Von: Lepa, Steffen via ak discourse
Datum: Thu, 22 May 2025
Betreff: [ak-discourse] WG: New Book – Gear: Cultures of Audio and Music Technologies
Dear colleagues,
Eliot Bates and I are delighted to announce the publication of our co-authored book, ‘Gear: Cultures of Audio and Music Technologies’, published by The MIT Press. It’s free and available via MIT Open Access:
https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5972/GearCultures-of-Audio-and-Music-Technologies
Synopsis
A critical examination of the twenty-first century fetishization of professional audio technologies, and how it led to a new social formation: gear cultures.
Gear: mixing consoles, outboard effects processors, microphones. These are professional studio recording-related technological objects—the tools of the recording industry—yet their omnipresence in the broader music industries and prosumer markets transcends the entrenched pro audio engineer guild. In Gear: Cultures of Audio and Music Technologies, authors Eliot Bates and Samantha Bennett ask: How does gear become gear? Why is it fetishized? And how is it even relevant in the predominantly digital twenty-first-century music technology landscape?
This multisited, multicountry, multiplatform, and multiscalar study focuses on gear in the present day. The authors trace the life of gear from its underlying materialities, components, and interfaces to its manufacturing processes, its staging in sites including trade shows and message fora, and its reception through (gear) canons, heritage, and obdurance. This book implements a meticulous multimode methodology drawing upon more than twenty-five firsthand long-form interviews with audio industry professionals—including gear designers, users, and publishers—as well as new findings drawn from multisited fieldwork, online discourse analysis, and visual ethnography.
Gear examines the present-day prevalence of gear and the existence of its surrounding passionate, competitive, and sometimes bizarre gear cultures.
Endorsements
“A smart and adventurous journey into the material and cultural forces that shape music today by two of the field’s most insightful critics, Gear is a must-read for tinkerers and theorists alike.“ ~ Kyle Devine, University of Winnipeg; author of Decomposed
“This deep dive into the social and cultural meanings surrounding audio technologies reorients our thinking about gear as more than mere hardware that conveys sound. A fascinating read!” ~ Susan Schmidt Horning, St. John’s University, New York; author of Chasing Sound
Why do we fetishize high-end audio technology? Read Gear to find out. Prepare to be surprised, unsettled, even alarmed by this brilliant, fascinating, myth-busting book. ~ Mark Katz, author of Music and Technology: A Very Short Introduction and Capturing Sound
“A powerful contribution to feminist sound studies that amplifies new voices and methods, Gear is a guide to the dismantling of ‘gear cultures’ and to envisioning more equitable sonic futures.” ~ Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, aka SAMMUS, Producer and Professor of Music, Brown University
Launches / conferences
Join us if you can for the launches / conference presentations throughout the rest of the year:
Monday May 26th 4.30pm AEST: ANU Research School of Social Sciences, Ngunnawal Ngambri / Canberra. With Professor Bronwyn Parry (Sam only) Register here
Tuesday May 27th 4pm ET: The Brook Center, CUNY, New York. With Professor Tina Frühauf (Eliot only) Register here
Monday July 7th 3pm CEST: IASPM International Conference, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris (Sam and Eliot)
September (date & time TBC): Roundtable presentation/ discussion, 4S Conference, Seattle, USA (Sam and Eliot)
September (date & time TBC): Conference presentation and keynote, Society for Music Production Research Conference, Victoria University, Canada (Sam and Eliot)
…and more TBC / TBA. Please get in touch if you’d like us to present at your research seminar!
With thanks.
All the best
Sam
Professor Samantha Bennett PFHEA
Professor of Music
Chair – International Association for the Study of Popular Music | IASPM
Associate Dean Higher Degree Research
Atg Head of School – School of Music
College of Arts and Social Sciences
The Australian National University
Beryl Rawson Building #13
Ellery Crescent
Acton
ACT 2601
T +61 2 6125 2712
samantha.bennett@anu.edu.au
Zoom Personal Meeting ID: 870 612 5110
CRICOS Provider 00120C | ABN: 52 234 063 906