so we can hold on to it. Taking a set of experiences from the production and consumption of music that have changed since the analog era--the disorientation of headphones, flattening of the voice, silence of media, loudness of mastering, and manipulation of time--as a basis for a broader exploration of contemporary culture, Krukowski gives us a brilliant meditation and guide to keeping our heads amid the digital flux. Think of it as plugging in without tuning out.
For most of the history of scientific endeavour, science has been recorded on paper. In this digital era, however, there is increasing pressure to abandon paper in favour of digital tools. Despite the benefits, there are barriers to the adoption of such tools, not least their usability. As the relentless development of technology changes the way we work, we need to ensure that the design of technology not only overcomes these barriers, but facilitates us as scientists and supports better practice within science. This book examines the importance of record-keeping in science, current record-keeping practices, and the role of technology for enabling the effective capture, reuse, sharing, and preservation of scientific data. Covering the essential areas of electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) and digital tools for recording scientific data, including an overview of the current data management technology available and the benefits and pitfalls of using these technologies, this book is a useful tool for those interested in implementing digital data solutions within their research groups or departments. This book also provides insight into important factors to consider in the design of digital tools such as ELNs for those interested in producing their own tools. Finally, it looks at the role of current technology and then considers how that technology might develop in the future to better support scientists in their work, and in capturing and sharing the scientific record.
This paper seeks to provide an intellectual rationale for maintaining the centrality of preservation concepts and ethics in an increasingly digital information environment; in other words, while some long-held principles of preservation management may no longer apply, many others are still viable in high-tech situations. Libraries are rearranging budgets and raising funds for digital image conversion. They must take steps to ensure long-term access to digital image files. The proposed context for preservation action, or conditions that need to exist as steps are taken, puts a premium on the library's sense of itself as custodian of materials with social value, an organizational structure that allocates resources to preservation, and cooperative effort among institutions. Preservation action should ultimately place priority on the longevity, choice or selectivity, quality, integrity, and accessibility of the images. The paper also offers suggestions for a framework of effective preservation leadership. (Contains 10 figures and 75 references.) (BEW)
The economic geography of music is evolving as new digital technologies, organizational forms, market dynamics and consumer behavior continue to restructure the industry. This book is an international collection of case studies examining the spatial dynamics of today’s music industry. Drawing on research from a diverse range of cities such as Santiago, Toronto, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, London, and Berlin, this volume helps readers understand how the production and consumption of music is changing at multiple scales – from global firms to local entrepreneurs; and, in multiple settings – from established clusters to burgeoning scenes. The volume is divided into interrelated sections and offers an engaging and immersive look at today’s central players, processes, and spaces of music production and consumption. Academic students and researchers across the social sciences, including human geography, sociology, economics, and cultural studies, will find this volume helpful in answering questions about how and where music is financed, produced, marketed, distributed, curated and consumed in the digital age.
This volume presents epigraphic research using digital and computational tools, comparing the outcomes of both well-established and newer projects to consider the most innovative investigative trends. Papers consider open-access databases, SfM Photogrammetry and Digital Image Modelling applied to textual restoration, Linked Open Data, and more.