Ben Duncan

The Newnes Know It All Series takes the best of what our authors have written to create hard-working desk references that will be an engineer's first port of call for key information, design techniques and rules of thumb. Guaranteed not to gather dust on a shelf! Audio engineers need to master a wide area of topics in order to excel. The Audio Engineering Know It All covers every angle, including digital signal processing, power supply design, microphone and loudspeaker technology as well as audio compression.

A classic memoir retold to reveal a long kept secret. When Ben Duncan chronicled his evolution from a Depression-era orphan in Alabama to an Oxford educated writer and commentator in England in 1962, he was unable to tell his whole story. He revealed much - a harrowing childhood, his tenacity and drive for self-definition and self-creation. But he also hid crucial parts of his life that would remain masked for fifty years. As a gay man living in Great Britain at a time when homosexuality was aggressively prosecuted in the courts, Duncan was forced to hide an essential feature of his life and identity. Now, in ""The Same Language"", Duncan tells his story anew, weaving throughout his original memoir italic passages that reveal the true circumstances of his life - dire, humorous, and angry by turns - and honour the kinds of love, sexuality, and support that animated and defined his existence. Shifting from past to present and back again, Duncan tells of growing up in a string of foster homes, joining the military, earning a scholarship to Oxford, and negotiating the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of English immigration officials determined to keep him out. But here also is Duncan's account of his evolving sexuality, the many masks he was forced to contrive for survival and acceptance, and a vivid rendering of the underground world of gay life at every level of academia, politics, class, and social life in 50s and 60s-era Britain. An alien in his adopted country, an alien by nature of his sexual orientation, Duncan's story is a touching chronicle of one man's search for home - in a new country, with a man he loves, and within himself - a life no longer masked, but his own.

From faders to frequencies microphones to mixing pink noise to polarity this is the all-inclusive manual for creating the finest sound for live performances. It applies to the entire range of stage performers and their equipment ä solo acoustic guitar and vocal full-scale band requiring complex amplification or electronica DJ working multiple turntables. Every aspect of live sound is covered including: analyzing venue needs acquiring and managing the ideal sound system setting up and testing equipment understanding and applying the theories of acoustics maintenance trouble-shooting and much more. Also features a 15 000-word technical glossary.

Power amplifiers and their performance lie at the heart of audio engineering and provide some challenging problems for the engineer. Ben Duncan's experience, as an audio consultant, analog electronics designer and author, give him an unique insight into this difficult but rewarding field. Linking analog electronics, acoustics, heat and music technology; high-end hi-fi and professional PA and recording studio use; theory, modelling and real-world practice; design and repair; the old and the new, the mainstream and the specialised, this comprehensive guide to power amps is a core reference for anyone in the industry, and any interested onlookers. Ben Duncan is well known to many users of audio power amplifiers around the world, both professional and domestic, through his articles, reviews and research papers on music technology in the UK and US press, and through his part in creating several notable professional power amplifiers. Since 1977, he has been involved in the design of over 70 innovative, high-end audio products used by recording and broadcast studios, on stages, in clubs and by the most critical domestic listeners - as well as creating bespoke equipment for top musicians. Born in London, he has travelled widely but has lived mainly in Lincolnshire, home of his family for over 150 years. He is twice co-author of the book Rock Hardware in which he has chronicled the history of rock'n'roll PA. Reprinted with corrections September 1997