How to use this book

While you may choose to read this book from cover to cover, it is essentially designed as a ‘dip-in’ book. You will see that the beginning pages are concerned with the job of the sound team and the problems they may face with the acoustics of the environment in which they have to work.

To help you make really good recordings, this is followed by a short explanation of the electricity and physics that you will need to understand if you want to be a good sound recordist.

There is a section to help you make a sensible choice from all the different microphones you may have discovered ‘in the cupboard’.

The problems you will face on location are dealt with separately to the problems of studio recording, as are the different levels of equipment you will meet.

After your location shoot you will have the chance to go into the edit suite and mix all the different sounds together to produce your masterpiece!

It is possible to read only the section that interests you at the moment without reference to the other sections. It may be that if you do not quite understand, or want some more information, you may need to jump to another part of the book. The contents list will help you to do this.

There is a comprehensive glossary at the end to give you definitions of the inevitable jargon that we all use to describe the tools of our job.