Lesson 1 - Posted on 2013-02-05 by Ryan Lundberg

2/2/2013

6:00 p.m. to

8:40p.m.

Lesson 1

This week I got a basic refresher on how sounds are created, how they move through the air to reach our ears and how our ears capture sound to recognize location.

Sounds are created by basic vibrations through force and these vibrations create sound waves. These sound waves are the audible energy created by the force or vibration and travel through the air much like a rock leaves ripples in the water. The intensity of these sound waves are dependent on the force of the sound and are measured in decibels.

These sound waves reflect or absorb off of certain surfaces and can lose more energy when doing so than they would without bouncing off a surface. This can create differences in how strong the sound is, how far it's traveled and how it's perceived.

All this adds up to how sounds reach our ears and how we perceive them. Different angles from a single sound source can alter our perception of the sound in frequency, location and overall depth. The ears are designed to bounce any sound into the ear canal and then transferred into electrical signals. 

In the studio, I learned that the -30dB to 0dB is relevant to the output of the mix compared to the 0 to 140 dB scale that is relevant to the hearing range of the ear. One question that I have is where is the 85dB to 95dB "sweet range" is on the -30dB to 0dB output? I also learned about different frequency cuts or the high-end pass and low-end pass and how it will help clear up a track or mix.

I'm getting more excited for the next lesson and can't wait to get further into how the studio is setup acoustically.