Sound Production Architecture

OUTCOME OF LESSON:
THE MINDSET BEHIND GREAT SOUND PRODUCTION

Sound production is the journey necessary to facilitate the perception of sound. It needs to be in place to take a sound and make it accessible. From the stage to the audience, from a recording room to a living room, the journey is always the same and it always goes through the same five stages:

1. Input sound field*
2. Input transducers**
3. Signal processing
4. Output transducers
5. Listener sound field

* An enclosure (literal, like a room or conceptual, like an open air stage) of air where sound is produced
**Transducer = translator, convertor: from one form of energy into another

Two of the five stages belong to the acoustic domain and three to the electronic domain. We call the latter 3 a sound system.

A sound system is the means (an arrangement of electronic components) with which we are able to relay sound from a source to an audience, for whatever reason and purpose.

Said differently, a sound system is the means that helps people to hear.

Most common applications of a sound system:

• Communication in large rooms
• Hearing aids
• Public announcements
• To cover remote locations
• Entertainment / artistic purposes