The Signet Classics edition of William Shakespeares comedy of lovers misled.Romantic folly and false identites abound as an unusual love triangle takes the stage in this play about Orsino; the infatuated Duke of Illyria; Olivia; the countess he pursues; and Viola; the woman disguised as a man who comes between them. This revised Signet Classics edition includes unique features such as:bull; An overview of Shakespeares life; world; and theaterbull; A special introduction to the play by the editor; Herschel Bakerbull; Selections from Barnabe Rich; Of Apolonius and Silla; the source from which Shakespeare derived Twelfth Night bull; Dramatic criticism from Samuel Johnson; William Hazlitt; Charles Lamb; and othersbull; A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors; directors; and productionsbull; Text; notes; and commentaries printed in the clearest; most readable textbull; And more...
#674517 in eBooks 2009-06-09 2009-06-09File Name: B0030CHEYU
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Things We Never Knew About Sound RecordingBy Paul WetorA fascinating look at how sound recording has changed over the years. (I posted a review from my Kindle version. but it never showed up).Two items missing when describing the warmth of LPs:1) Are the new 180 gram LPs mastered from digitized master files or the actual master tape?2) Years ago I re-bought one of my favorite LPs. as I was wearing out my original. But it sounded muddy and terrible. Later I found out that record companies would make a new version of an albums "master tape" from the previous version. which would then become the current version. I was shocked. as I knew that copying analog to analog would degrade the sound.From a sonic perspective. CDs are great in that they induced record companies to go back to original master tapes to get the best sound. Had CDs not come out. LPs would be in a sad state. Quality of sound became an important factor in music. Sadly. too much emphasis gets placed on how music sounds. rather than the music itself.Side note: I recently bought some HDTracks super-audio downloads online. but I cant hear any greater quality. My headphones only cost $50. but I should be able to detect something more.Side note 2: While I love digitized movies (which have made old movies look better than ever). you can see where digital degrades the image by looking at "2001: a space odyssey". In the original film version. the "eye" of HAL looked perfectly murky. but in digitized versions. it looks like there are bands of color in it. Its a minor issue. but perfectly illustrates what is lost when images are digitally compressed. The same is true of audio compression. But if youre only missing 1%. how much do you want to spend to get that 1% improvement?Side note 3: I loved how the book ended by going back to an Edison recording and finding out that they didnt sound as awful as the scratchy versions we usually hear.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Thoughtful history of the interconnection of recorded music and the music businessBy Ben RothfeldI read this book on the suggestion of Mike Johnston of The Online Photographer. An audiophile as well as a master photographer. Johnston keyed in on one of the outstanding aspects of Milners book: the conflict between forces that wanted to record music as purely as they could and those who wanted to capture. somehow. the effect of the music. This struggle began with Edisons recording cylinder and continues through today.Milner describes the technical challenges that musicians and recording engineers have faced. but places them in the context of demands from the music industry (recording studios. record labels. radio stations. etc.). which gives the story an angle that makes it more meaningful to fans such as myself. After all. I dont understand what frequency modulation really is. but I am interested in how FM stations used electronic devices to manipulate the sounds of records and CDs.If I had any criticisms of Milners work. Id focus on two things. One. he focuses somewhat narrowly on popular music. While he seems to like a lot of the same bands that I do. I wonder how the book might have been different had he focused more on classical (which gets some good coverage. especially Telarc) or other styles such as jazz (which seems almost wholly absent). To be fair. maybe popular music stretched the technology further.My other criticism focuses on the scope of the work. The book focuses on a relatively narrow set of people. I would have liked to have learned more about some of the other personalities in involved. That said. I doubt the market for a 1000-page book on music recording is very large.All in all. a fascinating read and a must for music lovers who care about recording quality.35 of 37 people found the following review helpful. A Leisurely Stroll Through The History of Audio TechnologyBy Gregory M. Wasson"Perfecting Sound Forever" is both more and less than its title would imply. On the one hand. it is purportedly a history of the technology of recorded music. But it includes many lengthy sidetrips and stories which will engage readers who take an active interest in both the development and the application of recorded sound. For example. the author discusses at length the use of "sound tests" by the makers of the first acoustic recording and playback machines. In these tests (which were as much marketing techniques as much as "scientific" experiments). a singer or instrumentalist would pretend to be playing on stage. then walk off stage in the middle of the performance as a curtain was parted to show that the audience had been listening to an acoustic wax cylinder or disk played through a horn. Believe it or not. the audience was astonished to discover that it had not been listening to a live performance. Similar tests continued to be used right up until the present. always with the same result. which demonstrates the substantial psycho-acoustic element in the listening experience.Many readers. including myself. will enjoy Milners lengthy sidetrips describing in detail such historic applications of new recording techniques as John and Alan Lomaxs trips to the rural South to record "authentic Negro music." discovering along the way the great blues singer "Huddie" Ledbetter. better known as "Lead Belly." Many of these stories are only tangentially related to the central story of the development of audio recording techniques. Others. such as Milners discussion of Les Pauls pioneering use of over-tracking to achieve the sound he wanted. are more directly related to the main narrative. If you are not irritated by the authors wanderings off the "track" (sort of an audiophiles "Moby Dick"). and you have a reasonable understanding of the main outlines of the development of audio technology. you will probably thoroughly enjoy this book.But be forewarned. As audio recording technology hits the crossroads intersectig it with the birth of rock n roll in the mid-fifties. there is almost no discussion of the application of audio technology to the recording of classical or jazz music. Milner confines his discussion to pop and rock almost exclusively thereafter. Although his discussion of the influence of the evolution of recording technology on the pop music field is important. if your tastes run to Miles Davis or Dmitri Shostakovich rather than hip-hop or The Red Hot Chili Peppers. you may find your enjoyment of the book substantially lessened.That said. Millers exploration of the uses made of digital recording technology. with its promise of greater sensitivity and higher fidelity. is fascinating. He describes in great detail the "misuse" of audio compression and clipping to achieve greater "loudness" even though the results on pop music paradoxically lessened the dynamic range and fidelity of the music being made. Milner paints a picture in which the democratization of the production of pop music made possible by the availability of ever more affordable devices to produce music - the "producer" could now record and remix from a garage instead of an acoustically pristine recording hall - contributed to the so-called "loudness wars" in which records were so compressed that the dynamic range of a pop song from beginning to end might be as little as 9 dB. Loudness got the attention of people flipping through the FM dials. and audiophiles were no longer the object of the producers attention as the recording industrys prime demographic was hearing their favorite music through cheap stereo systems and later through MP3 devices such as iPods using low fidelity earbuds. The lesson seems to be that people get the music they deserve. and mediocre sound quality is perfectly satisfactory to the average listener.The authors thesis is that increasingly sophisticated production devices such as Pro-Tools and Auto-Tune. which allow the correction of pitch for a flat singer. and the assembly of "music" one note at a time rather than by capturing even a semblance of live ensemble musical performance. have paradoxically corrupted the quality of most modern recordings. It is interesting then that he winds up at the end of the book putting himself through the paces of a modern day "sound test." In a blind comparison of a uncompressed sound clip in almost CD quality. with an identical clip of the same music that has been compressed using a codec and bit rate unknown to him. the author tries to identify the compressed clip. You may be surprised at the results reported by Milner as he processes the music through his own psycho-acoustic equipment (his ears and his brain).Overall. I can confidently recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing interest in the history of audio recording. and some of the more interesting stories that are part of that history. However. if reading page after page about lossless and lossy dynamic compression in MP3 players produces sleepiness instead of excitement. you might want to pick up an old copy of Aaron Coplands "What To Listen For in Music."
