Week 5: Project 2 Introduction

Weekly Reflection

In this week's session we look at the anatomy of the human ear and how it allows for auditory transduction. Transduction applies to dynamic and condenser microphones, as well as dynamic and non-dynamic versions of the sound waves.

This was very intriguing to me. Apart from the minutia, I believe the function of the ears is quite simple, so I was surprised that I had not been taught this earlier, such as in high school. All previous explanations had been limited to "your tympanic membrane vibrates," but now I understand that this is only the first of several crucial steps.

"Loudness is subjective, but amplitude is objective" was one of the most striking things about this year's audio engineering experiments. The fact that certain frequencies need to be "boosted," in terms of decibels, to be heard and perceived as loudly as others, is entirely new to me.

I'd love to take part in mixing in the future, whether as a full-fledged mixing engineer or simply as part of some side projects, simply because it's something I enjoy. As an audio engineer, being more aware of concepts like perceived sound and the equal-loudness contour will be extremely beneficial.

I would say that deliberate practice has been demonstrated through the use of critical listening and relating what has been heard to the material studied in class, but I feel that nothing else has been reflected on in terms of transferable skills this week.