This course deals in depth with the audio for visuals both from a technical and expressive point of view, from production and post-production up to the listener’s experience. The course will begin with a historical perspective, focusing on the scientific and technological advancement related to sound and image. Languages, technologies and all professional figures (from the set to the mixing room) will be analysed in depth, including managerial and organisational aspects. The course will conclude with a quick introduction to the audio for games in order to highlight its connection with audiovisual sound and its prerequisites that will be covered in core courses.

The course starts with some background on level measurement concepts, and an in-depth look at all types of level metering and the different scales and ballistics available.
The various standards and recommendations used in the industry are explained in depth, with a focus on how they can help you get optimal and consistent audio levels in your recordings for different applications (cinema, broadcast, music etc.)
You learn everything about oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers and vectorscopes. You’ll also get a deep understanding of advanced displays, such as the 2D and 3D spectrogram available in iZotope RX.
You’ll learn also how an electroacoustic chain can be analyzed in terms of alignment of analog and digital signals clarifying concepts about headroom, loudness, SPL, mic sensitivity, ADC and DAC, digital levels, amplification, loudspeaker’s sensitivity.

– The physical sound (elementary physics, materials, waves, boundaries, mechanical-electrical models)
– Oscillations (simple and complex harmonic oscillators)
– Acoustics (acoustic systems, intensity, propagation effects, oscillations)
– Psychoacoustics (sound perception and cognition, auditory scene analysis, auditory memory, listening strategies, physiological responses to sound, relations between sound, language and knowledge)
– Digital Signals (signals and systems in the time and frequency domains, Fourier and Wavelet approaches , multiresolution analysis)

The discussion will be kept to a qualitative level as much as possible in order to make the course accessible also to those without an engineering background. We will assume only a basic knowledge of high school mathematics and physics, although a basic understanding of the fundamentals of linear algebra and signal theory would be an advantage.

The need for significant reduction in data rate for wide-band digital audio signal transmission and storage has led to the development of psychoacoustics-based data compression techniques. In this approach, the limitations of human hearing are exploited to remove inaudible components of audio signals. The degree of bit rate reduction achievable without sacrificing perceived quality using these methods greatly exceeds that possible using lossless techniques alone. Perceptual audio coders are currently used in many applications including Digital Radio and Television, Digital Sound on Film, Multimedia/Internet Audio, Mobile Devices, etc.
This class integrates digital signal processing, psychoacoustics, rate/distortion optimization, and programming to provide the basis for understanding and building perceptual audio coding systems. We review the basic principles underlying all the core components of a perceptual audio codec and study the design choices applied in state-of-the-art audio coding schemes, e.g. AC-3 (aka Dolby Digital), Enhanced AC-3, AC-4; MPEG Layers I, II, and III (MP3); MPEG AAC; MPEG-H. In-class demonstrations will allow students to hear the quality of state-of-the-art implementations at varying data rates and, as a final project, you will be programming your own simple perceptual audio coder.

In this course you will learn how to place lavalier mics on actors and how to manage the boom, also moving accordingly to the needs of photography. In Rome you will have the chance to play the role of sound engineer and microphonist accompanied by the best professionals in the field who have been working for a long time with the most important Italian directors. All recorded material will be analyzed and selected in the mixing room during the live sessions of Sound Editing and Re-recording mixing courses.

In this module you will learn how to use private or public sound libraries or to record by yourself sound effects and backgrounds, with different microphone techniques, layering them in order to build the best suited sound for every scene, from a simple stereo up to the Atmos format, making choices coherent to the style chosen by the Director.

As a MAD student in your final quarter you can explore an area of personal interest by developing a specific project under the guidance under the tuition of a chosen MAD professor. This provides the opportunity to consolidate your learning and develop important skills you’ll need in both further education and life beyond the classroom. It also helps you develop confidence to become principled, lifelong learners and can have an immediate impact at work in your chosen area