1. What does DAW stand for? 2. What are the two main types of data a DAW works with? 3. What is MIDI? 4. What is OSC? 5. How does OSC differ from MIDI? 6. Does MIDI transmit audio? 7. What is a VCO, and what system is it used in? 8. Are voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) communication protocols? 9. What is the difference between analog synthesis and digital synthesis? 10. What does MIDI stand for? 11. What does MIDI transmit? 12. What does MIDI not transmit? 13. Can one MIDI connection control multiple devices? 14. Name five types of information MIDI can transmit. 15. How many MIDI channels are available in the standard MIDI specification? 16. Which MIDI channel is commonly assigned to drums in General MIDI? 17. What is a MIDI System Message? 18. What is the purpose of a Note On message? 19. What is the purpose of a Note Off message? 20. What is a Control Change (CC) message? 21. What is a Program Change message used for? 22. What does Pitch Bend do? 23. What is MIDI Clock used for? 24. What is the purpose of the Start, Stop, and Continue messages? 25. What is System Exclusive (SysEx) used for? 26. What is the MIDI value range for note numbers? 27. What is the MIDI value range for velocity? 28. What is the MIDI value range for Control Change values? 29. What is the MIDI value range for Program Change? 30. Which MIDI parameter uses a 14-bit value? 31. How many pulses per quarter note (PPQN) does MIDI Clock send? 32. What is MIDI Time Code (MTC) used for? 33. What is the traditional MIDI connector? 34. How many instrument sounds are defined in General MIDI? 35. What is the difference between MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0? 36. Is MIDI 2.0 backward compatible with MIDI 1.0? 37. Why is MIDI considered bandwidth-efficient? 38. Besides music production, where else is MIDI commonly used? 39. What is musique concrète? 40. Why should recording levels be monitored? 41. What is Record Arm? 42. What is multitrack recording? 43. What is trimming? 44. What is splitting an audio clip? 45. What is a fade-in? 46. What is a fade-out? 47. What is a crossfade? 48. What is layering? 49. Why is layering useful in audio production? 50. What is panning? 51. Why is panning important in a stereo mix? 52. What is looping? 53. What does exporting (or bouncing) a project do? 54. What is time stretching? 55. What is pitch shifting? 56. What happens if audio is stretched excessively? 57. What is volume automation? 58. Why can abrupt automation changes create unwanted noise? 59. What is equalization (EQ)? 60. How can EQ create a telephone effect? 61. What is reverb? 62. What is delay (echo)? 63. What is noise reduction? 64. Why should background noise be reduced before adding heavy effects? 65. What is FFT, and how is it related to noise reduction? 66. What is sound? How is sound generated? 67. What causes air pressure changes that produce sound? 68. What are sound waves? 69. What are compressions? 70. What are rarefactions? 71. What type of wave is a sound wave in air? (longitudinal or transverse waves?) 72. In which direction do air particles move relative to the direction of wave propagation? 73. What does amplitude determine? 74. What does frequency determine? 75. What is wavelength? 76. What is the speed of sound? 77. What is phase? 78. What happens when sound waves reach the ear? 79. What is the equilibrium position of a vibrating object? 80. What happens when a string is plucked? 81. How does increasing the tension of a string affect its frequency? 82. How is pitch related to frequency? 83. How are compression and rarefaction produced by a vibrating string? 84. Do air molecules travel with the sound wave? 85. What actually moves through the air when sound propagates? 86. What does phase describe in a sound wave? 87. What is the equation relating wave speed, frequency, and wavelength? 88. What are examples of acoustic sound sources? 89. What are examples of electronic sound sources? 90. How do acoustic instruments produce sound? 91. How do synthesizers generate sound? 92. What is a transducer? 93. What device converts electrical signals into sound? 94. What is the function of an oscillator? 95. What is a DAC? 96. When is a DAC required in the signal chain? 97. What is the purpose of an amplifier? 98. How do analog oscillators differ from digital oscillators? 99. What four wave properties describe an electronic signal? 100. Which wave property contributes most to timbre? 101. How does a microphone function as a transducer? 102. How does a speaker function as a transducer? 103. How does the human ear function as a biological transducer? 104. What is the function of a microphone diaphragm? 105. Why does a microphone signal need a preamplifier? 106. What is impedance? 107. Why do piezo contact microphones often require a high-impedance input? 108. What can happen if a high-impedance microphone is connected to a low-impedance input? 109. What is electromagnetic induction? 110. What is the function of the voice coil in a dynamic microphone? 111. Do dynamic microphones require phantom power? 112. What are the advantages of dynamic microphones? 113. What are the limitations of dynamic microphones? 114. Why is a condenser microphone also called a capacitor microphone? 115. Why do most condenser microphones require phantom power? 116. What is phantom power? 117. What are the advantages of condenser microphones? 118. What are the disadvantages of condenser microphones? 119. What is an electret condenser microphone? 120. How does a ribbon microphone work? 121. How is a ribbon microphone different from a dynamic microphone? 122. What are the typical sound characteristics of a ribbon microphone? 123. Why are ribbon microphones considered fragile? 124. What polar pattern do ribbon microphones naturally produce? 125. What are the characteristics of a large-diaphragm condenser microphone? 126. What are the characteristics of a small-diaphragm condenser microphone? 127. Why do small-diaphragm microphones have better transient response? 128. What types of recording commonly use small-diaphragm microphones? 129. How does a pressure microphone differ from a pressure-gradient microphone? 130. Which type of microphone naturally has an omnidirectional polar pattern? 131. Why can pressure-gradient microphones be directional? 132. What is a microphone polar pattern? 133. What is an omnidirectional microphone? 134. Why do omnidirectional microphones not exhibit the proximity effect? 135. What is the pickup pattern of a cardioid microphone? 136. How does a supercardioid microphone differ from a cardioid microphone? 137. What is a rear lobe? 138. How does a hypercardioid microphone differ from a supercardioid microphone? 139. What is the proximity effect? 140. Which types of microphones exhibit the proximity effect? 141. Why do omnidirectional microphones not exhibit the proximity effect? 142. What is an acoustic delay network? 143. How do rear acoustic ports create directional pickup patterns? 144. What is frequency response? What is meant by a flat frequency response? 145. Why should you examine a microphone's frequency response graph before choosing it? 146. Does a "good" microphone always have a perfectly flat frequency response? 147. What is microphone sensitivity? 148. What are the advantages of a high-sensitivity microphone? 149. When is a low-sensitivity microphone preferred? 150. What is transient response? 151. Why is transient response important when recording percussion instruments? 152. What is the standard phantom power voltage? 153. Which types of microphones typically require phantom power? 154. Are passive dynamic microphones affected by phantom power? 155. How is phantom power delivered to a microphone? 156. How do multi-pattern condenser microphones produce different polar patterns? 157. What is a boundary microphone? 158. How do boundary microphones reduce comb filtering? 159. What is comb filtering? 160. What is analog recording? What is digital recording? 161. How are digital audio samples stored? 162. What does the Nyquist–Shannon Sampling Theorem state? 163. What is the Nyquist frequency? 164. What is the relationship between sampling frequency and the highest frequency in the signal? 165. Why is a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz used for CD audio? 166. What is the purpose of the guard band in CD audio? 167. What is the approximate upper limit of human hearing? 168. What is the purpose of an anti-aliasing filter? 169. What is the purpose of a reconstruction (anti-imaging) filter? 170. What is aliasing? When does aliasing occur? Why is aliasing undesirable? 171. A signal is sampled at 44 kHz. What frequency will a 36 kHz tone appear as after sampling? 172. What is quantization? 173. What determines the resolution of a digital audio system? 174. What is quantization error? 175. How does increasing the bit depth affect amplitude resolution? 176. What is the maximum quantization error? 177. Approximately how much dynamic range does each additional bit provide? 178. Approximately what is the theoretical dynamic range of 16-bit audio? 179. How many quantization levels are available in 16-bit audio? 180. What is dither? 181. Why is dither added before quantization? 182. What effect does dither have on quantization distortion? 183. How does dither affect the noise floor? 184. What is the purpose of stereo microphone techniques? 185. Name five common stereo recording techniques. 186. What is a coincident stereo technique? 187. What is a near-coincident stereo technique? 188. How does Mid-Side (M/S) recording work? 189. What are the main advantages of Mid-Side recording? 190. What polar pattern is used in a Blumlein pair? 191. At what angle are the microphones placed in a Blumlein pair? 192. What polar pattern is typically used in X-Y recording? 193. What microphone angle is commonly used in X-Y recording? 194. What microphone angle is used in the ORTF technique? What spacing is used between microphones in ORTF? 195. What is binaural recording? 196. What is a dummy head used for? 197. What are Interaural Time Differences (ITD)? 198. What are Interaural Level Differences (ILD)? 199. What is the purpose of an accent microphone? 200. Why is delay applied to an accent microphone? 201. How does live concert recording differ from studio recording? 202. How is the stereo image created in studio recording? 203. How is a piano commonly recorded? 204. How does piano lid position affect the recorded sound? 205. What role do overhead microphones play in drum recording? 206. Where should a microphone be placed when recording an acoustic bass? 207. Why is a baffle sometimes placed behind the microphone when recording acoustic bass? 208. What are common techniques for recording an acoustic guitar? 209. Where should a microphone be aimed when recording woodwind instruments? 210. How does microphone angle affect the sound of brass instruments? 211. What is the typical microphone distance for close-miked vocals? 212. Why is a pop filter used when recording vocals? 213. What is the primary goal of mixing? 214. Why is mixing considered both a technical and a creative process? 215. What skills are important for successful mixing? 216. What does it mean for a mix to "translate well" across playback systems? 217. What is critical listening? How does critical listening differ from casual listening? 218. What should you do before beginning a mix? 219. Why is it important to listen to every track individually? 220. What is a common track order when organizing a session? 221. Why is monitoring important during mixing? 222. What factors affect monitoring accuracy? How do room acoustics influence monitoring? 223. Why does monitoring level affect perceived frequency balance? 224. What are equal-loudness contours? 225. What are the advantages of mixing on headphones? 226. What are the disadvantages of mixing on headphones? 227. Why does headphone stereo imaging differ from loudspeaker stereo imaging? 228. What is mono? 229. What is stereo? 230. What is the phantom center? 231. What happens to the phantom center when the listener moves away from the sweet spot? 232. What is level panning? What is delay panning? 233. What is dynamic range? 234. What is the theoretical dynamic range of 16-bit digital audio? 235. What is the approximate dynamic range of human hearing?