Streaming Sounds

In a time when music streaming has become the dominant mode of consuming music recordings, this book interrogates how users go about listening to music in their everyday lives in a context where streaming services are focused on not only the circulation of music for users but also the circulation of user data and attention. Drawing insights directly from interviews with users, music streaming is explained as never merely a neutral technology but rather one that seeks to actively shape user engagement. Users respond to streaming platforms with some relishing these aspects that provide music to be drawn into daily activities while others show signs of resistance. It is this tension that this book explores. This unique and accessible study will be ideal reading for both scholars and students of popular music studies, communication studies, sociology, media and cultural studies.

In talking about contemporary media, we often use a language of newness, applying words like “revolution” and “disruption.” Yet, the emergence of new sound media technologies and content—from the earliest internet radio broadcasts to the development of algorithmic music services and the origins of podcasting—are not a disruption, but a continuation of the century-long history of radio. Today’s most innovative media makers are reintroducing forms of audio storytelling from radio’s past. Sound Streams is the first book to historicize radio-internet convergence from the early ’90s through the present, demonstrating how so-called new media represent an evolutionary shift that is nevertheless historically consistent with earlier modes of broadcasting. Various iterations of internet radio, from streaming audio to podcasting, are all new radio practices rather than each being a separate new medium: radio is any sound media that is purposefully crafted to be heard by an audience. Rather than a particular set of technologies or textual conventions, web-based broadcasting combines unique practices and features and ideas from radio history. In addition, there exists a distinctive conversationality and reflexivity to radio talk, including a propensity for personal stories and emotional disclosure, that suits networked digital media culture. What media convergence has done is extend and intensify radio’s logics of connectivity and sharing; sonically mediated personal expression intended for public consideration abounds in online media networks. Sound Streams marks a significant contribution to digital media and internet studies. Its mix of cultural history, industry research, and genre and formal analysis, especially of contemporary audio storytelling, will appeal to media scholars, radio and podcast practitioners, audio journalism students, and dedicated podcast fans.

Sounds, Screens, Speakers provides a broadly comprehensive survey of the emerging field of music and media. Music has been present at the advent of nearly every new media form since the turn of the 20th century. Whether we look at the start of sound recording, film, television or the Internet, music has been a crucial participant in the social changes brought about by these new tools for making and listening to music. This book examines such changes starting in the late 19th century to the present. From the introduction of the microphone all the way through to music in reality television, the purpose of each section is not simply to move chronologically towards the present, but to focus especially on the tangible social relationships created through specific forms of mediation. With readings at the end of most chapters, key questions to facilitate additional discovery and research, and direction to additional readings and resources on popular websites and news sources, this text serves as the ideal introduction to popular music and media.

An innovative investigation of the inner workings of Spotify that traces the transformation of audio files into streamed experience. Spotify provides a streaming service that has been welcomed as disrupting the world of music. Yet such disruption always comes at a price. Spotify Teardown contests the tired claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. Borrowing the notion of “teardown” from reverse-engineering processes, in this book a team of five researchers have playfully disassembled Spotify's product and the way it is commonly understood. Spotify has been hailed as the solution to illicit downloading, but it began as a partly illicit enterprise that grew out of the Swedish file-sharing community. Spotify was originally praised as an innovative digital platform but increasingly resembles a media company in need of regulation, raising questions about the ways in which such cultural content as songs, books, and films are now typically made available online. Spotify Teardown combines interviews, participant observations, and other analyses of Spotify's “front end” with experimental, covert investigations of its “back end.” The authors engaged in a series of interventions, which include establishing a record label for research purposes, intercepting network traffic with packet sniffers, and web-scraping corporate materials. The authors' innovative digital methods earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use; the company later threatened their research funding. Thus, the book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behavior.

Audio Anecdotes is a book about digital sound. It discusses analyzing, processing, creating, and recording many forms of sound and music, emphasizing the opportunities presented by digital media made possible by the arrival of inexpensive and nearly ubiquitous digital computing equipment. Applications of digital audio techniques are indispensable i

The MIDI Manual is a complete reference on MIDI, written by a well-respected sound engineer and author. This best-selling guide provides a clear explanation of what MIDI is, how to use electronic instruments and an explanation of sequencers and how to use them. You will learn how to set up an efficient MIDI system and how to get the best out of your music. The MIDI Manual is packed full of useful tips and practical examples on sequencing and mixing techniques. It also covers editors/librarians, working with a score, MIDI in mass media and multimedia and synchronisation. The MIDI spec is set out in detail along with the helpful guidelines on using the implementation chart. Illustrated throughout with helpful photos and screengrabs, this is the most readable and clear book on MIDI available.

This Visual QuickStart Guide uses pictures rather than lengthy explanations. You'll be up and running in no time!

Beginning iOS Media App Development is a ground-breaking tutorial that explores the near limitless, programmable audio-visual capabilities of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch using real-world examples and thorough explanations of the code. This book includes detailed step-by-step instructions and important background information from experienced media and utility app developer, Ahmed Bakir. You'll learn about content creation, playback, and advanced topics, including AirPlay, AVKit, and Swift. Each chapter is framed with a project that illustrates the concepts being discussed and pulls in lessons from other popular apps. You'll even learn about the latest iOS 8 and Xcode 6 media features. After reading this book, you should be able to build your first rich media app or utility app that utilizes multimedia for the App Store. And if you're a game developer, this book will provide you with tools to help make your game app look even better by integrating native iOS features.

The major aim of this book is to introduce the ways in which scientists approach and think about a phenomenon -- hearing -- that intersects three quite different disciplines: the physics of sound sources and the propagation of sound through air and other materials, the anatomy and physiology of the transformation of the physical sound into neural activity in the brain, and the psychology of the perception we call hearing. Physics, biology, and psychology each play a role in understanding how and what we hear. The text evolved over the past decade in an attempt to convey something about scientific thinking, as evidenced in the domain of sounds and their perception, to students whose primary focus is not science. It does so using a minimum of mathematics (high school functions such as linear, logarithmic, sine, and power) without compromising scientific integrity. A significant enrichment is the availability of a compact disc (CD) containing over 20 examples of acoustic demonstrations referred to in the book. These demonstrations, which range from echo effects and filtered noise to categorical speech perception and total more than 45 minutes, are invaluable resources for making the text come alive.