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sound board: A separate, resonant piece of wood in a piano, located under the string assembly. The sound board reflects the sounds back from the bottom of the piano case and out away from the piano. The quality and shape of the sound board give each piano a distinct timbre.

soundcard: A circuit board that installs inside a computer, adding new sound capabilities. These capabilities can include an FM or wavetable synthesizer and audio inputs and outputs. MIDI inputs and outputs are also normally included.

sound check: A diagnostic procedure carried out before a performance or recording, particularly when amplified instruments and/or a PA system is used to ensure that all of the equipment is in working order, and that sound levels are set correctly.

Sound Controller Message: One of ten defined MIDI Controller Change messages which are assigned to general-purpose parameters in a synthesizer or effects unit and allow real-time editing of sound quality and effects from a sequencer.

sound cutting: See track laying.

sound designer: (1) Most commonly, the person who creates special sound effects for film; originally, the person assigned responsibility for the over sound of the film, and who supervises the sound editing and re-recording. (2) SoundDesigner™, a popular digital synthesis program.

SoundEdit: A format used on the MacRecorder which became a standard for exchanging 8-bit mono or stereo sound files at four sampling rates from 5.5kHz to 22.255kHz; compression is available for mono files at 3:1, 4:1. 6:1, and 8:1. Newer SoundEdit software supports 16-bit sounds with sampling rates up to 64kHz.

sound field: The area and/or pattern of air pressure disturbance caused by the compression and rarefaction of energy in the AF band.

Soundfield microphone: An extension of MS recording for ambisonic recording. This technique captures and reproduces true surround-sound, with height information as well as 360˚ horizontal imaging, as opposed to the artificial spatial position of various cinema surround systems. This is accomplished by six separate capsules which allow separate recording of leftright, front-rear, and up-down sound sources. Most use of these microphones is for stunningly accurate stereo recording.

sounding: The act of recording sound on a mag release print.

sound intensity: Defined as a measure of the net flow of acoustic energy in a sound field. The units are watts per square meter, and because the energy moves in a particular direction, sound intensity is a vector quantity, i.e., it has magnitude and direction. Sound intensity is not able to be measured directly, and it should not be confused with SPL which is what a sound level meter measures.

Sound Manager: A part of the Mac operating system that handles audio functionality such as input, mixing, and playback. Currently the Sound Manager supports only mono or stereo recording and playback at 16-bit, 48kHz resolution. Most Mac audio cards do not use Sound Manager for this reason, achieving both increased bit-depth and sampling resolution. See also

WAV/multi-WAV drivers.