Recording studio in the context of Audio console

Old media, also called traditional media or legacy media, are the mass media institutions that dominated prior to the internet, particularly print media, film studios, music studios, advertising agencies, radio broadcasting, and television. Old media institutions are centralized and communicate with one-way technologies to a generally anonymous mass audience.

Old media are often contrasted with new media, which are typically computer- or smartphone-based, and are to some extent interactive and comparatively decentralized. These new media enable people to telecommunicate with one another peer-to-peer or through social media platforms, with widespread use and availability through the internet.

The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts.

The industry also includes a range of professionals who assist singers and musicians with their music careers. These include talent managers, artists and repertoire managers, business managers, entertainment lawyers; those who broadcast audio or video music content (satellite, Internet radio stations, broadcast radio and TV stations); music journalists and music critics; DJs; music educators and teachers; manufacturers of musical instruments and music equipment; as well as many others. In addition to the businesses and artists there are organizations that also play an important role, including musician's unions (e.g. American Federation of Musicians), not-for-profit performance-rights organizations (e.g. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and other associations (e.g. International Alliance for Women in Music, a non-profit organization that advocates for women composers and musicians).

Shira Perlmutter (born 1956) is an American attorney and law professor who has served as the 14th register of copyrights of the United States Copyright Office in the Library of Congress, since 2020. Before her appointment as register in 2020, Perlmutter led copyright and global law policy at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In 1995, she was appointed to be the first associate register for policy and international affairs at the Copyright Office and was the copyright consultant for the Clinton administration's advisory council on the National Information Infrastructure from 1994–5.

In the private sector, Perlmutter was the executive vice president of policy and international affairs at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a music industry association representing recording studios. Prior to that, she was associate general counsel and vice president for intellectual property at Time Warner. Prior to her notable roles, she practiced law at the Paul, Weiss law firm in New York where she practiced commercial litigation.

Home recording is the practice of recording sound in a private home instead of a professional recording studio. A studio set up for home recording is called a home studio or project studio. Home recording is widely practiced by voice actors, narrators, singers, musicians, podcast hosts, and documentary makers at all levels of success. The cost of professional audio equipment has dropped steadily as technology advances during the 21st century, while information about recording techniques has become easily available online. These trends have resulted in an increase in the popularity of home recording and a shift in the recording industry toward recording in the home studio.

In 2020, the onset of the COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in a dramatic global increase in the number of remote workers in 2020, as well as home-based recording artists, which also led to the proliferation of internet-based microgenres like bedroom pop and egg punk.

A studio recording, or a recording session is any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance.

Professional audio, abbreviated as pro audio, refers to both an activity and a category of high-quality, studio-grade audio equipment. Typically it encompasses sound recording, sound reinforcement system setup and audio mixing, and studio music production by trained sound engineers, audio engineers, record producers, and audio technicians who work in live event support and recording using mixing consoles, recording equipment and sound reinforcement systems. Professional audio is differentiated from consumer- or home-oriented audio, which are typically geared toward listening in a non-commercial environment.

Professional audio can include, but is not limited to broadcast radio, audio mastering in a recording studio, television studio, and sound reinforcement such as a live concert, DJ performances, audio sampling, public address system set up, sound reinforcement in movie theatres, and design and setup of piped music in hotels and restaurants. Professional audio equipment is sold at professional audio stores and music stores.

A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic instruments, or recorded sounds. Mixers may control analog or digital signals. The modified signals are summed to produce the combined output signals, which can then be broadcast, amplified through a sound reinforcement system or recorded.

Mixing consoles are used for applications including recording studios, public address systems, sound reinforcement systems, nightclubs, broadcasting, and post-production. A typical, simple application combines signals from microphones on stage into an amplifier that drives one set of loudspeakers for the audience. A DJ mixer may have only two channels, for mixing two record players. A coffeehouse's small stage might only have a six-channel mixer, enough for two singer-guitarists and a percussionist. A nightclub stage's mixer for rock music shows may have 24 channels for mixing the signals from a rhythm section, lead guitar and several vocalists. A mixing console in a professional recording studio may have as many as 96 channels. Consoles used for live sound can go even higher, with some having up to 384 input channels.

Studio monitors are loudspeakers in speaker enclosures specifically designed for professional audio production applications, such as recording studios, filmmaking, television studios, radio studios and project or home studios, where accurate audio reproduction is crucial. Among audio engineers, the term monitor implies that the speaker is designed to produce relatively flat (linear) phase and frequency responses. In other words, it exhibits minimal emphasis or de-emphasis of particular frequencies, the loudspeaker gives an accurate reproduction of the tonal qualities of the source audio ("uncolored" and "transparent" are synonyms), and there will be no relative phase shift of particular frequencies—meaning no distortion in sound-stage perspective for stereo recordings. Beyond stereo sound-stage requirements, a linear phase response helps impulse response remain true to source without encountering "smearing". An unqualified reference to a monitor often refers to a near-field (compact or close-field) design. This is a speaker small enough to sit on a stand or desk in proximity to the listener, so that most of the sound that the listener hears is coming directly from the speaker, rather than reflecting off walls and ceilings (and thus picking up coloration and reverberation from the room). Monitor speakers may include more than one type of driver (e.g., a tweeter and a woofer) or, for monitoring low-frequency sounds, such as bass drum, additional subwoofer cabinets may be used.

There are studio monitors designed for mid-field or far-field use as well. These are larger monitors with approximately 12 inch or larger woofers, suited to the bigger studio environment. They extend the width of the sweet spot, allowing "accurate stereo imaging for multiple persons". They tend to be used in film scoring environments, where simulation of larger sized areas like theaters is important.

In sound recording, a talkback system is the intercom used in recording studios and production control rooms (PCRs) in television studios to enable personnel to communicate with people in the recording area or booth. While the control room can hear the person in the booth over the studio microphones, the person in the booth hears the control room over a PA, monitor speaker, in their headphones or interruptible feedback (IFB) earpiece. Take numbers, reference data, and sometimes count-ins or remarks are also "stamped" onto recordings through talkback, similar to a clapperboard.

Sound City Studios is a recording studio in Los Angeles, California, United States, known as one of the most successful in popular music. The complex opened in 1969 in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles. The facility had previously been a production factory of the English musical instrument manufacturer Vox. Throughout the late twentieth century, the studio became known for its signature sound, especially in recording drums and live performances of rock bands.

Hundreds of rock artists spanning five decades have recorded at Sound City, including Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, U2, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bob Dylan, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Tool, Slayer, Rage Against the Machine, Death Cab for Cutie, and Fall Out Boy. Over one hundred albums recorded at Sound City have achieved gold and platinum certifications.

In music production, the recording studio is often treated as a musical instrument when it plays a significant role in the composition of music. Sometimes called "playing the studio", the approach is typically embodied by artists or producers who favor the creative use of studio technology in record production, as opposed to simply documenting live performances in studio. Techniques include the incorporation of non-musical sounds, overdubbing, tape edits, sound synthesis, audio signal processing, and combining segmented performances (takes) into a unified whole.

Composers have exploited the potential of multitrack recording from the time the technology was first introduced. Before the late 1940s, musical recordings were typically created with the idea of presenting a faithful rendition of a real-life performance. Following the advent of three-track tape recorders in the mid-1950s, recording spaces became more accustomed for in-studio composition. By the late 1960s, in-studio composition had become standard practice, and has remained as such into the 21st century.

Shri Camel is an album by experimental music and classical minimalism pioneer Terry Riley. Riley began composing the work in 1975 on commission from West Germany's Radio Bremen, and performed an early version of the work in Bremen in May 1976. In 1978 Riley recorded a different version of the piece, separated into four suites, at CBS Studios in San Francisco as the final part of a three album deal with CBS; however, CBS did not release the recording until 1980.

For the studio recording, Riley performed the work solo on a modified Yamaha YC-45D combo organ tuned in just intonation and augmented with studio digital delay.

Errol Thompson (29 December 1948 – 13 November 2004), better known as "ET", was a Jamaican record producer, audio engineer, and one of the first studio engineers to be involved in dub music.

A house band is a group of musicians, often centrally organized by a band leader, who regularly play at an establishment.It is widely used to refer both to the bands who work on entertainment programs on television or radio, and to bands which are the regular performers at a nightclub, especially jazz and R&B clubs. The term can also refer to a group that plays sessions for a specific recording studio. House bands on television shows usually play only cover songs instead of originals, and they play during times that commercials would be seen by the home viewing audience. Therefore, only those present in the studio during the show's taping see their full performances.