tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/recording-9939/articlesRecording – The Conversation2022-02-24T19:09:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1778062022-02-24T19:09:42Z2022-02-24T19:09:42ZListening to everything: how sound reveals an unseen world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448207/original/file-20220224-23-lp329f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C5168%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lawrence English</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vision is often regarded as first among the human senses, as our eyes are the way most of us come to know the world. However, vision has its limits.</p>
<p>Even now, as you use your eyes to read this, other senses are in operation that open up a greater appreciation of the world. Perhaps the most powerful of these is listening - audition.</p>
<p>Sound carries cues about the world we might otherwise miss. And with the development of new technologies and the work of dedicated scientists and artists, we can today listen to what was previously unimaginable, from the inner workings of plants to catastrophes in distant galaxies. </p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=261091851/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/track=2147495075/transparent=true/" seamless="" width="100%" height="400"><a href="https://lawrenceenglish.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-the-living">Songs Of The Living by Lawrence English</a></iframe>
<p>In my own work, <a href="https://www.museumofbrisbane.com.au/making-place-site-listening/">currently exhibited at the Museum of Brisbane</a>, I have made <a href="https://lawrenceenglish.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-the-living">field recordings</a> of environments and creatures around the world. These works take their place alongside an ever-growing collection of recordings revealing the unheard sounds of our world.</p>
<h2>The limits of the ear</h2>
<p>Humans can only <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10924/">hear a limited range of sounds</a>: those with frequencies between about 20 hertz (low sounds like thunder) and 20 kilohertz (very high sounds like some species of bats). Other sounds exist outside the scope of our auditory capacities. </p>
<p>“Infrasonic” sounds such as the rumble of earthquakes have frequencies too low for us to perceive, although <a href="https://sos.noaa.gov/education/phenomenon-based-learning/can-elephants-sense-tsunamis/#:%7E:text=Tsunamis%20are%20large%20waves%20created,can%20sense%20the%20vibrations%20earlier">other animals can detect them</a>. There are “ultrasonic” sounds too, with frequencies above the threshold of human hearing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listening-to-the-ocean-reveals-a-hidden-world-and-how-we-might-save-it-173790">Listening to the ocean reveals a hidden world – and how we might save it</a>
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<p>Strictly speaking, a sound is a vibration in air. But we can also think of other kinds of vibrations, such as electromagnetic waves, as having the potential to be registered as sounds. </p>
<p>With the right kind of technological translation tools, you can hear the electromagnetic sounds emitted by devices like the one on which you are reading this right now.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/muGAokcUksI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘Stereo Bugscope’ created by the artist Haco amplifies the sounds of electronic circuitry.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Why should we listen?</h2>
<p>Listening is a different way of knowing the world that expands our understanding. Sound travels around corners and through walls, from places that are out of sight.</p>
<p>Our ears are a gateway to a deeper sensing of the world. Take bird calls, for example.</p>
<p>For most, even those of us living in densely populated urban centres, dawn’s arrival is trumpeted by a chorus of bird calls. These voices, that seemingly splay out in all directions suggest acts of territorial dominance, of the seeking and discovery of food and other fundamental activities of animal species. A variation of the chorus occurs again, as the sun vanishes over the horizon. </p>
<p>These daily occurrences are so commonplace as to not draw themselves to attention. But on closer examination, we are discovering they reveal much about <a href="https://dawn-chorus.org/idea/">habitat health, seasonality and other environmental markers</a>. </p>
<h2>Listening longer, listening deeper, listening wider</h2>
<p>Today we are listening to more of the world, and beyond, than ever before, with the growth of disciplines such as <a href="https://www.wildlifeacoustics.com/resources/bioacoustics">bio-acoustics</a>, <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/ems/05_radiowaves">radio telescopy</a>, and more philosophical fields such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2G6Iu38TM">sound studies</a>. </p>
<p>The proliferation of technologies such as <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/hydrophone.html#:%7E:text=A%20hydrophone%20is%20an%20underwater,reproduction%2C%20and%20to%20seek%20prey.">hydrophones</a> (underwater microphones) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZLZ48DGjwc">electromagnetic receivers</a> has also increased the reach of our ears. </p>
<p>It’s this combination of intellectual, scientific and artistic curiosity, matched with technological developments and availability that have resulted in the capture of some incredible sound events that exist well beyond the visual plane. </p>
<p>Just a quarter of a century ago it seemed like science fiction that we might be able to capture the sound of <a href="https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/video/ligo20160211v2">two black holes colliding in space</a> – but scientists did it in 2015.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="11" data-image="" data-title="The sound of black holes colliding: gravitational waves converted to sound waves." data-size="166921" data-source="Caltech / MIT / LIGO Lab" data-source-url="https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/video/ligo20160211v2" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2414/ligo20160211v2.m4a" type="audio/mp4">
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<div class="audio-player-caption">
The sound of black holes colliding: gravitational waves converted to sound waves.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/video/ligo20160211v2">Caltech / MIT / LIGO Lab</a><span class="download"><span>163 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2414/ligo20160211v2.m4a">(download)</a></span></span>
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<p>These discoveries and others like them have fostered new research programs that aim to undertake the deepest and most concentrated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/20/breakthrough-listen-massive-radio-wave-project-scan-far-regions-for-alien-life">galactic listening</a> to date.</p>
<h2>As above, so below</h2>
<p>We have made many discoveries closer to home, too. </p>
<p>We have known for a long time that the underwater world is rich in sounds, but it has been underrepresented in dedicated research. This trend is changing, with numerous <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/feb/19/fish-acoustic-communication-sex-food-researchers">studies</a> highlighting the rich acoustic diversity of rivers, oceans and reefs. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448213/original/file-20220224-17-1a3hk6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448213/original/file-20220224-17-1a3hk6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448213/original/file-20220224-17-1a3hk6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448213/original/file-20220224-17-1a3hk6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448213/original/file-20220224-17-1a3hk6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448213/original/file-20220224-17-1a3hk6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448213/original/file-20220224-17-1a3hk6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Plants may use the sound of water to guide the growth of their roots.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>On land, the Australian researcher Monica Gagliano has explored <a href="https://www.news.uwa.edu.au/archive/201704119544/research/study-reveals-plants-listen-find-sources-water/">plant audition</a>. She demonstrated how plants can use sound to find water – so next time your plumbing is blocked by a plant’s roots, keep in mind they have been listening to the water flowing through the pipes.</p>
<p>Equally profound are the studies of bioelectrical sounds emitted by plants carried out by artists such as the Irish “sound ecologist” Michael Prime. For several decades, Prime has catalogued various <a href="https://michaelallenzprime.bandcamp.com/album/one-hour-as-peyote">bioelectric emissions from plants</a>. At times they resemble unsettled but rhythmic avant-garde music.</p>
<h2>Field recording</h2>
<p>This curiosity for listening into places and those that inhabit them, has also spawned a zone of creative sound practice called <a href="https://www.factmag.com/2014/11/18/a-beginners-guide-to-field-recording/">field recording</a>. A field recordist is a listener who is primarily focused on capturing the sonic aspects of environments that captivate them. </p>
<p>Once a marginal part of the sound arts canon, field recording has come to be regarded as a critical field of creative engagement. This year artists such as Philip Samartzis have been memorialised in a series of <a href="https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2021/mar/antarctic-stamps">Australian Antarctic postage stamps</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-sounds-around-us-an-introduction-to-field-recording-36494">The sounds around us: an introduction to field recording</a>
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</em>
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<p>Even if you don’t want to make your own field recordings, you might be interested in listening to the sound walks of Canadian artist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg96nU6ltLk">Hildegard Westerkamp</a>, or experiencing the situational listening of Japanese artist Akio Suzuki’s <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/audio/let-s-turn-the-bustle-of-melbourne-into-music-akio-suzuki">Oto Date</a> project. </p>
<p>These works, like my own <a href="https://www.museumofbrisbane.com.au/making-place-site-listening/">Site Listening</a> at the Museum Of Brisbane, recognise that the more we listen into the world around us, the more we realise we are yet to hear its true resonances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177806/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lawrence English does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From the bioelectric bleeps of plants to the intergalactic bloops of colliding black holes, sound gives us new ways to experience the world.Lawrence English, Adjunct Research Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1657592021-08-11T20:05:33Z2021-08-11T20:05:33ZCurious Kids: how does music get onto a cassette tape?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415366/original/file-20210810-23-1e8xmx3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3497&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>How does music get onto a cassette tape? — Paul, age 9, Adelaide</p>
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<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291898/original/file-20190911-190031-enlxbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=90&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="100%"></a></p>
<p>Hi Paul!</p>
<p>That’s a great question. To answer it very briefly, music is recorded onto a cassette tape using electricity and a magnetic field. Now let me explain what I mean by that. </p>
<h2>Sound gets turned into electricity</h2>
<p>Imagine you’re singing into a microphone while playing a guitar. When you sing, you use your vocal cords in your throat, your mouth and your breath to make the air around you vibrate — and these vibrations are what create sound.</p>
<p>Similarly, when you pluck or strum the strings of a guitar, this causes the wooden body of the instrument to vibrate, which also vibrates the air inside the guitar, creating sound. </p>
<p>Both the microphone and the guitar “pickup” (a special kind of microphone for “picking up” sound from an instrument) have tiny magnets that vibrate with the movements of air, and produce an electrical current. </p>
<p>The current flows through the microphone and guitar cables to the tape recorder, through which a plastic tape is slowly moving. The electrical signal creates a magnetic field in the recording head and this is what allows sound to be recorded.</p>
<p>But what happens within the tape recorder itself during this process?</p>
<h2>How magnetic tape works</h2>
<p>A cassette tape is a plastic shell that surrounds two rotating spools.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A collection of cassette tapes on grey carpet" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415089/original/file-20210808-19-1kns1hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415089/original/file-20210808-19-1kns1hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415089/original/file-20210808-19-1kns1hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415089/original/file-20210808-19-1kns1hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415089/original/file-20210808-19-1kns1hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415089/original/file-20210808-19-1kns1hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415089/original/file-20210808-19-1kns1hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A collection of cassette tapes/</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Flamenco/unsplash</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Another long, thin piece of plastic is wound around the spools. This is the “magnetic tape” on which the sound is recorded.</p>
<p>This tape is covered with a magnetic material that contains iron, and which reacts when it comes close to a magnetic field. The material could be iron oxide, chromium dioxide, or sometimes barium ferrite.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A diagram of a magnetic tape recorder showing the mechanical parts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415090/original/file-20210808-23-hax9vy.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415090/original/file-20210808-23-hax9vy.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415090/original/file-20210808-23-hax9vy.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415090/original/file-20210808-23-hax9vy.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415090/original/file-20210808-23-hax9vy.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415090/original/file-20210808-23-hax9vy.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415090/original/file-20210808-23-hax9vy.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A diagram of a magnetic tape recorder showing the mechanical parts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of California Santa Cruz Electronic Music Studio</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the diagram above, we can see the basic parts of a tape recorder. Here’s what happens when an empty cassette tape is used to record sound.</p>
<p>The magnetic tape starts on the <em>supply reel</em> and a motor on the <em>takeup reel</em> winds the tape past the <em>heads</em> (4, 6, 7). Each head contains metal coils. When electricity is sent to the coils in the <em>record head</em> (6), it generates a tiny magnetic field. </p>
<p>When the tape enters the magnetic field generated by the record head, the magnetic particles on it align in proportion to the strength of the field. The loudness and pitch of the sound (how high or low it is) make the magnetic particles align in different patterns as the tape passes through. </p>
<p>Later, if we want to play our recording back, we wind the tape past the <em>play head</em> (7), where the pattern of the magnetic particles recorded on the tape produces an electrical signal that is converted back to sound. </p>
<p>These particles will stay in the same arrangement unless they are exposed to a new magnetic field — so a tape can be played back many times, until it wears out!</p>
<p>The remaining head is the <em>erase head</em> (4). This lets us erase sound from a tape by using a constant electrical charge to “reset” the magnetic material on the tape as it passes through, erasing any previous recordings. </p>
<p>The <em>capstan, rollers</em> and <em>arms</em> all help to keep the tape stretched out as it passes through the heads, so that it moves at the same speed and gets a good-quality recording.</p>
<h2>A little history</h2>
<p>Cassette tapes were <a href="https://www.usa.philips.com/a-w/about/news/archive/standard/news/press/2013/20130910-Philips-compact-cassette-golden-anniversary.html">developed by the company Philips in 1963</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An image of the first model of compact cassette tape sold by Philips in the 1960s" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415087/original/file-20210808-90251-7vnxzu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415087/original/file-20210808-90251-7vnxzu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415087/original/file-20210808-90251-7vnxzu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415087/original/file-20210808-90251-7vnxzu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415087/original/file-20210808-90251-7vnxzu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415087/original/file-20210808-90251-7vnxzu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415087/original/file-20210808-90251-7vnxzu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image of the first model of compact cassette tape sold by Philips in the 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philips USA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although recording to tape <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/5/16/11672678/tape-recording-70th-anniversary-jack-mullin">had been possible since the 1930s</a>, the technology was large, awkward and expensive. The Philips Compact Cassette was cheap, portable (small enough to carry around) and could be used at home or in the office, with basic recording equipment. </p>
<p>But when Masaru Ibuka, the co-founder of the Japanese company Sony, wanted a way to listen to his favourite music on long flights, he sparked an invention <a href="https://www.sony.com.au/electronics/walkman-revolutionized-listen-to-music-on-the-go">that would change the</a> way we listened to music forever: the Sony Walkman. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Image of the original Sony Walkman TPS L" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415088/original/file-20210808-19-1r6n9qp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415088/original/file-20210808-19-1r6n9qp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415088/original/file-20210808-19-1r6n9qp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415088/original/file-20210808-19-1r6n9qp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415088/original/file-20210808-19-1r6n9qp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415088/original/file-20210808-19-1r6n9qp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415088/original/file-20210808-19-1r6n9qp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Original Sony Walkman TPS L.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Binarysequence/wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Walkman was released in 1979 and brought music into every part of our lives. Not just our homes, or cars — but anywhere at any time! It is more or less a portable cassette player that connects with headphones.</p>
<p>Since then we have seen huge improvements in portable music technology, with MP3 players coming out in 1997 and eventually the Apple iPod’s <a href="https://www.cnet.com/pictures/the-complete-history-of-apples-ipod/">release in 2001</a>.</p>
<p>Today, we don’t even need a special device just to record or play music. We can do everything on our phones! But cassette tapes were the first invention that let people easily record and play on the go.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-astronauts-go-to-the-bathroom-in-space-153370">How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165759/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Wenn has received funding from a City of Hume COVID-19 Arts Activation Grant in 2020. </span></em></p>Cassette tapes were the first great advancement in portable recording and playback. You can draw a direct line between them and the music apps on every smartphone today.Christopher Wenn, Tutor in Production (Technical), The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1477472020-11-01T19:05:44Z2020-11-01T19:05:44ZWant to record your doctor’s appointment? Great idea, but first, check it’s legal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366314/original/file-20201029-23-led78f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C998%2C663&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-talking-doctor-online-using-smartphone-1585488490">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As you fire up your computer for a telehealth appointment, or prepare to walk in to see your doctor, you may be wondering whether to record your appointment. You might even think about doing it without asking permission first.</p>
<p>But recording without permission might be illegal depending on where you live, according to our latest research, <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/214/3/overt-and-covert-recordings-health-care-consultations-australia-some-legal">published today</a>.</p>
<p>And there may be repercussions for you and your health-care professional.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/video-and-phone-consultations-only-scratch-the-surface-of-what-telehealth-has-to-offer-146580">Video and phone consultations only scratch the surface of what telehealth has to offer</a>
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<h2>Why record a consultation?</h2>
<p>When feeling unwell, or overwhelmed with a new diagnosis, it can be hard to take in and remember important health information your health-care practitioner provides.</p>
<p>Recording your appointments can help. It can help you <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pon.4592">recall and understand</a> what you discussed. You can also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pon.4789">share</a> information about your diagnosis or ongoing care with family and friends. </p>
<p>Many health professionals <a href="https://mhealth.jmir.org/2020/1/e15593/">support</a> the idea of their patients recording their appointments.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/missed-something-the-doctor-said-recording-your-appointments-gives-you-a-chance-to-go-back-112302">Missed something the doctor said? Recording your appointments gives you a chance to go back</a>
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<h2>Can technology help?</h2>
<p>In the past few years there has been increasing interest in using digital technology to help people record their health-care consultations.</p>
<p>In Australia, we developed the <a href="https://formative.jmir.org/2019/1/e11111/">SecondEars smartphone app</a> at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre to allow people diagnosed with cancer to record on their phone, with back-up copies sent directly to their health service for storage. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28684387/">United States</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27593087/">Europe</a>, health services and clinics are developing in-house recording software and technology. </p>
<p>Most smartphones also have basic recording software that lets you record with or without asking your health professional. And amid the <a href="https://theconversation.com/video-and-phone-consultations-only-scratch-the-surface-of-what-telehealth-has-to-offer-146580">boom in telehealth due to COVID-19</a>, it’s worth remembering videoconferencing software (such as Zoom) also has built-in recording functions. </p>
<h2>What happens if I record?</h2>
<p>Imagine you are going to record without telling your doctor, nurse or other health-care professional, or plan on sharing the recording later with other people. What does the law say?</p>
<p>We found this differs in each part of Australia, depending on where you are when you create or share the recording. The law doesn’t differ by the type of recording; audio and video are treated the same. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young man speaking to someone on a smartphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366349/original/file-20201029-17-10yborv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Before hitting the ‘record’ button, find out if it’s legal in your state or territory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/frustrated-young-man-20-years-old-1140382337">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>In some jurisdictions (<a href="https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/in-force/acts/surveillance-devices-act-1999/040">Victoria</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1971-050">Queensland</a>, <a href="https://legislation.nt.gov.au/en/Legislation/SURVEILLANCE-DEVICES-ACT-2007">NT</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2007-064">NSW</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/1992-57/">ACT</a> and <a href="https://www.legislation.tas.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1991-021">Tasmania</a>) patients don’t need permission to record their appointment with a doctor, nurse or other health professional if the recording is just for their own use. So, if you want to record to remember what the doctor told you about upcoming surgery or how to take your medicines, you can, even without asking first.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/SURVEILLANCE%20DEVICES%20ACT%202016.aspx">SA</a> and <a href="https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/statutes.nsf/law_a1919.html">WA</a>, you usually need the health professional’s consent before recording. </p>
<p>In these states, a person who makes a covert recording for their own use can even face a fine or prison term (for example, <a href="https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/SURVEILLANCE%20DEVICES%20ACT%202016.aspx">in SA</a>, there are fines of up to A$15,000 or prison for up to three years). </p>
<h2>Can I share the recording?</h2>
<p>Sharing a recording with others — whether this is in person or online — is subject to other rules. The health professional’s consent is sometimes needed for this even if it wasn’t needed for the recording in the first place. </p>
<p>However, in <a href="https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1971-050">Queensland</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.tas.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1991-021">Tasmania</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2007-064">NSW</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/SURVEILLANCE%20DEVICES%20ACT%202016.aspx">SA</a> and the <a href="https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/1992-57/">ACT</a>, as long as the original recording was done within the rules, you don’t need to ask for consent to share it just with family or close friends. </p>
<p>Sharing it more widely is another matter. Only in <a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2007-064">NSW</a> and <a href="https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/SURVEILLANCE%20DEVICES%20ACT%202016.aspx">SA</a> can you do this without the health professional’s consent (as long as the original recording was lawful). </p>
<p>While the law is messy, we think the overall answer is clear. Even if you don’t need your health professional’s permission to record your consultation, it is best to tell them you want to. </p>
<h2>What if I ask and the doctor says ‘no’?</h2>
<p>Some health-care professionals and organisations might be concerned you might share recordings on social media, or use them as a basis for a complaint. </p>
<p>The indemnity insurer MIPS <a href="https://www.mips.com.au/articles/are-you-being-recorded">tells its doctors</a> that if the idea of recording makes them uncomfortable, they have the option to decline it. But we argue saying “no” to a patient’s reasonable request to record the consultation might harm the doctor-patient relationship, by eroding patient trust and confidence. </p>
<p>If you want to record your medical appointment, it could be worth talking with your doctor about how the recording could help you take better care of your health, and telling them what you intend to do with it. </p>
<p>You could also point out that advice in the United Kingdom <a href="https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/confidentiality-and-health-records/patients-recording-consultations">suggests</a> recordings can actually support doctors where there are legal disputes. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170710135301.htm">one US institution</a>, doctors who let their consultations be recorded get a discount for their indemnity insurance, because of the reduced risk of being sued for malpractice. It makes sense, because when there’s a recording, there is less chance of a disagreement arising over who said what.</p>
<h2>Iron out any concerns early</h2>
<p>Even if making or sharing a recording doesn’t break the law, doing so without everyone’s knowledge risks harming your relationship with your health-care professional, especially if they find out about it later. </p>
<p>Ultimately, a constructive dialogue between you and your health-care professional should iron out concerns on both sides. While it might feel challenging — and depending on where you are, the law might not require you to — it is usually best to ask for consent, so there are no surprises.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>You might need permission to record a doctor’s appointment and extra permission to share it. That depends on where you live.Amelia Hyatt, Senior Researcher, Peter MacCallum Cancer CentreCarolyn Johnston, Senior Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneMegan Prictor, Research Fellow in Law, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1036682018-12-12T11:42:02Z2018-12-12T11:42:02ZHow stereo was first sold to a skeptical public<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250050/original/file-20181211-76980-1lfiyac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Record companies released stereo demonstration albums that showcased how sound could move from left to right, creating a sense of movement.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From the collection of Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When we hear the word “stereo” today, we might simply think of a sound system, as in “turn on the stereo.” </p>
<p>But stereo actually is a specific technology, like video streaming or the latest espresso maker. </p>
<p>Sixty years ago, it was introduced for the first time. </p>
<p>Whenever a new technology comes along – whether it’s Bluetooth, high-definition TV or Wi-Fi – it needs to be explained, packaged and promoted to customers who are happy with their current products.</p>
<p>Stereo was no different. As we explore in our recent book, “<a href="https://www.designedforhifiliving.com/">Designed for Hi-Fi Living: The Vinyl LP in Midcentury America</a>,” stereo needed to be sold to skeptical consumers. This process involved capturing the attention of a public fascinated by space-age technology using cutting-edge graphic design, in-store sound trials and special stereo demonstration records.</p>
<h2>The rise of ‘hi-fi’ sound</h2>
<p>In 1877, Thomas Edison <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-sound-recordings/history-of-the-cylinder-phonograph/">introduced the phonograph</a>, the first machine that could reproduce recorded sound. Edison used wax cylinders to capture sound and recorded discs became popular in the early 20th century. </p>
<p>By the 1950s, record players, as they came to be called, had become a mainstay of many American living rooms. These were “mono,” or one-channel, music systems. With mono, all sounds and instruments were mixed together. Everything was delivered through one speaker.</p>
<p>Stereophonic sound, or stereo, was an important advance in sound reproduction. Stereo introduced two-channel sound, which separated out elements of the total sound landscape and changed the experience of listening.</p>
<p>Audio engineers had sought to improve the quality of recorded sound in their quest for “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/high-fidelity-sound-system">high fidelity</a>” recordings that more faithfully reproduced live sound. Stereo technology recorded sound and played it back in a way that more closely mimicked how humans actually hear the world around them.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250041/original/file-20181211-76971-99ugt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A graphic detail, from an RCA inner sleeve, shows listeners how new stereo technology operates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From the collection of Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>British engineer <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/06/19/little-known-inventor-stereo-crucial-wwii-radar-honoured-film/">Alan Dower Blumlein</a> paved the way for two channel recording in the 1930s. But it wasn’t until the 1950s that stereo technology was incorporated into movie theaters, radios and television sets. </p>
<p>With stereo, the sound of some instruments could come from the left speaker, the sound of others from the right, imitating the setup of a concert orchestra. It also was possible to shift a particular sound from left to right or right to left, creating a sense of movement. </p>
<p>Although Audio-Fidelity Records offered a limited edition stereo record for industry use in 1957, consumers needed to wait until 1958 for recordings with stereo sound to become widely available for the home. </p>
<h2>A sonic ‘arms race’ to sell the sound</h2>
<p>When stereo records were introduced to the mass market, a “sonic arms race” was on. Stereo was aggressively promoted as the latest technological advancement that brought sophisticated sound reproduction to everyone. </p>
<p>Each of the era’s major record labels started pushing stereo sound. Companies like Columbia, Mercury and RCA, which sold both stereo equipment and stereo records, moved to convince consumers that stereo’s superior qualities were worth further investment. </p>
<p>A key challenge for selling stereo was consumers’ satisfaction with the mono music systems they already owned. After all, adopting stereo meant you needed to buy a new record player, speakers and a stereo amplifier.</p>
<p>Something was needed to show people that this new technology was worth the investment. The “stereo demonstration” was born – a mix of videos, print ads and records designed to showcase the new technology and its vibrant sound.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MVQ0mhxBuf4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Record companies were convinced the public simply needed to be exposed to the new technology to be sold on it.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Stereo demonstration records showed off the innovative qualities of a new stereo system, with tracks for “balancing signals” or doing “speaker-response checks.” They often included compelling, detailed instructional notes to explain the new stereo sound experience. </p>
<p>Stereo’s potential and potency stormed retail showrooms and living rooms. </p>
<p>Curious shoppers could hear trains chugging from left to right, wow at the roar of passing war planes, and catch children’s energetic voices as they dashed across playgrounds. Capitol Records released “The Stereo Disc,” which featured “day in the life” ambient sounds such as “Bowling Alley” and “New Year’s Eve at Times Square” to transport the listener out of the home and into the action.</p>
<p>A particularly entertaining example of the stereo demonstration record is RCA Victor’s “Sounds in Space.” Appearing a year after <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sputnik-launched">the successful launch of the Soviet’s Sputnik satellite in 1957</a>, this classic album played into Americans’ growing interest in the space race raging between the two superpowers.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250046/original/file-20181211-76962-2a3ni1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RCA Victor’s ‘Sounds in Space’ demonstration album.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From the collection of Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>“The age of space is here,” the record begins, “and now RCA Victor brings you ‘Sounds in Space.’” Narrator Ken Nordine’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ_4UztvbnE">charismatic commentary</a> explains stereophonic sound as his voice “travels” from one speaker channel to another, by the “the miracle of RCA stereophonic sound.”</p>
<p>Record companies also released spectacular stereo recordings of classical music. </p>
<p>Listening at home began to reproduce the feeling of hearing music live in the concert hall, with stereo enhancing the soaring arias of Wagner’s operas and the explosive thundering cannons of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” </p>
<p>Today, rousing orchestral works from the early stereo era, such as <a href="https://csosoundsandstories.org/at-60-rca-victors-living-stereo-imprint-still-going-strong/">RCA Victor’s “Living Stereo” albums from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra</a>, are considered some of the finest achievements of recorded sound.</p>
<h2>Visualizing stereo</h2>
<p>Stereo demonstration records, in particular, featured attractive, modern graphic design. Striking, often colorful, lettering boasted titles such as “Stereorama,” “360 Sound” and “Sound in the Round.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240736/original/file-20181016-165900-1vgn9v1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Epic Records demonstration album cover features a rainbow of sound.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection of Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some stereo demonstration records focused on the listening experience. The ecstatic blond woman on the cover of Warner Bros. Records’ “How to Get the Most Out of Your Stereo” sports a stethoscope and seems thrilled to hear the new stereo sound. World Pacific Records “Something for Both Ears!” offers a glamorous model with an ear horn in each ear, mimicking the stereo effect.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250048/original/file-20181211-76959-4ln59y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=247&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Record companies tried to hook listeners with demonstration records featuring vivid graphics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From the collection of Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>These eye-catching design elements became an important part of the record companies’ visual branding. All were deployed to grab the attention of customers and help them visualize how stereo worked. Now they’ve become celebrated examples of midcentury album cover art.</p>
<p>By the late 1960s, stereo dominated sound reproduction, and album covers no longer needed to indicate “stereo” or “360 Sound.” Consumers simply assumed that they were buying a stereo record. </p>
<p>Today, listeners can enjoy multiple channels with surround sound by purchasing several speakers for their music and home theater systems. But stereo remains a basic element of sound reproduction. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-digital-technology-spawned-retros-revival-54302">As vinyl has enjoyed a surprising comeback lately</a>, midcentury stereo demonstration records are enjoying new life as retro icons – appreciated as both a window into a golden age of emerging sound technology and an icon of modern graphic design.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sixty years ago, stereo promised to forever change the way people listened to music. But how could record companies convince customers to buy a new record player, speakers and amplifier?Jonathan Schroeder, William A. Kern Professor in Communications, Rochester Institute of TechnologyJanet Borgerson, Senior Wicklander Fellow at the Insitute for Business and Professional Ethics, DePaul UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/773662017-05-30T10:05:41Z2017-05-30T10:05:41ZFor the record: the vinyl revival and a plug-in too far<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170376/original/file-20170522-7372-v2m25k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-vinyl-record-collection-albums-578657308?src=thglCF7yOps9eytapjYiwg-2-5">Shutterstock/NataliaDeriabina</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vinyl is back, or so it might seem. For better or worse? I’m not so sure myself. Like a lot of vinyl enthusiasts, I too enjoy the ritual, the feel, the physicality of a real product in my hands. But as soon as I get to the listening part, the sound engineer in me can’t help but feel it’s all a bit of snake oil.</p>
<p>Following yet another successful record store day in an ever growing market, a closer look at the top 10 highest selling vinyl albums of 2017 reveals that seven out of the 10 are either re-releases from legacy artists or <a href="http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-biggest-selling-vinyl-albums-and-singles-of-2017-so-far__18651/">old soundtracks</a>. There’s plenty that has been said about the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/dec/09/vinyl-record-sales-up-but-indie-labels-dont-see-benefit">reality of this revival</a> on independent artists and labels but what impact has it had on the recording itself?</p>
<p>Although ostensibly a market driven forward by new technologies, the audio recording world has a tendency to be nostalgic for that same vintage “authenticity” that lies behind the vinyl revival. Analogue synths and reel-to-reel tape decks, although old technology, are still the holy grail for many recording engineers that yearn to capture the sounds they grew up with. And for the younger generation, a return to analogue recording ideals may well represent a rejection of the seemingly less real digital audio they grew up with.</p>
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<p>In a market increasingly aimed at bedroom producers and “prosumers”, many of the most popular audio plug-in manufacturers concentrate on creating “in-the-box” digital plug-in versions of vintage audio hardware. These plug-ins have done wonders to advance the quality of home recorded music and even the grumpiest of old-school sound engineers would find it hard to resist the temptation of owning a piece of that classic sound at a fraction of the price. But it was only a matter of time until all this vinyl frenzy seemingly forced a gap in the market for the snake oil salesmen to jump on that wagon.</p>
<h2>A new old sound</h2>
<p>Recently the popular audio plug-in developer Waves released its <a href="http://www.waves.com/plugins/abbey-road-vinyl#presenting-the-abbey-road-vinyl-plugin">Abbey Road Vinyl plug-in</a>. If the “Abbey Road” moniker alone wasn’t enough to steam up your rose-tinted glasses, this vinyl emulation promises to capture the very “retro feel of a record, combined with the analogue warmth of its sound which makes vinyl a beautiful nostalgic statement”. With a reputation like Waves’ and an RRP of $249 (about £192), I can only imagine that it does come close to being a “precise model” of the original Abbey Road cutting lathe. But is that really a good thing?</p>
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<p>Zealots on either side of the fence can argue until they’re blue in the face about whether vinyl sounds better or not. But even if we ignore that a large number of commercially released vinyl is pressed using CD quality digital files, the reality is that technically it just can’t compete. Surface noise, warping and added distortion are inherent to vinyl and all amount to a far different representation of the audio that the artists and producer intended for the listener.</p>
<p>Then what does vinyl emulation hope to achieve exactly? It would seem that the soul purpose of these types of plug-ins is to actually recreate the particularly undesirable artefacts that recording engineers tried so hard to eliminate before digital audio existed. So if the vinyl revival is really driven by the music fans’ desire to have a real product, complete with the ritual and aura of a physical record, then vinyl emulation is nothing more than a degradation tool. Maybe it’s time we stopped with the nostalgia, fellow recording engineers. We’ve gone too far, time to go back. Or should that be forward?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Birkett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vinyl is one thing but digital plug-ins which claim to emulate the analogue sound are a rose-tinted step too far.Jamie Birkett, Lecturer, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/657422016-09-22T13:51:19Z2016-09-22T13:51:19ZWe made an app to identify bird sounds – and learned something surprising about people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138440/original/image-20160920-11103-kzlc8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-250221310/stock-photo-loxia-curvirostra.html?src=CrDCsCw3tgSYW5gEWP0z6w-1-11">Ivan Protsiuk/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The sound of birds is everywhere but what if you can’t tell your robin from your ring-necked parrot? And when the birds listen to each other, are they picking up on the same qualities as we are? As part of my research, I try to help answer these questions by developing techniques for computers to make sense of sounds automatically, for example to identify a bird from its sound.</p>
<p>You don’t realise quite how amazing the human brain is at understanding sound until you’ve tried to “explain” the process to a computer so that it can do it on its own. <a href="http://machine-listening.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/">In my lab</a> at Queen Mary University of London we came up with an algorithm to dig through many thousands of bird recordings from hundreds of different bird species, and then to “teach” the computer to recognise common dimensions of variation in the sound. We used this to identify the species of birds in the rainforest and we got <a href="https://peerj.com/articles/488/">great results</a>.</p>
<p>We then decided to make our algorithm into a smartphone app, this time trained to recognise birds in Britain, so that people around the country could record and identify birdsong. The surprise came when we heard what sounds they actually recorded – an oddly funny set of bird impressions. We ended up learning something interesting about humans as well as birds. </p>
<h2>Smartphones and bird song</h2>
<p>When you’re conducting research, it’s always useful to have plenty of data. Our work is based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/machine-learning-and-big-data-know-it-wasnt-you-who-just-swiped-your-credit-card-48561">machine learning</a>, the type of artificial intelligence that involves software adapting to large amounts of data so that it can perform a certain way without being specifically programmed to. Large datasets are a crucial part of the technology that allows smartphones to recognise voice commands, for example.</p>
<p>Ecologists and other biologists are also starting to find themselves awash with audio and video data, since they can now easily set up networks of miniature recording devices in a forest, a field, or even on a cliff face. For example, the <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/kenyabioacoustics/">Kenya bioacoustics project</a> led by Ciira wa Maina has built small cost-effective sound recorders based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/raspberry-pi-3-shows-its-possible-to-pack-even-more-punch-into-a-tiny-package-51524">Raspberry Pi miniature computers</a> and deployed them to collect recordings of bird life in Kenya.</p>
<p>We can use such datasets to automatically detect and recognise birds, animals or insects, although in general it’s still a hard problem to detect every such sound. After all, the speech recognition software in your phone only has to deal with one species. The same machine learning methods can be used with animals, but they need to be adapted to the characteristics of the problem we’re trying to solve.</p>
<p>That motivated our work on automatically recognising bird species, and it also motivated our decision to turn our work into an app <a href="http://warblr.net/">known as Warblr</a> that anyone could use. You just record a bird with your smartphone and then Warblr tells you which species it thinks are most likely to be found in your recording, with a percentage weighting to show how sure it is for each species. </p>
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<span class="caption">Can you tell the robin’s sound from the ring-necked parrot’s?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-256239940/stock-photo-robin-bird-on-branch.html?src=vMJNakLqSm1VyJPYgzWU5Q-1-19">Tomatito/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Sharing bird recordings</h2>
<p>The app is not just a product. It’s also a “citizen science” project that allows us to ask people around the country to contribute the ten-second sound recordings they’ve made. These “sightings” can then be used for future research and bird monitoring. People contributed in their thousands, recordings such as this dunnock song:</p>
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<p>But when we came to listen back to the sounds that the great British public had recorded since the app’s launch in August 2015 – more than 25,000 recordings from across the UK – we received quite a surprise. While 75% of the sounds we’ve analysed so far were made by birds, in a number of the recordings we couldn’t hear any birds at all. Instead, we found people had tried to imitate birds with their own voices, with varying degrees of success:</p>
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<h2>Bird or plane?</h2>
<p>So now that we have a huge library of in-the-field bird recordings – and one of the best collections of bird impressions and miscellaneous other sounds – what are we going to do with it? In fact, even the non-bird recordings are useful for research because they teach the machines to distinguish all the different types of sound, from a screaming child to a screeching parrot. </p>
<p>We’ve learned something that has been corroborated by other researchers too. Even detecting whether or not there is a bird present (let alone what species it is) is still a tricky problem. That’s why we will be publishing the data we gathered and encouraging more research on <a href="http://machine-listening.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/bird-audio-detection-challenge/">detection and recognition of birds</a>. </p>
<p>With machine learning, statistical analysis, and all these data sources, we will eventually have a much greater understanding of our bird populations, their migration patterns, their habitats and even their interactions with each other.</p>
<p>More of our favourite bird recordings are on <a href="http://soundcloud.com/warblruk">the Warblr SoundCloud page</a>:</p>
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<p>You can help our research and listen to even more examples by taking part in our <a href="http://gallah.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/bird/">online listening game</a>.</p>
<p>We hope that the recordings we’ve gathered will provide an invaluable insight into the behaviour of our British bird life, although it seems that we’ve captured an insight into the mindset of the British public too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Stowell is a co-founder and shareholder of Warblr Ltd. He receives funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for his research on bird sounds.</span></em></p>Our citizen science project was designed to record bird sounds but produced some surprisingly funny impressions.Dan Stowell, Research Fellow in Machine Listening, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/630252016-08-02T08:50:12Z2016-08-02T08:50:12ZThe Living and the Dead captures Victorian anxieties about science and the supernatural<p>From telegraphs to television sets, new technologies have often been imagined as strange or magical in the popular consciousness. It is no coincidence that developments in 19th century science and technology like the railway, the phonograph, and the photograph coincided with a deep cultural fascination with the paranormal. Discussions of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-victorians-brought-famous-artists-back-from-the-dead-in-seances-62647">seances</a>, spirit mediums and purported photos of ghosts were found in the newspapers of the day, and science was used to either try to prove or repudiate the claims. These feverish times are the setting for BBC One’s supernatural drama <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wv2rl">The Living and the Dead</a>. </p>
<p>In the opening episode, pioneering photographer Charlotte Appleby (played by Charlotte Spencer) reflects in wonder that “You could be dead and buried a hundred years, and people could still hear what you sounded like” while listening to phonograph recordings of people from the Somerset village of Shepzoy. It is 1894, and she and her psychologist husband Nathan (played by Colin Morgan) have moved to the village to take charge of the family estate.</p>
<p>Her enthusiasm for this new medium is quickly dampened, however, when the voice of Nathan’s young son who tragically drowned fills the room, urging his father to join him in play. Various other paranormal events soon follow. Ghostly voices emerging from the phonograph are replicated by a young woman who claims to have been possessed by the spirit of a local man who died without having been baptised. A railway survey unleashes the unquiet souls of five boys who died in a mine collapse. The ghosts of roundhead cavalrymen descend. And there is the curious apparition of a woman with what viewers recognise as an iPad – presumably too absorbed in her screen to notice that she has wandered into the 19th century.</p>
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<h2>Gothic horrors</h2>
<p>Series creator Ashley Pharoah described the series as “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/06/28/the-living-and-the-dead-is-thomas-hardy-with-ghosts--and-time-tr/">Hardy with ghosts</a>”. In many ways, the village of Shepzoy is a new take on Thomas Hardy’s fictional county of Wessex which, modelled on the counties of England’s southwest, self-consciously captured the tensions between the city and country at the moment the transformations brought by the railways and the industrial revolution began to unfold.</p>
<p>Charlotte distinctly resembles <a href="http://www.bustle.com/articles/171552-bathsheba-everdene-is-literatures-forgotten-feminist-hero">Bathsheba Everdene</a>, the spirited young woman who inherits and manages her uncle’s farm in Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). The introduction of new machinery and farming techniques to Shepzoy is met with similar distrust and even satanic associations as they are in Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891). But ultimately the series has more in common with the Gothic tales of the same period, such as The Turn of the Screw (1898) by American writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-James-American-writer">Henry James</a> – in fact, the younger brother of William James, a leading early psychologist – or the short stories of In a Glass Darkly (1872) by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11048229/Sheridan-Le-Fanu-the-father-of-modern-horror-at-200.html">Sheridan Le Fanu</a>, in which self-consciously modern individuals find themselves powerless against dark supernatural forces.</p>
<p>The tense phonograph scene from The Living and the Dead gives an indication of its writer’s engagement with these Gothic themes. And the same motif of strange objects – technological, mystical, or ambiguously situated between the two – that allow the voices of the dead to come to life is one that recurs frequently in the fictions of the time. </p>
<p>For example, in <a href="http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/JapBox.shtml">The Japanned Box</a> (1899) by <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-conan-doyle-9278600">Sir Arthur Conan Doyle</a> a mysterious woman’s voice, thought to be a ghostly emanation, is revealed to have been produced by a phonograph. In <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/rudyard-kipling-9365581">Rudyard Kipling’s</a> Wireless (1902), mechanical signals inadvertently channel the creative spirit and poetry of the long-dead Keats. In <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mclandburgh_florence">Florence McLandburgh’s</a> The Automaton Ear (1873), an unnamed professor invents a device able to detect sounds beyond the limits of the human ear – only to be haunted by the now-audible cries of the dead.</p>
<p>In each instance, the scientific instrument in question establishes a threshold between life and death, offering the simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying possibility of passing between the two. The human body and mind become peculiarly vulnerable beyond that threshold, while the stories point also to the limits of scientific knowledge at the time and its capacity to explain the world. </p>
<h2>Technology or totem?</h2>
<p>Communications technologies such as the penny post, the railway, the telegraph, telephone and wireless radio receiver shrunk the distances between people in ways that seemed impossible. For those first witnessing them, they created a powerful sense of removal from the material world, permitting experiences that seemed beyond the realms of normal consciousness and corporeality.</p>
<p>At the same time, new technology provided the means to preserve the past: the phonograph could capture and replay the voices of the dead, the photograph could record their lifelike image, while the then burgeoning science of psychology provided doctors with new ways to consider past versions of the self, and access to the unconscious mind. These anxieties and tensions are invoked in The Living and the Dead in a way that those of the period would have recognised, with the past, present and future drawn together through technology and the supernatural. As the web of connections between individuals in Shepzoy deepens, it becomes increasingly unclear who is being haunted, and who is the ghost.</p>
<p>The plot device of time periods that bleed into one another is one Pharaoh has used in previous series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478942/">Life on Mars</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1008108">Ashes to Ashes</a>, but perhaps here he has found more suitable material upon which to graft it – after all, the fracturing of the laws of space and time are more comfortably explored in a Victorian ghost story than in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/feb/14/the-sweeney-box-set">The Sweeney</a>. Having binge-watched series one, I’m living in the hope of an apparition from the future that can confirm there will be a second.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of the Diseases of Modern Life team at St Anne's College, Oxford, Melissa Dickson receives funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme ERC Grant Agreement number 340121.</span></em></p>BBC One’s The Living and the Dead revels in the Victorians’ obsession with the supernatural and the limits of science.Melissa Dickson, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/582702016-04-22T11:14:49Z2016-04-22T11:14:49ZPrince: an icon of a new form of classical music<p>As I struggled to process this latest in a long line of musical deaths in 2016 my mind jumped to Bill Callahan’s weirdly brilliant homage, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geK2tWWzCp0">Prince Alone in the Studio</a> (recorded under the Smog name in 1995). Callahan managed to nail what was so distinctive about Prince: his dedication and perfectionism. </p>
<p>Callahan imagined the artist working on his sound as the night drifted into the early hours of the morning, ignoring everyone and everything (including his need to eat) except for the guitar track he was trying to perfect. When he finally had it how he wanted he felt, in Callahan’s words: “like a hunter on the street”.</p>
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<p>If Prince’s dedication to his art was legendary, so were his productivity and range of stylistic languages. Whether writing, performing, producing, acting, or lending his skills as a sideman to others projects, there were times when Prince seemed to be everywhere and everyone.</p>
<p>For me this multiplicity is bound up with three distinct but connected aspects of voice: the voice of the writer, that of the singer and that of the instrumentalist. </p>
<h2>Layers of technique</h2>
<p>As a writer he was legendary, composing songs in a bewildering range of styles and genres for himself and for countless other artists. As a singer, he was always distinctive, whether growling low, purring in his middle register or swooping up to <a href="http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/794-active-child-prince-and-the-science-of-the-male-falsetto/">exhilarating falsetto heights</a>. As an instrumentalist he was too often overlooked, yet his guitar playing has spawned many a spirited <a href="http://www.thetoptens.com/guitarists/prince-3820.asp">(if ultimately pointless) online debate</a> about his merits in relation to other virtuosos such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. </p>
<p>A brilliant example of this interconnected voice can be found in a clip that was widely shared in the wake of the news of his death. It is a live performance of Purple Rain, the song which has been a mainstay of Prince’s concerts since its release as a single in 1984. The writing, as with the best of Prince’s work, has an elegant simplicity, alternating brief, evocative verses with the gospel-like refrain of the title and Prince’s distinctive electric guitar. The song is further simplified in this live version through the use of just one verse, followed by the chorus and an extended instrumental section.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Purple Rain.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prince applies a range of vocal styles to this performance, often in quick succession. The first time he sings the chorus line, his voice drifts upwards, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17039208">using melisma to break the word</a> “rain” into fluttering fragments. On the repetition of the line, the voice moves downward to a smoother, mellower register, while the third iteration sinks to a deep, Elvis-like shudder. For the pay-off line, Prince swoops back to falsetto for the word “see”, slightly elongating the word for effect and thus changing the rhythmic shape of the chorus’s resolution as originally sung.</p>
<p>Then there is the guitar, underlining and extending every emotional nuance of the song, leaping between the singer’s lines, tearing away but always returning, always simultaneously in and out of control. Prince starts to solo immediately after delivering the chorus, his guitar becoming the voice of the song and making any further verses unnecessary. As in much gospel music, this playing seems to signal transcendence of the word, as though the voice cannot complete its work alone and must be extended through other voices or, as here, the prosthetic extension of the guitar’s ecstatic screech.</p>
<p>But Prince is not done with singing just yet. As he reigns in the flash and danger of his guitar he returns to the microphone to deliver one of the song’s most catchy elements, the wordless vocal melody that, in other concerts, the artist would encourage his audience to sing instead of him. At this point, Prince is essentially yodelling, fixing on to that strange, affective vocal realm associated with <a href="http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-gb/yodeling-it-s-all-in-the-voice.html">Swiss mountaineers</a> and American singing cowboys. </p>
<p>It’s another example of the inadequacy of the word, of how “voice” dispenses with verbal reason when it needs to signal emotion. It’s also music of the most sublime kind, drawing on sacred and secular registers in a seemingly epic but really all-too-brief sample of what Prince was capable of.</p>
<h2>New classic</h2>
<p>This is only one of thousands of masterful performances that have already been shared amongst Prince’s fans and that will be returned to in the days and months to come, to offer solace, counter incredulity at this latest loss, and pay witness to a truly eclectic and classical artist. </p>
<p>For this is what Prince was: not in the narrow sense of his interest in Western classical music, but in a far more liberated and liberating understanding and extension of the varied streams of a black classical music tradition that incorporated gospel, jazz, R&B, rock and roll, soul, funk, hip hop and more. </p>
<p>Prince was a funky preacher in command of a sophisticated and party-ready congregation. In the wake of his passing, Minnesota radio station <a href="http://www.thecurrent.org/">The Current</a> dedicated itself to a programme of “wall-to-wall Prince”. Listening in there was a sense that the party would never end, that it could and would continue without its progenitor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Elliott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A detailed look at one of the musician’s most celebrated performances gives a glimpse of the dedication which allowed talent to flourish.Richard Elliott, Lecturer in Popular Music, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/379072015-02-27T11:09:40Z2015-02-27T11:09:40ZThe forgotten voices of race records: Pullman Porters, the Rev TT Rose, and the ‘Man with a Clarinet’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73244/original/image-20150226-1819-pfhq3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ma Rainey was one of Paramount Records' most popular artists.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/11/01/242155743/holding-music-history-in-your-hands-why-archives-matter">JP Jazz Archive/Redferns</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 1920s and 1930s, record sales of black artists were very lucrative for the music industry. As a June 1926 article from Talking Machine World explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Negro trade is…itself…an enormously profitable occupation for the retailer who knows his way about…. The segregation of the Negro population has enabled dealers to build up a trade catering to this race exclusively.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet record companies routinely took advantage of the more unschooled, vernacular performers – especially black ones, who were already denied access to broader markets. It was standard operating procedure back in the days of <a href="http://www.centerstage.org/marainey/DigitalDramaturgy/TheBlues/RaceRecords.aspx">“race music”</a> – the name given to recordings by black artists that were marketed to the black buying public. </p>
<p>“Some will rob you with a six-gun…and some with a fountain pen.” So said Woody Guthrie in his song “Pretty Boy Floyd.” </p>
<p>Bottom line: if record companies could get away with it, there was no bottom line. No negotiated contract to sign. No publishing. No royalties. Wham bam thank you man. Take a low-ball flat fee and hit the road. Anonymity was also implicit in the deal, so many black artists were forgotten, their only legacy the era’s brittle shellac disks that were able to withstand the wear of time. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73233/original/image-20150226-1761-1l7m71u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73233/original/image-20150226-1761-1l7m71u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73233/original/image-20150226-1761-1l7m71u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73233/original/image-20150226-1761-1l7m71u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73233/original/image-20150226-1761-1l7m71u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73233/original/image-20150226-1761-1l7m71u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73233/original/image-20150226-1761-1l7m71u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Some will rob you with a six-gun…and some with a fountain pen’ – record companies like Paramount routinely exploited black musicians in the 1920s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.goldminemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/SeeSeeRiderBlues.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most prominent early race labels was Paramount Records, which, between 1917 and 1932, recorded a breathtaking cross-section of seminal African-American artists. </p>
<p>In 2013 I learned that Jack White of Third Man Records (in partnership with Dean Blackwood’s Revenant Records) would be putting together a compilation of Paramount’s historic recordings. The project would be a grand collaboration of two deluxe volumes that would contain <a href="http://revenantrecords.com/musics/products/the-rise-and-fall-of-paramount-records/">a stunning 1,600 tracks</a>. </p>
<p>I was part of a team of researchers and writers tasked with unearthing new information about the featured artists and their songs. For me, it was an opportunity to put a face on some of Paramount’s more enigmatic artists. Listening to track after track, a zeitgeist began to coalesce. As voices from the grooves accrued to tell a story of a collective black experience, I came to see these performances as cumulative cultural memory – each track a brushstroke in a painting of a long-forgotten landscape. </p>
<p>Here’s a taste of what I found. </p>
<h2>Pullman Porters Quartette</h2>
<p>The Pullman Company, manufacturers of railroad passenger cars, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Rails-Pullman-Porters-Making/dp/0805078509">was magnanimous towards its African-American workforce</a>. Among other benefits, they provided in-house musical instruction, which included a cappella quartet singing lessons. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73242/original/image-20150226-1828-173ppum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73242/original/image-20150226-1828-173ppum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73242/original/image-20150226-1828-173ppum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73242/original/image-20150226-1828-173ppum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73242/original/image-20150226-1828-173ppum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73242/original/image-20150226-1828-173ppum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73242/original/image-20150226-1828-173ppum.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pullman Company employed a large number of African Americans as porters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7351/10376546093_164a800266_b.jpg">Flickr/antefixus U.E.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Pullman quartets, I learned, were a franchise: multiple configurations of singers performing concurrently under the company banner. They put on concerts, either performing live on the radio, or on long haul train routes as a form of passenger entertainment. The men who made the records were billed as the “President’s Own” – the working Pullman porters considered the company’s premier lineup.</p>
<p>In the late 1920s, The Pullman Porters Quartette of Chicago recorded a number of sides for Paramount. One tune was “Jog-a-Long Boys,” where they sang of sad roosters and being turned down by widow Brown, the “fattest gal in town.” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCyUnyRwOPU">The chorus went</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jog-a-long, boys, jog-a-long, boys,</p>
<p>Be careful when you smile,</p>
<p>Do the latest style,</p>
<p>But jog-a-long, jog-a-long boys.</p>
<p>Jog-a-long, boys, jog-a-long, boys,</p>
<p>Don’t fool with google eyes,</p>
<p>That would not be wise,</p>
<p>But jog-a-long, jog-a-long boys.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At first, it seemed as if it were no more than a silly ditty performed in upbeat counterpoint harmony. Then it hit me: they were making light of a horrific reality – specifically, that a black man who dared to smile or even look askance at a white woman was putting himself in grave danger. </p>
<p><em>Look your best, but don’t forget your place…and just jog along, boys.</em> </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TvGJ-rzyxSA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Jog-a-long Boys,’ by The Pullman Porters Quartet of Chicago.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Horace George</h2>
<p>Horace George of Horace George’s Jubilee Harmonizers was a showman and an opportunist, a versatile musician who performed in whatever style sold, whether it was novelty gospel, blues, comedy or jazz. </p>
<p>His gospel group cut one record for Paramount in 1924, but he first surfaced as early as 1906, advertised in the Indianapolis Freeman as “the great clarinetist, comedian, and vocalist.” A few years later, George found himself in Seattle as the “Famous Colored Comedian…who gives correct images,” and later as the “Man with the Clarinet” in a touring black vaudeville troupe, the Great Dixieland Spectacle Company. </p>
<p>In the late 1910s, a black newspaper – the Indianapolis Freeman – called Horace George “a novelty on any bill.” The novelty? He could play three clarinets at once! </p>
<h2>Rev TT Rose</h2>
<p>Beyond the rollicking piano-driven gospel sides he cut for Paramount in the late 1920s, nothing was known of Rev T T Rose. Rose’s “Goodbye Babylon” was the title track of Dust-to-Digital’s 2004 Grammy-nominated collection, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2004/03/the_bloody_and_the_beautiful.html">Goodbye, Babylon</a>. It was also inspiration for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9hHxm5qbEk">a rock ‘n’ roll tune by the Black Keys</a>. And Rose’s recording of “If I Had My Way, I’d Tear This Building Down” – later performed by artists ranging from Rev. Gary Davis to the Grateful Dead – is one of the earliest known recorded versions of that song.</p>
<p>Rev Rose’s personal story was the most heartening of all. He lived in Springfield, Illinois, and I located his 90-plus-year-old daughter Dorothy, who described her father as a man on a mission to end racism and institutionalized segregation.</p>
<p>As a child, Rose had witnessed the aftermath of the infamous <a href="http://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329622.html">1908 Springfield Race Riots</a>, an event that precipitated the formation of the NAACP. In the late 1920s Rose moved from Chicago to Springfield, in order to minister the city’s black community. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.uis.edu/informationtechnologyservices/teaching-and-learning/revealingvoices/">In an oral history recording</a>, Rev Rose described Springfield as “just really a type of Southern town” with an “overpowering resentment of the Negro…distrust and the fear that the Negro might someday become stronger.” When he returned to Springfield, he observed that the time that had elapsed since the race riots was “a very short span of time to erase all the scars and the prejudices and the hate that was engendered…in that very unfortunate affair.” </p>
<p>It was a hate, he continued, that “Kind of hung like a cloud from an atomic bomb over the whole neighborhood” causing the black citizens of Springfield to go “into themselves quite a bit.”</p>
<p>After his short recording career with Paramount in the late 1920s, Rev Rose went on to become a regional bishop in the Church of God in Christ. He recorded because he thought songs could both uplift and spread messages of hope and perseverance in the struggle for Civil Rights. When he sang “If I Had My Way,” it’s clear that the building he wanted to tear down was no less than the edifice of racism. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lord, if I had my way,</p>
<p>Oh Lord, if I, if I had my way,</p>
<p>In this wicked world, if I had my way,</p>
<p>God, knows I’d tear this building down.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oqc9BQihB24?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘If I Had My Way,’ by Rev TT Rose.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerry Zolten does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the 1920s, many black musicians were exploited by record companies, and faded into anonymity. Here are some of their stories.Jerry Zolten, Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/359332015-01-12T10:35:07Z2015-01-12T10:35:07ZWhen the camera lies: our surveillance society needs a dose of integrity to be reliable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68407/original/image-20150107-1968-1vjnbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All eyes on you, everywhere you go. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At this moment, there are likely many eyes on you. If you are reading this article in a public place, a surveillance camera might be capturing your actions and even watching you enter your login information and password. Suffice it to say, being watched is part of life today. </p>
<p>Our governments and industry leaders hide their cameras inside domes of wine-dark opacity so we can’t see which way the camera is looking, or even if there is a camera in the dome at all. They’re shrouded in secrecy. But who is watching them and ensuring the data they collect as evidence against us is reliable? </p>
<h2>You are being watched</h2>
<p>We all have varying opinions on how we feel about this pervasive surveillance. Being watched feels creepy, but if surveillance is in a public place, others are being watched too, with potential safety benefits for all of us. We are often watched by lifeguards at a beach or pool, and the benefits are often comforting. So, while it may be easy to claim you don’t like being watched, it is sometimes the case that you actually want someone watching over you.</p>
<p>Permission plays an important role in our attitudes about being watched. We don’t mind being watched if we have given our consent to do so. But many public surveillance cameras are being used without our consent. And other individuals might just start recording us without our permission. Moreover, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/cop-secretly-recorded-protect-27963464">individual police</a> as well as police forces in North America are being equipped with body worn cameras. Police and citizens alike have often spoke out in favor of this practice. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68408/original/image-20150107-2002-uc3ozc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Security cameras are proliferating throughout our daily lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But who will it really protect? Will the video only be available in situations where it supports the officer’s side of the story? Will the camera be said to have mysteriously malfunctioned when the video would have supported a suspect’s side of the story? Is there not a <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/12/23/body-cameras-for-police-officers-what-about-for-ordinary-citizens/">conflict-of-interest inherent in one party being the curators of the recordings</a> they make of highly contested disputes with other parties?</p>
<p>Surveillance has become a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/make-surveillance-work-for-the-people-let-them-spy-back-21634">one-way mirror</a>.” We’re being watched but can’t watch back.</p>
<h2>A loss of integrity</h2>
<p>Our contention is that the key word missing from most discussions of surveillance is “integrity.” To <a href="http://eyetap.org/papers/docs/UberveillanceBookChapterSteveMann.pdf">understand this contention</a>, it is useful to think of its opposite: hypocrisy. In many establishments there is often a surveillance camera pointed at you, while, at the same time, you are prohibited from using your own camera. We see this, for example, at shopping malls, stores, and even in allegedly public spaces. </p>
<p>Store owners are recording your actions so they have evidence if they accuse you of doing something wrong, such as shoplifting. But if you catch them doing something wrong, like having their fire exits illegally chained shut, or if you simply want to prove your innocence from their allegations of wrongdoing, you might want to record them. If there is a dispute, the two recordings might make it more difficult for either party to falsify their recording. </p>
<p>A plausible reason that a surveillant – be it a shopkeeper, corporation or government – might try to impose a one-sided approach on their surveillance, is the issue of control. If they do something wrong, they can choose to not use or retain their recordings. This one-sided preservation of memory is a serious blow to the surveillance’s integrity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68409/original/image-20150107-1982-1g96rfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who’s watching the watchers who watch us?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who controls the camera</h2>
<p>Consider the case in July 2005 at the Stockwell subway station in London. The London Metropolitan police shot Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head with hollow-point bullets, rendering his body “unrecognizable.” Hollow-point bullets are used by law enforcement but illegal in war. It turned out the police <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/16/july7.menezes">shot the wrong person</a> (he looked similar to a suspect they were looking for). It was a case of mistaken identity. After the shooting, the police seized the four recordings of the event and reported that all were blank, even though transit officials <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-360051/Tube-CCTV-Was-cover-up.html">had already viewed the shooting</a>.</p>
<p>The same issue is at play in any form of surveillance: the surveillants have control over their recordings, and if these are the only ones, the one-sided curation of the evidence undermines their integrity.</p>
<p>How can we resolve this problem of integrity in surveillance? Some solutions are taking effect as we speak, while others will require a gradual change in laws or public attitudes. And some will even create new economic and business opportunities in new markets for integrity-based solutions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68410/original/image-20150107-1968-1e34gtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even as we’re being monitored, many stores prohibit customers from making their own recordings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Mann</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The recorded becoming the recorder</h2>
<p>The increase in so-called cyborg technologies – in which a person’s sight or memory disability is augmented with a wearable computer vision system – may help resolve the problem of one-sided surveillants falsifying their recordings. A storeowner may not legally deny entry to a person with such a device, and that recording or a logfile of it could become evidence that the store’s own recording of an incident was tampered with. Failing eyesight and memory among our aging population, along with technological breakthroughs, mean that we’re going to see more and more instances of people with wearable or implantable cameras to help them see and remember better.</p>
<p>Similarly, the growing prevalence of smartphones and wearable computers with cameras means we’re entering an era of inverse surveillance in which, by sheer number, people are likely to record events even if there is a rule against recording. For example, police brutality is often captured by a large number of individuals from different recording angles. Even when police try and prohibit or destroy the recordings, it is difficult for them to guarantee that all the recordings have been destroyed, especially in the age wireless communications and live transmission.</p>
<h2>A better surveillance bureau</h2>
<p>Beyond that, we propose a whole new model or alliance (which we call the “Priveillance Institute”) to resolve the lack of integrity in our surveillance society. That is, to force the surveillants (such as shopkeepers or corporations) to bear a cost if they forbid the rest of us from recording them in return. </p>
<p>A “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z82Zavh-NhI">Veillance Contract</a>,” for example, would deny the surveillant the right to use its recordings as evidence if it doesn’t allow others the right to make their own recordings. Or if the surveillant destroys anyone’s tapes or files of an incident. By prohibiting others from recording, the surveillant increases the economic cost for a court to determine what actually happened, thus making justice more expensive to administer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68503/original/image-20150108-23798-18s7xjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Surveillance and its inverse, sousveillance: concepts so easy even a six-year-old gets it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephanie Mann</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another way to promote surveillance integrity would be to do something analogous to the way media businesses use crowdsourcing to rate everything from doctors to taxi drivers. Along these lines we propose creating a third-party validation of surveillance recordings. </p>
<p>In a way that is analogous to the Better Business Bureau, participating organizations could have their surveillance streamed in real time to a trusted, third-party group for verification, which we dub “Videscrow” or Video Escrow – thus reducing their ability to falsify or deny the existence of the recordings. Confidentiality could be built into the system as needed, and these organizations – be they shopkeepers or police departments – would be allowed to display a logo certifying their participation in Videscrow. Establishments with potentially corrupt surveillance would be listed in a database as such until they retracted their no recording policies or submitted to third-party verification such as Videscrow. </p>
<p>These suggestions serve as a good starting place to ensure integrity becomes an integral part of surveillance so that recordings can be trusted as evidence and not be under the exclusive control of one party. There are many paths to doing this, all of which lead to other options and issues that need to be considered. But unless we start establishing principles on these matters, we will be perpetuating a lack of integrity regarding surveillance technologies and their uses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Gans receives funding from The Sloan Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Mann is the Chief Scientist of Meta (Spaceglasses.com). He receives funding from NSERC (National Sciences Engineering Research Council). He is a senior member of IEEE.</span></em></p>At this moment, there are likely many eyes on you. If you are reading this article in a public place, a surveillance camera might be capturing your actions and even watching you enter your login information…Joshua Gans, Professor of Strategic Management, University of TorontoSteve Mann, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/348372014-12-18T10:34:57Z2014-12-18T10:34:57ZWelcome to Politics4K<p>While much of the 2014 midterm election analysis centered on the Republican takeover of the Senate, the pundits may have overlooked an important development: the end of a time when politicians looked a little less lifelike, even to viewers in HD.</p>
<p>Thanks to bigger and better processors inside journalists’ cameras, and, especially, a fourfold increase in resolution on viewers’ digital displays, the next era in political campaigning – let’s call it “Politics4K” – has arrived. </p>
<p>Earlier this fall, New York Times technology columnist Molly Wood <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/technology/personaltech/sharper-image-4k-tv-gimmick-worth-having.html?_r=0">explained 4K</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>From a technical perspective, the term 4K refers to displays with twice the vertical resolution and twice the horizontal resolution of high-definition TVs. The UHD designation combines the higher pixel count of 4K with improvements to on-screen colors that make the on-screen picture brighter and more realistic.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So by the 2016 presidential election, voters will be able to screen their candidates in unprecedented clarity and color. With nothing less than the White House in the balance, campaigns of all political stripes now need to rethink their campaign optics – or watch their rivals come shining through.</p>
<h2>A milestone moment in campaign optics</h2>
<p>Presidential campaign adviser William P. Wilson – who died last week – may have been the first to understand the importance of campaign optics; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/us/william-p-wilson-kennedys-tv-aide-for-historic-1960-debate-is-dead-at-86.html">according to his obituary</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In 1960 little was understood about the potential reach of television in American politics. Still, though he was just 32 at the time, Mr. Wilson was as experienced with the medium as anyone in the field. He already had the distinction of being the first television consultant ever hired by a presidential campaign.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his classic 1979 media study “The Powers That Be,” David Halberstam explains how Wilson – minutes before Senator John F. Kennedy’s first debate against sitting Vice President Richard M. Nixon – convinced a reluctant Kennedy that his face needed some touching-up.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…Wilson insisted he needed some kind of makeup, mostly to close the pores and keep the shine down, and Kennedy asked if Wilson could do it, and Wilson, who knew the neighborhood, ran two blocks to a pharmacy, bought Max Factor Creme Puff, and made Kennedy up very lightly… On such decisions – Max Factor Creme Puff instead of Shavestick – rode the future leadership of the United States and the free world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960 launched presidential politics into the television age; the medium became a game-changer, even though network broadcasts were black and white, analog and low-resolution by contemporary standards.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QazmVHAO0os?wmode=transparent&start=48" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The first televised Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960 was a milestone moment in campaign optics.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Image control key for pols</h2>
<p>As the 20th century progressed, camera and television technology improved significantly – and become increasingly unforgiving.</p>
<p>Trust me: as a documentary filmmaker who has worked on a number of political films, I’ve come to realize that nothing correlates with campaign control more than optics. </p>
<p>The staff of former President Gerald Ford expressed displeasure with the close-up I framed up before a two-camera interview in his library studio. After we wrapped, his staff apologized; somehow, the videotape of his preferred wide-shot (think “White House Briefing”) had been perfectly recorded, but my tight-shot (think “60 Minutes”) suffered “technical difficulties” throughout.</p>
<p>In the middle of another interview – this one with a sitting Vice-President Al Gore – a staffer looking over my shoulder sucker-punched me when I quietly asked my cinematographer to “push in” for an extreme close-up.</p>
<p>Nothing like a shot to the kidney to prove how politics remains a perpetual exercise in control. </p>
<p>During the final year of the Clinton Administration, High-Definition television was in its infancy. After the White House granted me the first access to the Oval Office by a documentary filmmaker since the Kennedy administration, I was awarded a grant to produce my project in HD.</p>
<p>When I showed President Clinton’s special assistant some of our footage on (what was then) Washington’s only HD display, her jaw dropped: never before had she seen her boss depicted so vividly on screen.</p>
<p>In that instant we both realized the game had changed again; politicians would appear even more life-like on television.</p>
<p>Fifteen years later – as the prospects for another Clinton White House loom – another digital technology has reached new heights.</p>
<h2>Optics influences outcomes</h2>
<p>As of October 2014, the market penetration of Ultra HD television was only 7% of American homes. But due to steadily dropping prices for 4K displays – along with the availability of more 4K media – that number <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/technology/personaltech/sharper-image-4k-tv-gimmick-worth-having.html?_r=0">is expected to grow exponentially</a> by the next presidential election.</p>
<p>Following Netflix’ lead, Amazon Prime commenced streaming 4K media in December. Election Night 2016 broadcast coverage in 4K should be a foregone conclusion. Furthermore, reasonably-priced 4K camcorders are already available to the reporters who will be embedded inside the 2016 primary campaigns.</p>
<p>While in the past, journalists wielding bulky cameras may have been able to be corralled, the proliferation of these camcorders will make it impossible for aides to shield their candidates from unflattering, high-resolution shots.</p>
<p>There’s a reason why this makes political operatives anxious. <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40590.html">Study</a> after <a href="https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/psyifp/aeechterhoff/wintersemester2011-12/vorlesungkommperskonflikt/efranpatterson_effphysappnationelect_canadjbehsc1974.pdf">study</a> has shown that to voters, the candidates’ looks matter – in many cases, more than their party affiliation or policy stances. </p>
<p>In the world of politics, optics reign.</p>
<p>So while the next set of presidential candidates can run, they can’t hide from revealing 4K coverage – under all kinds of conditions, indoors and out, many less-than-flattering.</p>
<p>The likeliest prediction is that the Politics4K era will usher in plenty of unintended political consequences. With an electorate getting younger and more tech-savvy every year, how will politicians manage to maintain a youthful, energetic image?</p>
<p>Will the adage “the camera adds 10 pounds” become “the UltraHD camera adds 20 years” for certain candidates?</p>
<p>And will Politics4K become the great equalizer – or will age, gender and racial differences emerge in sharper contrast?</p>
<p>Too bad William P. Wilson didn’t live to see the day that UltraHD politics could be practiced in earnest. My guess is he’d already be working with the younger, more telegenic candidate, just as he did in 1960.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Bogosian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While much of the 2014 midterm election analysis centered on the Republican takeover of the Senate, the pundits may have overlooked an important development: the end of a time when politicians looked a…Ted Bogosian, Instructor and Visiting Filmmaker, Duke UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/256092014-04-21T20:08:40Z2014-04-21T20:08:40ZWhy does analogue still feel good in a digital world?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46410/original/ypnx4p4x-1397535499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emanuele Rosso</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is analogue better than digital? Is digital better than dialogue? Though the source of much heated debate, it would seem digital is now virtually unstoppable. </p>
<p>There’s not going to be <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/film/mm-movies-fades-to-black-as-digital-takes-over/story-e6frg8pf-1226871248937">any 35mm film at the Sydney Film Festival</a> this year. It looks like the film industry is catching up to the other creative industries and discarding analogue media technologies. </p>
<p>A quick look at the <a href="http://www.ariacharts.com.au/chart/singles">ARIA top ten</a> reveals lots of music that never got near a tape machine. Most professional photographers long ago embraced the benefits of digital cameras over their analogue film counterparts.</p>
<p>All of these industries use a medium to create a record of something. It used to be magnetic tape or film – but now it’s usually done via a process of digitisation. The creative part is how these media can be manipulated to tell a story, create an emotional response, ask questions, entertain you - basically do all the things that art should do.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46408/original/dvfvhxdh-1397535340.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">matias_e</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even though we’re living in the days of digital, there are still many young, emerging artists who love old media with a sense of nostalgia that sometimes borders on fetishism – especially for equipment they’ve often never used. </p>
<p>Artists such as Jack White, with his last record being made on a 1960s Neve console and vintage 8-track tape machine, are inspirational to this new generation and the <a href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2013/04/cassette-subculture-continues-growth-in-2013-with-new-labels-releases-media-coverage.html">growth of cassette-based record labels</a> has surprised a lot of people in the industry who considered the domestic analogue format long dead.</p>
<p>What’s more, there is now a thriving industry in the <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/04/chinon-bellami-hd-1#slide-id-664291">digital recreations</a> of the nonlinearities present within these analogue mediums. These nonlinearities - the buzzes, distortions, crackles and flares – are what most people wanted to get rid of in the first place.</p>
<h2>Nostalgia for analogue colour</h2>
<p>Nonlinearity is the term we give to a media where, basically, the output doesn’t equal the input. Any media that “colours” the signal can be thought to be nonlinear – think (often slight) distortion and dynamic compression in audio recordings, or blurred edges and certain colours becoming saturated in film.</p>
<p>Engineers would strive to remove these inaccuracies – but music producers, photographers, and film directors learnt to exploit them to creative ends. Audiences became used to how recorded music sounded, how certain films looked. </p>
<p>We came to like these media-based nonlinearities so much, that, even now, I know a lot of music producers who will record to analogue tape before transferring the audio to a computer running Pro Tools (the current digital industry standard), or photographers who will shoot on film but then scan the prints into Photoshop for further editing and retouching. </p>
<p>This also explains why companies such as <a href="http://www.waves.com/plugins/j37-tape">Waves</a> and <a href="http://www.slatedigital.com/products/vtm">Steven Slate Digital</a> have created many digital effects that model as closely as possible the sound and distortions of old analogue tape-machines and other recording equipment.</p>
<p>It’s not so much that the new digital tools can’t do the job properly; it’s more that they do the job too well. We miss the fuzziness, blurriness and saturation that analogue can give us, but need the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of digital formats.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46406/original/kfdhrg5n-1397535054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bryan Costin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some people miss them more than others, and become obsessive hoarders of lost or dying technology, focusing on the minute differences between different film stock, tape formulae or vintage tube types. Others just think it’s cool to still use a vintage Polaroid camera. </p>
<p>The rest of us are happy to just use an app on our smartphone that models the sorts of films used in vintage Polaroid cameras to satisfy our nostalgia, without the hassle of carrying a camera around.</p>
<h2>The rise of slow media</h2>
<p>Ultimately this resurgence of old technology being used by people not even born when it first became superseded is analogous to the slow food movement that started in the late 1980s – it’s a slow media movement. </p>
<p>Vinyl sales are on the rise as people rediscover the joy of listening to a single piece of work, an album, as the artist intended it. Of course, there’s also a certain ritual involved with taking a big piece of black plastic out of a large sleeve (where the artwork always looks better) and then having to get up half way through to change sides.</p>
<p>Musicians treat the process differently when they’re being recorded to tape, once they know that all the digital trickery used to edit together perfect takes is unavailable, they realise they really have to perform well. </p>
<p>Directors know they can’t keep shooting takes if they don’t have enough film, a finite number of takes gives the actors a sense of urgency that otherwise may not be there. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46407/original/qs4pcsh6-1397535160.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andy Ihnatko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Music producers know that without an almost infinite number of tracks allowing for an almost infinite number of overdubs, they have to work much harder within the constraints afforded by the media. </p>
<p>Look at what The Beatles did with four tracks. Pro Tools systems today all have at least 96 tracks. Listening to a lot of current music, it’s not exactly clear whether or not those extra 92 tracks have been all that beneficial.</p>
<p>The love of old technology, and the industry that has arisen to monetise that love, may not just be about the media being used. Rather it’s got something to do with the way the media is being used.</p>
<p>In the analogue world you were forced to work slow. In the digital world you have to choose to work slow.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">mgstanton</span></span>
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<p>These old media won’t go away. There are too many people interested in keeping them alive. People who are interested in chasing diminishing returns or keeping some nostalgic flame alight will keep the vintage equipment and formats running, and good on them. </p>
<p>In many ways I’m one of those people: my favourite guitar turns 40 next year, and much of the recording equipment I use is from the 1960s and 70s. Some vintage equipment, though not all, is amazing. Many devices were overbuilt, they were created to last and made, often by hand, using more expensive components than are commonly used today.</p>
<h2>Slow media in the industry</h2>
<p>All of my equipment still ends up feeding a digital Pro Tools rig though, so I’m not stuck with the inefficiencies of the old, analogue formats. Instead I use plug-ins when I want to mimic their characteristics, and these days I’m spoilt for choice.</p>
<p>For most active producers within the creative industries, the efficiency and cost benefits of digital media will almost always outweigh any perceived benefits from older analogue media. </p>
<p>With digital technology ever improving, it will soon be able to model analogue nonlinearities so well that no one will be able to tell the difference anyway. When that happens, the conversation will have to shift to how the different working approaches required by analogue and digital formats shape the artistic process – not the differences between the formats themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yanto Browning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Is analogue better than digital? Is digital better than dialogue? Though the source of much heated debate, it would seem digital is now virtually unstoppable. There’s not going to be any 35mm film at the…Yanto Browning, Associate lecturer in Music and Sound, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.