Sound Engineering Explained, 2nd Edition

6  Monitoring

Part 1

Monitoring in an audio context means keeping a careful check on the sound signal. There are two broad requirements. One, visual monitoring, can be regarded as technical – that the signal voltage keeps within prescribed limits for reasons which will be explained. The second, aural monitoring, uses the operator's ears not only to listen for technical imperfections which cannot be shown easily (if at all) by visual means, but also to fulfil what is at least partly an artistic function – that the balance, perspective, performance and so on are satisfactory. We will take these in turn.

Technical monitoring

To understand properly the need for this, we must first consider dynamic ranges – the difference in dB between the loudest ...