The course is called "Fundamentals of Audio and Music Engineering: Part 1 Musical Sound & Electronics" and lasts six weeks starting on Feb. 3rd. I don't know anything about the course past what's listed on the web page (https://www.coursera.org/course/audiomusicengpart1 (https://www.coursera.org/course/audiomusicengpart1)), but the syllabus looks interesting and relevant to the interests of folks around here. This is the syllabus:
Week 1
Lesson 1: Introduction to oscillations and sound waves, simple oscillating systems, sound pressure, sound waves, the speed of sound, wavelength, frequency and pitch, sound pressure level, loudness, making sound, properties of musical sound versus "noise"
Lesson 2: Electronics fundamentals - charge, current, voltage, power, resistance, Ohm's law, DC circuits, finding currents and voltages in simple circuits
Week 2
Lesson 1: Reflection and absorption of sound, resonances in air columns, resonances in enclosures and rooms, diffraction and diffusion of sound, reverberation, principles of designing a good music studio
Lesson 2: AC signals, phase and complex numbers, capacitors, inductors, transformers, impedance, AC circuits and AC circuit analysis, simple filters (high-pass, low-pass, band-pass)
Week 3
Lesson 1: Transistors, vacuum tubes, opamps, amplification, power gain, single-stage amplifiers
Lesson 2: Converting sound to electrical signals –microphones and guitar pickups, converting electrical signals to sound – loudspeakers
Week 4
Lesson 1: Electric guitar electronics, pickup design, pickup placement and tone, volume control circuits, tone control circuits
Lesson 2: Overview of a simple guitar amplifier, power supply, volume control, preamp, tone control, power amp section
Week 5
Lesson 1: Designing speaker enclosures, basic principles, interaction of speaker driver with the cabinet, why a cabinet at all?
Lesson 2: Speaker designs for home stereo, crossover networks, guitar amplifier (open) speaker enclosures, bass amplifier (closed and vented) speaker enclosures
Week 6
Lesson 1: Building the guitar amplifier, how to solder, getting the amp to work - systematic testing and troubleshooting
Lesson 2: Visualizing sound waves, frequency content and tone, signal modification in electro-acoustic systems, tube amplifiers and distortion, wah pedal, talk box
Looks interesting! I don't have enough to do so I guess I should sign up.
I would love to take that class. It looks awesome.
Jacob
That looks pretty interesting, I could benefit from readin'. It says its 'free', but is it 'free' or...'free' free...? I think it might only be 50 bucks to do the course anyway.
This looks great. I'm all signed up. Thanks for spreading the word!
Mike
Also is it possible that Brian can host the course? Now id definitely sign up to that :D
Looks to me like it's $50 if you want the handsome certificate with your very own name on it, free otherwise. No one asked for $ when I signed up.
Yeah I think so Mike. well, nothing to lose then hah?
Free w/o cert. I'm signed up.
Me 2! We should have a madbean study group :D
Quote from: chromesphere on January 29, 2014, 03:46:09 AM
Me 2! We should have a madbean study group :D
I was thinking the same thing.
My concern is the math part. I was an artist in school and had no interest in math whatsoever. So I never took any algebra. I wonder if someone like me can still make it through this course.
I signed up cause it was free. I may need to take it again if I can't get through it all due to lack of time. We'll see how much work it is.
Jacob
I've tried and dropped out of several of their courses, mostly due to time constraints. With work and kids and soldering, I just couldn't find enough hours in a day to do assignments and such. I'll sign up for this as well but I don't expect it to end any differently. ;D
Awesome tip! My goal for pedal building this year is to move from "can follow a recipe and solder well enough" to "actually knows something about why and how these things work". Perfect timing!
Niiiice!
i liked the idea that Brian is helding some lecture :P
Paul´s idea of a madbean group is also cool!!
Thanks for sharing
Cool! I'm glad some others here are going to do this. I'm signing up for it too. I may not be able to finish it either because I may not have the time to keep up, but I'm going to give it a try.
I'm in.
I'm signed up.
I'm in, too.
Same here, signed up. Most of it will probably be over my head.
This is exactly the type of class I've been looking for! Can't wait!
I signed up yesterday, but forgot to say anything until I saw this thread again.
Funny, I had a student ask me to award credit in this course as an independent study. My college hasn't sorted out a way to ethically do that, but I want to take the course for my own benefit. There was a related course in Processing that looked interesting too.
FWIW, there are usually Coursera offerings in math that might help with this course--but the description seems a broad enough survey that you could googlecheat your way through the hard parts. The stakes are low, especially compared to the benefits.
I'm signed up as well. My math skills are pretty sad but I've started using these online classes to bring them back up to speed. http://www.khanacademy.org/
Free as well.
Double post
I'll start a little forum sub-section for the course. We can have discussions on the material, pose questions, etc. I would not worry too much about any maths. While I've forgotten probably 90% of whatever I learned earning my college math degree, I can at least point anyone in the right direction when it comes to problem solving. I'm sure there are a few others here that can help in that regard...this is a pretty smarty pants group (in a good way).
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?board=57.0
Well I'm in.
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Hmmm...trigonometry :o I took one class in high scool in trig and while taking the final I had a collapsed lung and ended up in the hospital for 5 days with a chest tube. Sh$t sign me up ;D I'm in.
Do you think there will be a problem if I skip the first week or if I could see the videos later? I finish my exams on Feb 7th...
Hey! What about a oriented course on pedals electronics? Via skype or whatever? Of course would need the experts here to command the show! I would be willing to pay for a course , no doubt!!
A new iteration of this course has started on June 20th. I've signed up, is anybody joining me? 😆