Sound Forever

Sound is nothing more than air turned into waves. Moving air. But oh what you can do with that moving air is far from as simple as it sounds. Greg Milner in his book, Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music gives us a history of recording, producing, and reproducing the sound we call music. From Edison's wax cylindersto our latest MP3s it is quite a journey. The goal has been to get perfect reproduction- or has it? Sort of until multi-tracking became easier and easier. Suddenly you could produce music that exists only in the recorded world. Move from there to digital and you are in awhole new world.

We can't let my old medium of radio get off scott-free. The "loudness wars" in the New York metro market took sound and in a retro movement had CD music being processed in a way that made the CD sound like it was on the radio. Huh?

It is quite a history. There are passages and sections I skipped for the technical stuff that went beyond my skills or understanding. The people and in-fighting are part of a great ride.

You may even be surprised at the end at what may very well end up being the perfect sound forever.