Perfecting Sound Forever Perfecting Sound Forever

Perfecting Sound Forever

An Aural History of Recorded Music

    • 4.0 • 5 Ratings
    • $12.99
    • $12.99

Publisher Description

In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented.

Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix.

From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.

GENRE
Arts & Entertainment
RELEASED
2009
June 9
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
432
Pages
PUBLISHER
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
SELLER
Macmillan
SIZE
1.7
MB

Customer Reviews

efrain11 ,

Great Read

This book is one of the best I have ever read. If you are interested in music or in the history of sound I urge you to read it. Thank you for the great insight. I wish there was a documentary series that linked the information with the audible recordings, but maybe someday.

mikevarela ,

Informative while funny and endearing

Was actually looking for just such a book. I teach basic audio and have always wanted to expand on the history of sound. I've found this book very easy to read but still very informative. Anecdotes are great and while only 2/3 of the way through, I'm already upset that it's coming to an end.

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