Welcome to the Songstufff Glossary!
Find the meaning to common, and not so common terms in this broad ranging glossary. Covering a diversity of Music related terminology including Music Technology, Music Theory, Music Law, Acoustics, and Electronics, the Songstuff Glossary is an ever-growing collection. Everything from Absorption to Zero Level.
We're continually adding new descriptions, so if you have a suggested description please Contact Songstuff.
Glossary items are listed in alphabetical order. Please use the navigation block below to browse the glossary items.
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Crosstalk
When one signal "spills" or "leaks" onto another signal during the transmission process. For example when two audio cables are routed adjacent to each other and signal leaks from one onto the other.
This most commonly happens with poorly shielded cables carrying signals with sharp transient spikes. This is due to unwanted conductive, inductive or capacative coupling between the two cables (or anywhere on the cirtcuit).
Crosstalk is also applied to unwanted spill (bleed, leakage) from an unwanted acoustic sound source into a microphone, for example bleed from a singer's headphones onto a vocal recording, or hi-hat hits onto the snare microphone. This is effectively acoustic coupling.
FSK Sync
An old form of clock sync. Commonly used with the early Atari sequencers and drum machines.
SMPTE -VITC
Vertical Interval Time Code, a.k.a "vitsee", means SMPTE timecode that is placed into the space between video frames. Once "burned in" between frames it is called BITC or "bitsee".
SMPTE -LTC
Longitudinal or Linear Time Code refers to SMPTE striped along the tape track and is common for tape machines.
Word Clock Sync
Clock source used by your audio interface to synchronize "words" of sample data.
Freewheel Sync
A.K.A. Flywheel Sync. Using tape sync there were frequent timecode dropouts. Freewheel synchronization will interpret corrupted values.
Chase Lock Sync
The slave "chases" the master by rewinding and fast forwarding till it gets to the right location. Used with SMPTE.
ADAT Sync
A syncronization format used to allow two ADAT multi-track recorders to play and record in sync.
Instrumental
Unlike a song, an instrumental is a piece of music without any accompanying lyrics or vocal part. In popular music, an instrumental may include vocal sounds, but not lyrics.
