Reviews for AIP Handbook of Condenser Microphones, Theory, Calibration and Measurements

The average rating for AIP Handbook of Condenser Microphones, Theory, Calibration and Measurements based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-11-25 00:00:00 David England BEE IN A JAR A few years ago they discovered the oldest recording of a human voice ever. Here's a two-for-one youtube clip about that, it's only 1 minute 11 seconds. In this clip you hear posh BBC newsreader Charlotte Green introducing the recording, then they play it. While it's playing some BBC producer whispers to Charlotte that it sounds like a bee trapped in a jar. Then Charlotte proceeds with an item about the death of Abbie Mann, screenwriter. But she can't get the bee in the jar out of her mind... Well, I thought it was quite funny. Anyway - about this actual book. Hmm. I'm really not sure who this book is for. I thought I was buying something completely different - a history of recorded music in America maybe! The title does hint about that. As I write this I have just noticed that an ant is crawling around near my foot. He's a long lonely way from the back door or the front door (in ant terms that is) so he must be really wishing he's got antnav installed, which clearly, he hasn't. Andre Millard - well, he's not quite like this ant, but if I explain that he tries in 400 pages to encompass the whole technological history of recording devices from the cylinder to the ipod and downloading, PLUS the entire development of the complex of businesses surrounding recorded sound (record companies, radio, tv, movies, jukeboxes, format wars), PLUS the development of the music itself (from minstrel songs to rap and as many points between as he can think of), PLUS the sociology of all these changes (the flappers, the punks, all those subcultures) then you can see that it's not a wholly unfair antanalogy. Antlike he waves his antennae furiously, bumps into something like Count Basie, twirls round and heads off into disco, tape splicing and glue sniffing, bangs into Fred Astaire and he's off again - it's only the stolid unexcited frankly dull prose which keeps this book from busting into five different books and running off squeaking and gibbering. Which would be most unantlike. I think this one goes straight to the charity shop and the ant goes straight to the back garden. But I can't see my ant anymore. He's probably behind me discovering Stockhausen. Or Adam Ant.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-02-21 00:00:00 Heather Rinehart This is the single best history of recording. Not perfect, because the writing gets a little dull at times, but very good nonetheless.