Audio/Sound Terminology in Spanish: Help needed!

Question

I am part of a small team responsible for running a monthly coffee house. Since I am in charge of setting up the equipment, I occasionally run into difficulties when describing audio equipment with Spanish speaking musicians. I have learned most of the musical terminology. However, for the actual equipment, since slang is often used in the music world, you can not always do a word for word translation.

I usually have to use the following words:

monitor

"house" (coming through the house, etc.)

feedback

XLR cable

1/4 inch cable

splitter

snake

pigtails

direct box

amp (amplifier)

pre-amp

boom stand

input (number of inputs)

sound board (mixer)

EQ (high, mid, low ranges)

mic stand

gain

aux (auxiliaries)

set (song list)

Answer 1

Depends of the locations some names may change, usually may words are used in English or Spanglish. But this is the more common way to say these things

monitor = monitor accentuated in the last O

"house" = casa (not sure what is the content of this one)

XLR cable

1/4 inch cable = cable (see right pronunciation, cause sounds different)

splitter = adaptador

snake = manguera de cables (hose with cables)

pigtails = chicote de cable (short cable to conect)

direct box = caja directa

amp (amplifier) = amplificador

pre-amp = pre amplificador

boom stand = soporte para luces / micrófonos.. etc depends

input (number of inputs) = entradas (número de entradas)

sound board (mixer) = mezclador de sonido, panel de sonido

EQ (high, mid, low ranges) = equalizador

mic stand = soporte de micrófono , pie de micrófono

gain = ganancia acústica

aux (auxiliaries) = auxiliares

set (song list) = Lista de Canciones

Gracias Juluque. "house" refers to the main speakers/what the audience hears vs. "monitor" or what the musician hears. - Nicole-B, Feb 24, 2010

may be: parlante principal - juluque, Feb 24, 2010

Answer 2

Hi Nicole,

I think that this glossary might be of use to you: doctorproaudio diccionario

Thanks so much Iz!!!! Every time I look for a site, I am disappointed. This one is great! - Nicole-B, Feb 24, 2010

Answer 3

Juluque said:

Depends of the locations some names may change, usually may words are used in English or Spanglish.

This is exactly what I have found. People use a combination of English, Spanish or Spanglish. You never know what you are going to get.

So you basically wind up using a combination of two or three languages in one conversation.

yeap for example, many words I use in my job are new words that has to be with my profession and I dont use them in spanish, so we refer to them in English, is very common with new technologies and sciences, computers, etc. - juluque, Feb 24, 2010