The Science of Sound Recording

CHAPTER FIVE

Electronics

Contents

Basic Electricity

Passive Electronic Devices

Resistors

Capacitors

Inductors

Ohm’s Law

Kirchhoff’s Laws

Active Electronic Devices

Suggested Reading

In order to manipulate and store sounds, we need a representation that can be easily transferred from point to point, altered to suit our wishes, and stored in a permanent fashion. A simple and flexible such representation is the flow of electrons, or electricity. We use an electromechanical device, a microphone, to convert the air pressure variations of sound into an analogous flow of electrons. It is then simple to distribute the electrons through a wire to other places. It is also possible to convert the flow of electrons into magnetic flux that can be stored for ...