It’s not what you hear it’s the way that you hear it

The first NED Talk of 2022 took place on Wednesday 23rd February, when Neil McPhee discussed the influence of technology on music from the 1950s onwards, in a talk entitled ‘From the studio to your bedroom’.

Neil took us on a fascinating journey through the ‘technological management of sound’ in music and film, past the Beatles era to the present day. He covered many intriguing facets of sound from live performances e.g. classical and jazz music, to multi-track studio recording from the 1970s onwards. We heard about the transition from reel-to-reel tape machines through the groundbreaking Sony Walkman Professional to today’s digital, readily edited recordings, even from musicians collaborating from different geographical locations.

He covered the dimensions of volume, modulation, base, filters, spectrum and dynamic effects – adding ‘space’ to sounds including delay, reverb and chorus with acoustic guitar music. So technology allows us to shape and clarify sound from the original to a preferred end result – either enhanced or to recreate the actual performance itself.

A superb ‘sound journey’ to the present day. A full synopsis of Neil’s talk will be included in the August 2022 Newsletter.

The next scheduled Network event will be NED Talk 14, on Wednesday 6 April, when Patrick Barwise, Emeritus Professor of Marketing at London Business School will be in conversation with Sheila Byfield about his new and widely praised book, ‘The War Against the BBC’, co-written with Peter York. Invitations will be sent out very soon.