Core Sound LLC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Core Sound LLC is a professional audio equipment manufacturer of microphones and audio electronics, primarily addressing portable recording and microphones designed using psychoacoustic principles. Founded in 1989, it is a manufacturer of binaural microphones for binaural recording. It also manufactures an Ambisonics tetrahedral soundfield microphone used for surround sound recording.
Core Sound focuses on developing portable and affordable products based on psychoacoustic principles. This is unusual and notable as, for example, a survey of Ambisonics microphone manufacturers would turn up only one other company in the world (SoundField Ltd. in the UK), and the price of their products exceeds Core Sound's by more than a factor of three.
By popularizing the miniature clip-on binaural microphone set, Core Sound was largely responsible for reviving and updating the binaural recording technique so that it could be used in the field, first (in the late '80s) with portable stereo cassette recorders (e.g., the Sony Walkman), later with portable digital audio tape (DAT) and MiniDisc (MD) recorders, and most recently with flash memory and hard disk recorders[1] [2] [3]. The binaural recording technique using miniature microphones is used by acoustics researchers, concert tapers[4] [5], oral history institutions, sound librarians, podcasters [6], documentarians and others.
Recently, taking advantage of the growth of the home recording studio and digital audio workstation, Core Sound has helped revive the 1970's era "Ambisonic" recording technology by introducing the first low-cost tetrahedral Ambisonic microphone ("TetraMic") and a multiplexing four-channel microphone pre-amplifier/analog-to-digital converter [7]. Ambisonics allows the use of a single microphone to replace an array of microphones, and also to record surround sound.
[edit] Awards
- In November of 2006, Core Sound won the PAR Excellence Award from Pro Audio Magazine for their TetraMic surround Microphone [8]
[edit] References
- ^ DAT-heads Answers to Questions Ver.3, 2 Sep 1992, earlier versions not archived
- ^ DAT-Heads Frequently Asked Questions, Microphone Edition, Ver. 1.0, 10 Mar 1993
- ^ MiniDisc Community Page, January 1996
- ^ Les Turoczi's review of Core Sound Binaural microphones in Stereo Times
- ^ Review of Core Sound Binaural microphone sets by Nick's Picks
- ^ [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/podcastinghks/chapter/hack16.pdf A chapter from Jack Herrington's book: " Podcasting Hacks" (O'Reilly 2005)
- ^ [ http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2006/11/surround_sound_in_your_fingers.html November 2006, "Before now, Ambisonic mics cost thousands of dollars. Core Sound expects to sell the Tetra Mic for less than $1,000. But the other breakthough is that when paired with Core Sound’s 4Mic analog-to-digital converter (also under $1,000), the TetraMic can record the Ambisonics information to a standard two-channel flash-RAM recorder like the M-Audio MicroTrack. So for about $2K, you’ll soon be able to carry a versatile, handheld surround recorder in your fingertips. "]
- ^ Pro Audio Review Selects 10th Annual PAR Excellence Award Winners at AES San Francisco. Pro Audio Review magazine (2006-10-31). Retrieved on 2007-07-08.
