Music Engineering, 2nd Edition

Appendix 1

Music Engineering CD

Part 1 Physics of sound and psychoacoustics

Track 1

Reference level sine wave tone^*

1kHz at –18 dB below digital FS (–18 dBFS). The simplest musical sound, the sine-wave, is produced when an object (or in this case, the current in an electrical circuit) vibrates backwards and forwards, exhibiting what physicists call simple harmonic motion.

Track 2

Frequency sweep^*

5Hz to 22 kHz. The pure tone, as illustrated in Track 1, actually sounds rather dull and characterless. But we can vary the number of cycles of oscillation which take place per second. Musicians refer to this variable as pitch – physicists call it frequency. This track also illustrates the possible range of human hearing, which in most adult individuals ...