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LEXICON
GAIN : It corresponds to the amplification coefficient applied to a signal, and is expressed in dB. On a mixing board, it can be set thanks to the gain potentiometer often called "Trim level". It enables, once set, not to exceed a certain threshold even if the level fader is at its maximum. Indeed, the channel won't jump the lights. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : GAIN">Ceedjay
GM/GS : These two initials belonging to the MIDI domain correspond to norms which define the order in which sounds are arranged in the memory of an expander or a keyboard. These norms also allow a deep control of the parameters which determine a sound. The interest is that a MIDI file will aproximately sounds the same way on any GM sounds generators. The only difference (even important) will be the quality of the sounds. If, for example, the track 1 is programmed to play a piano sound, we will hear a piano sound whatever the machie is if it is GM compatible. The basic norm os the General MIDI (every modern generator answers to it), and the GS norm is an improvement defined by Roland ( most of the serious generators answers to it). There is also a norm defined by Yamaha: the XG (for eXtended GM). ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : GM/GS">Ceedjay
GROOVE : The groove is the way an experimented musician will play a rhythm compared with the way it is written (or would be written). More exactly, we can speak of shifting - rather lowly - between thes two possibilities of execution.
All this has given for many times expressions: play at the bottom of the beat, before the beat, which mean that the tendency (or the intent) to play before or after the beat.
You just have to read old treatise on music - Karl ph E Bach, Mersenne, Kantz etc. - to notice that this notion of groove actually has to do with aesthetics and style, the groove of a jazz drummer being different from those of a 17th century harpsichordist; but we have to remember that even if the word groove comes from jazz, the musicians concern with this subject considerably exceeds our century.
Let's take the simple case of a guitarist playing a series of chords in quavers in a 4/4 measure. There's a little chance that these quavers will be done as they would be done on a Quantize machine, and if we superpose the two ways of playing on a time scale, the shifting appears, expressed in milliseconds (we exclude the execution of someone who doesn't know how to pay eight quavers, because it is not groove but approximate). Computing has known for a long time how to analyze a groove, i.e. express it in as a clock. The problem is that the groove is an artistic element, that is to say human, and if the series of quavers has to be played during several measures, it will evolve depending on the harmonic context, the place in the song, the sound of the musician's instrument, and, in interaction with the groove of the other musicians. We can call that "collective" groove (Count Basie for example). This notion obviously exists for classical orchester... So we reach one of the basic problems of the MIDI, or, of you prefer, we are taking a photo of a bird flying, thinking it will make it fly.... :-)
Let's add that when you play with yourself, frequent case of pure MIDI sequences, you must have a big share of groove to record drums - on a keyboard - and build with the bass other parts. We soon understand that the basic definition of the groove is worried. Despite the growing sequencers definition, the subject remains serious. And what about the drums CD-ROM??? Well, for those who already used them, even if the groove is obvious, we are confronted to the lack of interaction. Well, to sum up, the problem of the groove is the same on Digital Performer, Studio Vision, Logic etc :-)))))) ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : GROOVE">Bernard COQUELET
GROUP : On a mixing board (hardware or virtual), it is a special bus towards which we send several signals to gather them (we are talking of "pre-mix") to control them through a single command. Example... You record drums on eight tracks. After having mixed together all these elements, you think drums are a bit low compared to the other instruments. Rather than pushing up the level faders of the eight drums tracks (and destroying the balance between the elements of the drums (and the effects level if there are some)), you send each track towards a group, then you just have to set this group level fader to push up the level of the entire drums. Useful, isn't it? Moreover, if you want to put a little reverb on the entire drums, you just have to do it on the bus, rather than on each track of the drums. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : GROUPE">Ceedjay
HALL : Generic name for a reverb programm we can find on every reverb unit. This program gives to the sound a feeling of huge amplitude. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : HALL">Ceedjay
HERTZ : enables to measure a frequency, i.e. the number of repetitions of a period every seconds. Hz is used to measure the heighth of a sound. The more the frequency is high, the more the sound is high pitched. Hz is also used to measure the power of a processor (its frequency). ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : HERTZ">Ceedjay
IMPEDANCE : Impedance corresponds to the resistance of an electric circuit in alternating current. It is expressed in Ohms. It is very important to check that the two machines we plug have the same impedance. For example, we cannot plug a synth (high out impedance, line level) in a microphone in (low in impedance, microphone level) under pain of a degradation of the signal. The reverse will produce a loss of the signal, so a very low sound level. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : IMPEDANCE">Ceedjay
INSERT : Designs an effect circuit (most of the time), on a mixing board, which enables to put an effect processor between the channel in and out, exactly as if it was plugged between the guitar and the amplifier. What is the advantage if we can do it "for real"? Well, by doing like this, the effct processor remains near the console and the sound engineer, who can intervene on it without having to go on the scene with you or go to the cabin where you are recording! ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : INSERT">Ceedjay
ISA : Abbreviation of Industry Standard Architecture. It is a slot for ISA compatible extension cards (soundcards, modem..) which can be found on computer motherboards. It is rather long and black. It enables direct acces to the processor trhough the 16bits ISA bus. We cannot find it anymore on recent motherboads, because it has been replaced by the PCI slot (quicker). We cannot find anymore new soundcards at the ISA format ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : ISA">Ceedjay
JUMPER : It is a little piece of metal (covered by plastic) which looks like an electric pod (like the pods of the speaker cable on car speaker). It is used to link two circuits on an electronic card, by closing this circuit to make it operational. We can find many of them on computer motherboards. On rather old cards, we used jumpers to set the functionning speed of the processor, by combining open circuits (without the jumper) and closed circuits (with the jumper). Fewer and fewer motherboards use this process. Settings are now done through software. We can also find jumpers at the back of hard drives, they determine if the drive is used as master or slave on its connection cable. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : JUMPER">Ceedjay
LATENCY (TIME) : The latency time is the minimum time (generally the time of treatment) which separates the t0 time where the data (signal, sound...) are sent and the t0+dt time when these data are received (dt is the latency time). There exists no system with a null latency time.
In the audionumerical case on PC, the latency time is generally not a dt (i.e. infinitely small). The latency time is generally of a few dozens of milliseconds, even hundreds. If Cubase or Wavelab or Whatever indicates a latency time of 500ms, that means that the bufferisation will be of 500ms, that is to say the sound will be sent or received by 500ms blocks. This implies that the modification time of a sound will happen in the next block, 500ms later. To sum up, the reaction time of the piece of software will be of 500ms. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : LATENCE"> Vincent BUREL
LOCAL CONTROL ON/OFF : The LOCAL OFF mode concerns every instrument which is a command system (keyboard, pad...) and a sound generator. It enables to divide these two functions: the keyboard goes on sending MIDI messages, the sound generator goes on receiving MIDI message from the outside, but the keyboard doesn't command the sound generator anymore. The LOCAL ON mode enables to establish the link back between the command system and the sound generator. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : LOCAL CONTROL">Denis VASSALLUC
LOOP : It is a sound sample which is repeated in loop, giving the impression it never stops. This technics is very much used in dance music and hip hop. ?subject=Commentaire Dico ECVST : LOOP">Ceedjay