An electronic circuit that attenuates the output of a particular device. Often found on microphones, pads are used to bring down the microphone's output level for use with a preamplifier that would otherwise become overloaded due to a hot input.

To pan, or panning refers to the act of moving the perceived location of a sound source within a stereo soundstage. Generally works by reducing or making louder the particular sound source in either the left or right channel of a stereo output. Although slightly more sophisticated electronics are used to control this movement accurately, the net result is the same.

To pan, or panning refers to the act of moving the perceived location of a sound source within a stereo soundstage. Generally works by reducing or making louder the particular sound source in either the left or right channel of a stereo output. Although slightly more sophisticated electronics are used to control this movement accurately, the net result is the same.

An electronic device that does not use any amplification circuits. Applied mostly to filters, it describes a cut-only design, and because of this, passive circuits are less prone to distortion. In practice, even though a filter is described as passive, it may none the less have make-up gain circuitry at its output to compensate for the loss in power that cutting can cause.

An element in speaker design that is used to improve the bass response of smaller cabinets. Consisting of a diaphragm that resembles a woofer, but without the voice coil, it is meant to move sympathetically with the energy delivered by the active woofer. While providing a greater bass response, the diaphragm is hard to control and can lead to overtly boomy bass response.

Also called a program, a patch refers to a single programmed sound on a synthesizer or sampler that can be recalled by a program change command. Also refers to a temporary fix for software that is publicly released, in which a bug was not previously found during the testing cycle. The patch is usually incorporated in the next software revision.

Maximum instantaneous level of a signal, peak is the maximum value, either positive or negative that a waveform achieves. Important in audio in that when a signal peaks beyond what a circuit can handle, distortion appears.

The part of a non-mechanical meter, where the topmost LED will stay lit to indicate an over. Useful in digital recording or mastering situations where any overs are undesirable. Often the length of time a meter will display the over is user definable as is what constitutes an over (how many successive samples.)

A feature in surround systems that allows for the creation of center channel information when a center speaker is not part of the set-up. Achieved by folding what would be center information into the left and right speakers. This produces a "phantom" center image.

Waveforms are repetitious. That is, they proceed through regular cycles. Phase is defined as to how far along a cycle the waveform is, with 360 degrees being the point of a completed cycle.