A means of connecting two or more circuits together so that their inputs are connected together, and their outputs are all connected together.

A control found on mixers to move the signal to any point in the stereo soundstage by varying the relative levels fed to the left and right stereo outputs.

A resistive circuit for reducing signal level.

a component of a complex sound which has a higher frequency than the fundamental frequency, but which is not necessarily related by a simple integer multiple (cf. harmonics)

To exceed the maximum acceptable signal amplitude of an electronic or electrical circuit. Overloading a device results in a noticeable increase in distortion but this may be deemed musically beneficial and desirable, or completely unacceptable and inappropriate, depending on context and intent. Overloading an analogue device typically results in the waveform peaks becoming flattened (so tending towards a square wave) and a consequent rapid increase in odd-order harmonic distortion where the distortion products appear at higher frequencies than the source signal fundamentals, but remain musically related to them. In contrast, overloading a digital system inherently contravenes the Nyquest Theorum, since he generated harmonic distortion products generally extend far above half the sampling frequency, and so become aliased and actually appear at lower frequencies than the source fundamentals with a non-musical relationship. This is why digital overloads sound so obvous and unpleasant in comparison to analogue overloads.

The intentional use of overloaded analogue circuitry as a musical effect.

Recording new material to separate tracks while auditioning and playing in synchronism with previously recorded material.

The nominal output voltage generated by a microphone for a known reference acoustic sound pressure level. Output sensitivity is normally specified for a sound pressure level of one Pascal (94dB SPL), and may range from about 0.5mV/Pa for a ribbon microphone, to 1.5mV/Pa for a moving coil, and up to 20 or 30mV/Pa for a capacitor microphone.

The effective internal impedance (resistance which many change with signal frequency) of an electronic device. In modern audio equipment the output impedance is normally very low. Microphones are normally specified with an output impedance of 150 or 200 ohms, although some vintage designs might be as low as 30 Ohms.

see Polarity.