Studio terminology changes with technology. This is an inevitable process and as new generations of studio engineers’ careers progress, newer meanings of words replace the previous meanings and become increasingly mainstream. This is how language works and in the same way as with language more generally there will always be a debate between those who welcome change, those who prefer the meanings of words to remain unchanged, and of course people for whom the original meaning of words might be unknown.

Vibrato and Tremolo

Famously the tremolo arm as found on the Fender Stratocaster affects the pitch of the instrument not the volume. Vibrato is the modulation of pitch and tremolo is the modulation of volume and unfortunately not only did Fender misname what they technically should have referred to as a vibrato arm and call it a tremolo arm, but the circuit which modulates the volume of certain guitar amplifiers is referred to as vibrato when it is actually tremolo. Is it any wonder that the use of both of these words has been confused for so long? Although it has been used wrong for many decades, every time someone adjusts their floating trem, or dials in a sound on the vibrato channel of an amp, they are compounding that change of meaning.

Reverb Chamber

The original source of controllable reverb in recording studios, the use of a dedicated small but highly reflective room, often with non-parallel walls to extend the decay time further, was the original hardware reverb. Using auxiliary sends from a mixing console feeding a speaker in the chamber, the resultant sound is picked up by microphones and routed back to the console via dedicated returns. This of course is exactly the same method as used in a modern DAW, although the technology involved is entirely different. However it is not only the technology is that different, it is also the terminology. The purpose built room in which the reverb is created is referred to as a chamber. But in the days when use of a chamber was still commonplace and was yet to be replaced by electromechanical and then digital reverbs, it was referred to as an echo chamber. The sends feeding the chamber where referred to as echo sends. It is only retrospectively that these chambers, designed for creating reverb, have been dubbed ‘reverb chambers’.

The reason for this is probably that while physical chambers are very unusual in 2023, the characteristic sound produced by such chambers is still very much in use in digital form. Open Liquidsonics’ Seventh Heaven and the default preset is a chamber. We suspect the most obvious explanation for how echo chambers have been renamed reverb chambers is because if “Chamber Reverb’ is available in a digital reverb, then for those who haven't worked with real chambers it's perfectly logical to refer to the chamber that produces the reverb as a “Reverb Chamber”. Just don't be surprised to hear something which is definitely a reverb effect come back when somebody sends something out to the echo chamber.

Patch

Anyone who has spent days wiring in a patchbay in a hardware studio will be only too aware of why what was originally a term which came from manually operated telephone exchanges could be so pervasive in a modern software studio. The most common use of the word ‘patch’ is when referring to synthesiser presets. Although heard it in other contexts, it is this use which comes to mind first. Returning to the physical act of manually making connections using jack leads and dedicated sockets to route signals from one place to another, it doesn't really matter whether you are patching a compressor into a mixer channel or patching and LFO to an oscillator in a modular synthesiser. It's all patching. The fact that a preset on the synthesiser is referred to as a patch is I think a rather nice homage to the early days of synthesis when recalling that killer sound involved far more than a click with the mouse. I for one don't miss patch bays in studios!

Tracking

Tracking has become a casual term for the act of recording something. It’s used to draw a distinction between capturing performances and the subsequent tasks of editing, mixing and mastering. However the term tracking hasn't always been used like this. Tracking in the sense it is used today was previously referred to by many as ‘basic tracking’, with the word ‘tracking’ reserved for the process of double tracking, recording something for a second time to thicken the sound.

This will probably come as a surprise to younger engineers as the use of tracking to mean capture has become so widespread, but to old-school engineers it carries a slightly different meaning.

Stems

The word ‘stems’ has become something of a linguistic battleground in production circles. Originally, and many would say correctly, stems were groups of related tracks. In post production the familiar stem terminology of music, effects, dialogue etc are standardised but in music production, while the creation of stems can be useful, exactly what those stems are is less rigidly defined. The idea is that you can output a group of stems and by recombining them at unity gain the original mix can be shared without necessarily being rendered to an inflexible stereo version.

The terminology has changed in recent years to mean rendering the output of every track in a session, possibly with effects printed and probably with automation rendered. This is seen by many as an incorrect use of the word. However if enough people use the word that way then it is the nature of language that words change their meaning whether we like it or not. A very clear example of this is found in Studio One. The command which bounces selected tracks individually is referred to as Bounce Stems…

Producer

The big one! In previous decades the producer was a very clearly defined role in the production of a record a record producer was in charge of the production and directed the band and engineering stuff steering the creative direction of a project.

Use of this word has changed significantly and these days is very commonly used to describe somebody who creates music within a DAW. I take this word to be something of a generational watershed and which use of it you feel comfortable with says something about you. Things have become more complicated with the increasing use of the term ‘Vocal Producer’. A vocal producer being somebody who fulfils a role more similar to the traditional Record Producer but focusing on the vocal performance while also fulfilling the role of engineer when it comes to capturing vocal performances and processing them.

I for one acknowledge that language is a living thing and studio terminology changes in the same way as any other words do. However I'm still going to silently correct anybody who refers to track bounces as stems! What studio terms do you come across which you have changed their meaning?