A type of alcohol commonly used for cleaning and de-greasing tape machine heads and guides.

A device intended to prevent the transmission of physical vibrations over a specific frequency range, such as a rubber or foam block. The term can also be applied to audio isolation transformers, used to provide galvanic isolation between the source and destination, thus avoiding ground loops.

A separate room or enclosure, often called a 'Booth' designed to provide acoustic isolation from external noise. Often used alongside a studio's main live room to record vocals or drums, for example, without spill from other instruments.

Interrupt Request. Part of the operating system of a computer that allows a connected device to request attention from the processor in order to transfer data to it or from it.

Inches Per Second. Used to describe tape speed. Also the Institute of Professional Sound (www.ips.org.uk)

The input/output connections of a system.

A form of non-linear distortion that introduces frequencies not present in and musically unrelated to the original signal. These are invariably based on the sum and difference products of the original frequencies.

Something that happens occasionally and unpredictably, typically a fault condition.

A device that acts as an intermediary to two or more other pieces of equipment. For example, a MIDI interface enables a computer to communicate with MIDI instruments and keyboards.

The nominal signal level generated by an electric instrument like a guitar, bass guitar or keyboard. Typically around -25dBu. Instrument signals must be amplified to raise them to line-level.