Encyclopedia

Short form of Panning

The placement of sounds left and right between a stereo pair of speakers. Sounds can be panned to the left and right to give the impression of space thus spreading…

A variable property that can be altered.

A strong concentration of sound wave energy at a specific pitch. All sounds that have a pitch are made up or partials. A Sonogram of a guitar sound in which you can…

A type of listening in you recognise that sounds are occurring, but do not pay attention to them.

Patterns are recognisable repeated elements. A looped sound will form a pattern because it is played again and again. If the loop is short then the listener will be able to…

Sound waves can both add together and subtract from one another. When soundwaves add together they are described as being ‘in phase’ with one another. When soundwaves subtract from one…

Pierre Schaeffer worked as a radio technician for the French national radio and whilst working there began to experiment with recorded sounds. In 1946 he convinced the radio station to…

Pitch as Property The relative height of a sound, ranging from low to high. A pitched sound will contain relatively focused spectral energy, and it is this characteristic that enables…

This refers to the changing of the Pitch in either direction. Traditionally pitch shifting went hand in hand with the change of speed of a tape recorder. With today’s digital technology, pitch…

Many sounds (Poly = many, phonic = sounds).

Sounds are fairly complex phenomena. When we try to describe sounds it is helpful to break them down and to examine their various component parts individually. Properties of sounds include,…