A synthesizer with no keyboard, often rack mountable or in some other compact format.

A hardware or software plug-in device designed to increase the dynamic range, typically by reducing the volume of low level signals (below a set threshold), or to increase the volume of high level signals (above a threshold). (See Compressor.)

An audio processor that works by synthesizing new high frequency harmonics.

In MIDI terms, an event is a single unit of MIDI data, such as a note being turned on or off, a piece of controller information, a program change, and so on.

A control protocol developed by Euphonix which operates at high-speed over an Ethernet connection. It is used between control surfaces and DAW computers to convey information about the positions of faders, knobs, and buttons and to carry display information.

To remove recorded material from an analogue tape, or to remove digital data from any form of storage media.

A means of describing the intrinsic electronic noise at the output of an amplifier in terms of an equivalent input noise, taking into account the amplifier’s gain.

A device which allows the user to adjust the tonality of a sound source by boosting or attenuating specific ranges of frequencies. Equalisers are available in the form of shelf equalisers, parametric equalisers and graphic equalisers — or as a combination of these basic forms. (cf Filter)

Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. Similar to ROM, but the information on the chip can be erased and replaced using special equipment. (See ROM)

A way of describing the relative levels within a piece of music.