Attention Newbies: Copy and Save This For Reference!!! (Pt 1)

Buck62

噛んでくれ
It'll come in handy......

70 Volt - A type of output from the amplifier that can be used for distribution of the sound to the speakers in the building. Usually not used with the main speaker. Other outputs from the amplifier are 4 ohms, 8 ohms, 25v and tape out.

250 Ohm - A common impedance for a low impedance microphone.

600 Ohm - The standard impedance for low impedance, balanced, line level audio signals.

10K Ohm - The standard impedance for high impedance, unbalanced, line level audio signals. It is also the standard impedance for high impedance microphones.

AC power - The connection to the wall for 110V.

Amplifier - A device used to make an audio signal greater. It does not do anything more or less, although a mixer may be in the same box and the box is then called the amplifier.

Assistive Listening System - A means of allowing those who are hard of hearing to hear in a church service.

Attenuate - To reduce in level.

Attenuator - A device used to reduce the level of a signal. This can be a resistor network or a control on a piece of equipment.

Audio chain - A series of equipment, linked together in such a way that the sound signal has to go through each piece of equipment in order.

Audio snake - Another term for snake or microphone snake. Used to connect several microphones on the platform to the mixer.

Audio spectrum analyzer - A device to see the signal strength of all the frequencies of audio.

Aural exciter - A device that is used to put certain harmonics onto an audio signal to make up for losses due to recording.

Auxiliary - A secondary signal, a line level signal or an input or output from equipment that is a higher level than mic level signal but lower level than speaker level signal.

Auxiliary input - The input to equipment that uses line level audio.

Auxiliary level - A line level signal.

Auxiliary output - A line level output from a piece of equipment.

Balanced microphone - A term for the number of wires inside the microphone cable. To be balanced, there are two wires that carry the audio signal in opposite directions at the same time. The shield of the cable is used only to keep unwanted signals out. Low impedance is usually associated with this.

Bass - A speaker that is used for low frequencies. Also a type of guitar and a type of fish.

Bass woofer - A speaker that is used for only the very low frequencies.

Bi-amp - A dual amplifier system that is used to operate the bass and treble speakers in a system after the audio signals have been split by a crossover network. This crossover network may be in the same box as the amplifier.

Buffer amplifier - An amplifier used to isolate a signal so that other signals on its output will not affect the input. It is also used so that a lower power signal may power several destinations.

Bus - A connection between several parts of a mixer. Example, several inputs can be connected to the auxiliary output bus of a mixer.

Buzz - An unwanted sound that is caused by dimmers or other electronic devices and is heard in the sound system.

Cardioid microphone - A directional microphone. Cardioid comes from the Greek word for heart and the pickup pattern is somewhat heart shaped. The back of the microphone has no pickup at all, and it is somewhat directional towards the front.

Channel - One input to an audio mixer. It can be one microphone or one side of a tape machine or one instrument. There is one volume control or fader for the channel. There may or may not be other adjustments for the channel. It is also the left or right signals in stereo. It can also be one audio signal in a group of audio signals.

Channel adjustment - The volume or level control for a particular channel of a mixer. Can be either a knob or slide control.

Channel fader - The volume or level control for a particular channel of a mixer. Usually a slide control.

Clip - The phenomena where an audio signal has its positive or negative excursions cut off because it has exceeded the ability of the electronics to pass it.

Clip LED - A light on the mixer or other piece of equipment that indicates that the audio signal is past the limits of the electronics. It indicates that there is distortion occurring.

Clock position - The position of a knob or dial where the pointer is pointing to an equivalent position on a standard 12 hour analog clock.

Compression - The effect where the average audio in a system is not allowed to be higher than a certain level. This can be used to make all the sound the same volume.

Compressor - This equipment starts to decrease the gain of an amplifier when the audio signal exceeds a certain level.

Condenser microphone - Condenser is another word for capacitor. This microphone uses a charged capacitor to pick up the sound from the air and convert it into an electrical signal.

Crossover network - A device that separates the high frequency audio signals from the low frequency audio signals so that the signals may go to different speakers.

Crosstalk - A phenomena where the audio from one channel bleeds into another causing an undesirable effect. This is present in all electronics to some extent or another and will be rated in dB when there is a rating on the equipment. It also is the unwanted signal that gets passed between audio lines that are too close together.

Crystal microphone - A microphone that uses a crystal to generate the electrical signal that is amplified as audio.

Cushions - These are devices on the seats and sometimes the backs of pews that absorb sound. Proper cushions will absorb the same amount of sound that a person would if he were sitting on the pew.

dB - An abbreviation for Decibel. Balanced microphones are usually measured at -50dB to -60dB. Auxiliary or line levels are usually -10dB to +4dB.

DC power - Low voltage power that is used to run equipment.

Decibel - One tenth part of a Bell. Used to indicate audio levels. Uses a logarithmic scale where 10dB is a difference of 10 times the power. 10 more dB (20dB) makes a difference of 100 times the power, etc. Designed to match the hearing level differences in the human ear.

Delay - The length of time that it takes sound to travel a certain distance through the air.

Delay line - A device that delays the audio signal that goes through it a fixed amount of time. Usually uses digital conversions.

Destination - Where an audio signal is going. Usually it is an input to some piece of equipment.

Directional microphone - A microphone that picks up sound better from one direction than from another. Examples of directional microphones are cardioid, super cardioid, hyper cardioid, bi-directional, stereo.

Distortion - An unwanted changing of the audio signal that is caused by a number of factors. One thing that causes distortion is the clipping of the positive or negative excursions of the signal because the electronics cannot handle that strong of a signal. Guitar amplifiers sometimes have boxes that produce this kind of distortion deliberately.

Dynamic microphone - This microphone uses a magnet and a coil of wire to produce an electrical signal.

Dynamic range - The amount that a voice or other sound source varies in level. An example would be a person whispering one moment and shouting the next. This would show a lot of dynamic range.

Echo chamber - A room with hard, sound reflective walls. It has a speaker to put sound into the room and a microphone to pick up the sound. This kind of room one is one method of putting reverberation onto the audio signal.

Echo unit - A piece of equipment that produces an echo. Similar to, but not the same as a reverb unit.

Eff. - An abbreviation for Effects.

Effects - A modifying of the audio signal. Reverb is an effect, so is compression, limiting, aural exciting, etc.

Effects send - A knob on the mixer that sends the signal to the effects that are being used.

Effects return - The place in a mixer that the audio from the effects equipment is returned to. There is usually a control that adjusts the level of this audio signal.

Efx. - An abbreviation for Effects.

Electret - A piece of plastic that has a static charge of electricity built into it. It is used inside of a condenser microphone so that battery power doesn't have to be used to charge the condenser, or capacitor.

EQ - Short for equalization.

Equalization - Adjusting the frequency response so that the levels of all frequencies are equal or the same. Bass and treble controls are equalization controls.

Equalizer - A device that makes different pitches of sound louder or quieter and can be used for equalization. It is basically a glorified bass and treble control.

Feedback - That annoying tone or set of tones that occur because the sound of the speaker is getting into the microphone. It can be caused by the direct sound from the speaker getting into the microphone but is more often caused by the room reverberations that are excited by the speaker getting into the microphone.

Flange - A piece of special effects equipment that produces a fuller sound to music by a short delay and modulation of the frequency. The delay is shorter than is used in stereo chorus.

Flutter echo - The concentration of sound in one spot in a room by concave reflectors like rounded walls or ceilings or the repeat of sound echo from systematic bouncing of the sound back and forth in a room.

Foot switch - A switch that may turn on and off something or trigger something using the foot to actuate it.

Frequency - The "pitch" of sound. All sounds that we hear are made from different frequencies. The frequency of A above middle C is 440 Hz (cycles per second).

Frequency response - How the different frequencies are reproduced in a system. The human ear, at its best, has a frequency response of about 20 Hz to about 20 KHz (20,000 cycles per second). Good electronic audio equipment may have a response of 20 Hz to 20 KHz plus or minus 1 dB.

Front panel controls - These are controls that are meant to be adjusted on a day to day basis.

Gain - The amount of level boost in an amplifier or audio system.

Gain amplifier - An amplifier whose purpose is to make the audio signal stronger.

Gain before feedback - The maximum that a microphone may be turned up before there is feedback in the room.

Gain control - The knob or slider that adjusts the level of increase for the system or part of the system. This is how volume is adjusted. Another term for this is level control.

Graphic equalizer - An expanded name for an equalizer. It usually implies that there are a larger number of controls. Graphic in the name means that the sound can be made to compliment the sound of the room as if the frequency response were laid out on a graph.

Ground - The zero voltage reference point. The part of the system that carries away unwanted signals. The part that protects against electric shock.

Ground loop - An unwanted signal that is on the ground of an electronic system that will produce audio where it is not wanted. Usually 60 Hz hum, power supply hum, or light dimmer buzz.

Group - On larger mixers a group is several channels of audio that are on one bus or controlled by a group master.

Group master - The master control that is a single level control for the group of channels that are assigned to that bus.

Headphones - Something worn over the ears to allow sound to be heard without interference from other sounds in the room and without sending out interfering sound.

Headroom - The extra space above one's head so that there will not be a problem walking around. The extra signal room in an electronic circuit to prevent slight over levels from being clipped and distorted.

High equalization - Another term for treble control. Usually adjusts the higher frequencies.

High impedance - A method of sending the signal from one piece of electronic equipment to another where the voltage is relatively high and the current is relatively low. There are less electronics needed in the equipment but it is more susceptible to outside interference noise like a light dimmer or ground loops. It is usually not used in a broadcast station anywhere for audio but often used in churches between equipment. Most churches do not use it for microphones because of the extra noise it picks up.

High impedance microphone - A microphone that uses high impedance signals to go to the amplifier.

High level - Referring to an audio signal that has much greater strength than a microphone. Usually it is the line level signals that go from one piece of equipment to another but also may be referring to speaker level signals.

High Z - High impedance.

Horn - A speaker that is used for high frequencies. It can handle relatively high power and has a very specific spread or dispersion to the sound.

House Mix - Adjustment of the fader levels affecting balance of sound from the main speakers (audience speakers).

Hyper cardioid microphone - This microphone is more directional than the cardioid microphone. It is more sensitive to sound in front of the microphone, and less sensitive to sounds that come from the sides and back of the microphone.

Hum - The unwanted low frequency noise that sometimes is noticed in an audio signal and is usually caused by signals from the power line getting into the system.

Hz - Another term for cycles per second.

Impedance - A term for the different voltage/current ratios that are used in audio. Terms for impedance are things like 8 ohms, 600 ohms, 10 K ohms, low impedance and high impedance.

Input - The place that the audio signal goes into a piece of equipment. Examples are where the microphone signal or tape machine signal goes into the mixer.

Input gain - A volume control on the input to a mixer that will control the amount of audio signal that goes into the electronics. It is used so that the signal will not be so weak that you can hear the electronic noise in the circuitry and not so strong that the circuitry will clip and distort the audio signal.

Input trim - The same as input gain.

Insert - A port or connection on an audio mixer that gives the ability to take an audio signal from one channel of the mixer, process it in some way, and feed the signal back into the same channel of the mixer. This new signal may then be mixed in with other signals in the mixer.

Instrument - A device used in churches to create musical sounds. Instruments are such things as the pipe organ, electronic organ, keyboard, piano, guitar, trumpet, tambourine, flute, etc.

Instrument microphone - A microphone with a flat frequency response that is used with instruments because of its flat frequency response. Because it is not usually less than a foot from the instrument, the proximity effect is not noticed.

Isolation amplifier - Used so that an audio signal can go one way through an amplifier but an unwanted audio signal cannot go backwards through the same amplifier.

Isolation transformer - A device that is used so that audio may be passed while unwanted ground loop signals are not.

KHz - A term for thousands of cycles per second. "K" stands for kilo or thousand. "Hz" stands for the cycles per second.

(I had to do this in two parts because it's too long for one lone post!)
 
this really needs to be done in a few or all forums, i've seen it done in quite a few other forums now...

[READ FIRST] xxx, xxx, whatever issue, bla bla bla...

tips and tricks or important info you need before you "ask" or "start"...

just a thought, that seems to not have fallen on deaf ears i see, wish i had the time or intelect to do it, but i have neither, sure makes things easier or smoother for many seeking help with issues, and possibly kill quite a bit of flame while doing so...

if nothing else just a links post for common questions, this forum is a help forum correct?

pease...
 
It says so under your name, but that only applies if you don't already know you're an "old-bie"... :=) Steve
 
Buck62 said:
It'll come in handy......

Impedance - A term for the different voltage/current ratios that are used in audio. Terms for impedance are things like 8 ohms, 600 ohms, 10 K ohms, low impedance and high impedance.

Actually a more correct definition is: “The measure of the effective resistance or individual resistances in a circuit when the current flow is alternating.”

Impedance is to AC circuits as Resistance is to DC circuits. Both are measured in Ohms.

Important to note is the fact that it’s just as important to match impedances as it is to match resistances (like speakers in Audio systems).

Most home audio amplifiers require a “some what” standard 8 Ohm load, while car audio amps require 4 ohm loads.
Most home audio speakers are rated at 8 Ohms, while most car audio speakers are rated at 4 ohms.
As a general rule you should match these values because in some cases they can decrease the life of your amp.

The same holds true in AC circuits. You should always match impedance values for microphones and other audio recording devices.
 
Actually a more correct definition is: “The measure of the effective resistance or individual resistances in a circuit when the current flow is alternating.”

Impedance is to AC circuits as Resistance is to DC circuits. Both are measured in Ohms.

Important to note is the fact that it’s just as important to match impedances as it is to match resistances (like speakers in Audio systems).

Most home audio amplifiers require a “some what” standard 8 Ohm load, while car audio amps require 4 ohm loads.
Most home audio speakers are rated at 8 Ohms, while most car audio speakers are rated at 4 ohms.
As a general rule you should match these values because in some cases they can decrease the life of your amp.

The same holds true in AC circuits. You should always match impedance values for microphones and other audio recording devices.
I agree with SilverStream. Impedance is to AC signals what resistance is to DC. But it's a bit more complicated. From what I understand, impedance is a resistance that changes with the frequency of the signal but which also takes into account the shift between the phases of the current and the voltage and that also with varying degrees according to the frequency.

Good thread this. Thanks for initiating it Buck62.
 
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