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We've had a few questions about audio processing that have felt perhaps slightly tangential to Audio Recording and Production to me, such as the topics about how to recognize notes, keys, tempo etc. On one hand these techniques are important tools in audio production, but knowing how these algorithms work or even how to implement feels a lot closer to Stack Overflow or other Q&A sites to me.

I started writing a comment to this question about perhaps not fitting quite in: How do song recognition services (like Shazam) work? -- but then I started thinking about the scope of Audio Recording & Production. As a software engineer I am certainly biased, but I think questions and answers about digital signal processing might be interesting too to the (potential) audience of this site?

How would Audio Recording, Production and Processing sound?

I realize I might be way too late to bring this up, and that the rest of the participants on meta have already hashed out the direction of this site. That's fine with me, I'm not on a mission to change and uproot and revolutionize. But I would like to see our number of members and the rate of questions grow much quicker than they have so far and maybe this would be a gentle way to increase the scope slightly without alienating the original intended audience.

So anyway, vote away! I wonder if there is a badge for achieving -10 on meta? :-)

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My thoughts are along the same lines as Kim's. A few things to add:

  • I think most Recording/Production experts are not Signal Processing experts, and most SP experts are not R/P experts.
  • I think most R/P experts would find SP questions interesting, even if they weren't SP experts, and would not be turned off by SP questions appearing here.
  • I think it will be easier to attract SP experts because a lot of them are already aware of and active in the StackExchange network.
  • I think if SP activity starts to overshadow R/P activity we will turn away some new R/P visitors.

I wish we could focus on growing the site by attracting more R/P experts rather than expanding the scope, but I think adding SP can work if we keep the above points in mind. You have my upvote!

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  • +1: Agreed, the boundary for SP questions would have to be maintained more strictly, as topics only loosely related to SP might not be relevant to audio recording and production at all.
    – user13
    Jan 28, 2011 at 6:50
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Sounds good to me -- it seems related.

The general guideline we use is that experts using the site would not be turned off or turned away by the presence of this particular topic appearing on the site.

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    +1: This strikes me as a great guideline.
    – Warrior Bob
    Feb 3, 2011 at 15:24
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I have to admit that the idea that signal processing could be off topic hadn't entered my mind. It's an integral part of recording and production.

I'm even slightly skeptical about splitting up recording and musicianship in general. An audio engineer will probably need to know how to tune drums, for example.

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  • I agree totally. I couldn't agree more. And audio engineer needs to know quite a bit of basics of the instruments. I have so many questions on it, and people here do know the answers! It would make this site so active too! Stackoverflow would feel the shadow.
    – Vass
    Mar 9, 2011 at 12:28
  • An audio engineer does need to know how to tune a drum. Whether a question related to that belongs on this site is a completely different story. If an audio engineer needs to tune a drum, who would he ask for advice? A drummer or a colleague?
    – Pelle
    Mar 14, 2011 at 10:30
  • The question is not who he would ask, but who can answer. It's not a question of a split in topics, but in audiences.
    – Lennart Regebro
    Mar 14, 2011 at 10:44
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Those who frequent the KvR forums will know that there is a thriving DSP and Plugin Development sub-forum, so yes, I don't see why developers who are into audio recording and production might not want to ask some questions here. In fact, it would be a much better resource for the kind of common questions people ask (filter design, FFT implementations, etc) than a forum where the really good answers get lost in the forum history.

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