#000540
David Moulton's Audio Lecture Series, Volume 1: Loudness, Compression, Distortion
David Moulton
The first installment of a spoken-word audio-education course from one of the recording world's most respected teacher-engineers. Delivered as lectures with reference recordings, Volume 1 tackles three fundamentals that quietly make or break a mix: loudness, compression, and distortion. Moulton walks listeners through how our ears perceive level, why compression can tame dynamics without flattening the life out of a track, and how distortion — sometimes ruinous, sometimes the secret sauce — colors sound. It is aimed squarely at the working or aspiring engineer who wants to hear these effects rather than merely read about them. Part of the Playback Platinum Series, the volume reflects Moulton's conviction that critical listening is a trainable skill. Practical and unpretentious, it functions more as a workbook for the ears than a textbook for the shelf.
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The author
David Moulton is an American recording engineer, educator, and loudspeaker designer, best known in audio circles for his Golden Ears ear-training program and for decades of teaching working engineers how to listen critically rather than merely operate gear. His reputation rests on a plain-spoken, laboratory-of-the-ear approach: train perception first, and the technical choices follow.
The book
Volume 1: Loudness, Compression, Distortion is the opening entry in the Playback Platinum Series, issued around 2003 by Music Maker Publications. Rather than a conventional manual, it presents Moulton's material as narrated lectures paired with reference audio, so that concepts like gain-reduction and harmonic coloration can be demonstrated on real signal instead of described on paper.
How it reads
The underlying principles have aged extremely well — psychoacoustics and the behavior of compressors and distortion do not go out of date — even as the CD-lecture delivery format now feels of its moment. Engineers raised on plug-in presets still benefit from being made to hear what a fast attack or a driven stage actually does.
For more context
Pair it with Moulton's other volumes on stereo miking, equalization, and digital audio, and with his Golden Ears course, which drills the same listening skills as timed exercises.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- David Moulton
- Publisher
- Music Maker Publications
- Year
- 2003
- Edition
- Playback Platinum Series
- ISBN
- 9781893658004
- Shelf
- Music
- Location
- Colorado