V.O., Voice Over@Text spoken by an unseen person, either over a music background in radio commercials, during presentations of various kinds, or by an off-camera actor in television and film, especially in television commercial spots.@V-LAN@A protocol for remote control of VTR's through a serial connection. See also Sony 9-pin.@Vamp@Musical term. A musical figure, or chord progression which is repeated freely until a cue is received to proceed to the next section of the piece. Term frequently used in jazz and rock music, to refer to this type of introduction, or backing for a solo. This term is also commonly used in music for theater, where the length of such a vamp section depends on the actions of the onstage performers.@Varispeed@Adjustment of the playback speed of an audio recorder, especially when used to match the musical pitch of a sound source being recorded, or to obtain special effects. Digidesign's SMPTE Slave Driver incorporates a "varispeed" function, which alters the clock speed of digital audio file playback to achieve a similar effect. The playback speed can be adjusted as a percentage or in musical semitones.@VCA@Voltage-Controlled Amplifier. A common component used in older analog synthesizers to apply gain (amplitude) changes over the duration of a sound, according to voltages received from an Envelope Generator. The gain level of the amplifier varies in response to an input DC voltage, usually from 0 to +5 volts DC. VCAs are still prevalently used for gain control in automated mixing systems. They are also usually the mechanism by which compressors, expanders and noise gates effect their gain changes.@VCO, Voltage Controlled Oscillator@An oscillator circuit whose frequency can be varied by an analog DC voltage, commonly at the rate of one volt per octave. Most early analog synthesizers used this sound generating component, whose digital synthesis equivalent is the DCO, see definition. Also, on many analog and digital delays, an LFO is used to modulate delay times (particularly to achieve "chorus" and "flange" effects).@VCR@Abbreviation for Video Cassette Recorder.@Vegas Pro@DAW product, by Sonic Foundry (also developers of Sound Forge, a widely-used stereo audio editing program for Windows). Multitrack digital audio editing and recording. resolution up to 24-bit/96 KHz (depending on hardware), support for DirectX plug-ins with up to 32 sends. 4-band EQ and compressor inserts on each track. Supports .WAV and .AIF file formats, even together on a single track. Non-destructive editing. Support for creation of Internet streaming audio file formats, including: Windows Media Format (.ASF) , Windows Media Audio (.WMA) and RealNetworks RealMedia G2 (.RM).@Velocity, Velocity-Sensitive@In MIDI instruments, a parameter of each Note On MIDI event, that indicates the speed at which the key was depressed. Patches in the receiving module may be programmed to respond in a wide variety of ways to velocity information. Keyboards or other controllers capable of registering this information and transmitting it as the performer plays, are Velocity-Sensitive. See also Aftertouch.@Velocity Zone@SampleCell term. Part of SampleCell's approach to mapping sampled sounds to the keyboard. Permits different samples to be triggered, according to how hard the performer strikes each key (a technique commonly known as "velocity switching"). For example, key assigned to a snare drum sound might trigger a sharper, rimshot sample of that drum, when struck at a higher Velocity.@VESA Local Bus, VL-Bus@Computing term. A specification describing a local bus design for personal computers (based on Intel microprocessors), which was developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association. Achieves data transfer rates of up to 40 MB/second. See also EISA, ISA.@VGA@Virtual Graphics Array. A common PC graphics standard for monitors, developed originally by IBM, 640x480 pixels (a total of 307,200), at up to 256 colors per pixel. VGA monitors are also supported by some models of Macintosh. Super-VGA (SVGA) extends this standard to higher resolution and more colors. SVGA monitors and graphic cards have replaced VGA in most current models of PC-compatible computers.@VHS, S-VHS@Analog videotape format, prevalent in the consumer market. It uses 1/2" videocassettes. S-VHS, or Super-VHS uses S-Video to achieve higher quality, recording the chroma (color) and luminance (brightness levels) signals separately. See S-Video.@Vibrato@In synthesizers, Vibrato is a slow (<8Hz) frequency modulation of an audio tone, which causes a periodic change in its pitch. It is similar to this characteristic effect of the same name, used in many instrumental or vocal techniques. Violinists and guitarists produce these small, periodic variations in the pitch of a sustained note through an oscillating motion of the left hand. (Singers also frequently use the term "tremolo" for the noticeable wavering of a vocalist's pitch, and "vibrato" for the periodic pulsation in the strength of a tone, achieved by modulating wind pressure over the vocal chords. That is to say, exactly the reverse of how these terms are used by other instrumentalists. Go figure!) See also Tremolo.@Video Slave Driver@Digidesign product. Rackmounted hardware peripheral for synchronizing Pro Tools hardware to a Black Burst video signal, also known as House Sync, in order to maintain phase-accurate synchronization of the Audio Interface's clock to a central source over long periods of time. See Black Burst.@Video Time Piece, VTP@Mark of the Unicorn product. A rackmounted unit that converts between SMPTE timecode, in either VITC or LTC formats (i.e., encoded either into a video or audio signal), and MIDI TimeCode (MTC). Can also be used to Stripe (record) timecode from your computer onto audio or video tape, using the included VTP software for Mac or PC. Its video output can also "burn in" (overlay) a timecode window over an incoming video signal, while adding the VITC into the overscanning area at the top of the video frame, as well as streamers, logos, etc. Does not include any direct connection to the computer, a standard MIDI interface is still required. See also VITC, SMPTE, LTC.@Virtual Memory@Apple Macintosh term. A feature of the Memory Control Panel, which uses hard disk to simulate additional RAM beyond the physical RAM you actually have on your computer. This technique of PAGING memory to disk has been used since the early days of computing; the drawback, of course, is that access to a portion of memory which is on disk is many times slower than RAM memory access. NOTE: You should NEVER turn Virtual Memory on when working with hard disk recording programs!!!@Virtual Track@Refers to the ability of DAWs such as Pro Tools to effectively work with many more audio tracks than the actual physical number of channels and voices would imply. Unlike linear tape recorders, with a strict correlation between the outputs and physical tracks on tape, each onscreen audio track is assigned to one voice out of a shared pool, whose total number is determined by the hardware configuration. Priority for voices is determined by track number. When a lower track number needs to grab a particular voice (because a segment of audio appears within it), it will always sound, even if a higher track number using the same voice is already sounding. The higher track will stop, and then continue sounding when the lower track finishes with that voice. The user assigns voice numbers to tracks so as to avoid conflicts, maximizing the effective polyphony of the Session. See also Voice.@Virtual Tracking@Audio industry term: the use of MIDI sequencers to supply additional musical parts, in synchronization with other conventional audio tracks recorded on a multitrack tape machine. The MIDI parts are played back in real time during mixdown, they never actually get recorded to the multitrack.@Virus@A self-replicating computer program, which spreads itself from disk to disk, or when files are transferred over computer networks. Viruses can cause file damage, making you lose valuable data and time. They are deliberately created and distributed by malicious, aberrant individuals. A pox upon them! If disks or files come and go between your computer and others, protect yourself by frequently scanning all your drives with anti-virus programs, such as Disinfectant, Virex, SAM, etc. Also, if you begin to experience anomalous malfunctions in your computer programs, it may be worth the effort to scan your system disk with an antivirus program, just in case. Antivirus programs can often eradicate the virus. But don't forget to also disinfect all removable media used with the infected computer, such as diskettes and SyQuest cartridges, etc.!@VITC@Vertical Interval TimeCode, a way of encoding SMPTE timecode into a video signal. SMPTE information is placed into the "Overscan" area (or Vertical Blanking Interval), the top couple of dozen lines in the video frame, which are beyond the upper limit of the image that appears on television screens. VITC timecode data consists of a 90-bit word (bits 0 through 89) for every video frame, however the structure of the timing references themselves is identical to other forms of SMPTE. VITC facilitates precise editing of audio for video, because SMPTE frame numbers are transmitted even when manually "jogging" the tape from one frame to another, at extremely slow speeds. Longitudinal SMPTE (LTC) cannot be read while the transport is paused, as the timecode word is spread out over time as an audio signal. Nor can it be read when moving the tape very slowly, due to audio bandwidth limitations of the recorder itself. See also SMPTE TimeCode, LTC, MTC.@VOC@A PC file format for digitized audio, associated with the Creative Labs Sound Blaster card; these files have the .VOC extension on their filenames.@Vocoder@A signal processing device which analyzes the frequency content of an audio input (especially a human voice), and translates that in real time into a complex filtering process, used for shaping electronic sounds in synthesizers. In Channel Vocoders, this process is accomplished by passing the control input (the voice) through a series of bandpass filters, analyzing the amplitude envelopes of each band. The amplitude values extracted for each band are applied to an identical set of filters, which act upon another signal to which the vocoding effect is to be applied (the "carrier").@Voices@Refers to the number of simultaneous audio tracks that a Pro Tools system can play back at a given moment. It is somewhat comparable to the concept of polyphony in MIDI modules (although the assignment of priority works differently). Your Digidesign hardware configuration determines the number of voices available, which may actually be superior to the number of physical channels of input/output for audio. However, this pool of voices can be shared between a far greater number of tracks. Whenever a Voice is not occupied reproducing an audio region in a higher-priority track, it is available for other tracks assigned to the same voice. For this reason, in practical terms, a 16-voice Pro Tools system permits working with a LOT more tracks than a 16-track tape machine! See also Virtual Track.@Volt@Unit used to describe Electromotive Force (also known as Electric Potential Difference). One Volt is the difference in potential required between two points or conductors, that requires one joule of work to move a positive charge of one coulomb from the lower to the higher. (In simpler terms, a potential difference of one Volt will drive a one Ampere current through a resistance of one Ohm.)@Voltage Regulator@An AC power processing device which maintains a constant output voltage regardless of fluctuations in the input voltage.@VRAM@Video RAM, memory dedicated to the graphics processor of a computer. In the case of PC graphic adapters and many high-end Macintosh graphics cards, the VRAM is actually on the graphics card itself. VRAM is a separate set of chips from the RAM utilized by the computer's operating system itself. See RAM.@VST@Audio plug-in format developed by Steinberg (manufacturers of the Cubase family of MIDI/audio sequencers), and also supported by various other DAW software. VST is one of the plug-in formats that is most widely supported by by 3rd party developers. It supports both file-based and (especially) real-time functions, including many kinds of audio DSP. VST plug-ins can be automated, and interestingly, can also be controlled via MIDI (assuming, of course, that either of these is appropriate for the given type of plug-in, and supported by the host software). Emagic's Logic Audio, and Opcode's Vision MIDI/audio sequencers both support VST plug-in architecture, as does Ensoniq's Paris.@VTR@Abbreviation for Video Tape Recorder.@VU@Volume Units, a measure of audio signal level, see VU Meter.@VU Meter@An audio signal level meter, which has specific dynamic and damping characteristics, designed to give a useful visual indication of loudness, as it is perceived by the human ear. (VU stands for Volume Units.) A VU meter does not necessarily respond immediately to very rapid, transient peaks in a signal's amplitude, due to these ballistic characteristics. They are commonly found on professional mixing consoles and other audio components. For a system referenced to +4dBm (at 600√Ω), a continuous +4dBm sine wave input should produce a meter reading of 0 VU, or 100 percent.@
