science

Lawo

Lawo is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lawo rather than just read about it. In short: Lawo is an international company based in Rastatt, Germany, specializing in the manufacture of digital mixing consoles and other professional audio equipment. It was founded in 1970 by Peter Lawo, and is currently run by his son Philipp.

Key takeaways

Lawo belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lawo to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lawo from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lawo is an international company based in Rastatt, Germany, specializing in the manufacture of digital mixing consoles and other professional audio equipment. It was founded in 1970 by Peter Lawo, and is currently run by his son Philipp. The company is notable for supplying the audio mixing equipment for the 2012 London Olympics and Nine Network, and for sports events in Asia, North America and Australia. The first developments of Peter Lawo were driven by the needs of composers of electronic music like Karlheinz Stockhausen. To Stockhausen's specifications Peter Lawo built an apparatus called "module 69 B" which was used to perform Stockhausen's composition Mantra. The success of this production led to the founding of the Experimentalstudio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of the Südwestfunk in 1971. Together with the first director of this studio, Hans Peter Haller, Peter Lawo developed the Halaphon. (The name resulted from the names of the developers: HA(ller)-LA(wo)-PHON). This machine became famous when being used in all the later works of composer Luigi Nono.

Later, Peter Lawo developed mixing consoles for Stockhausen, whose composition Oktophonie was produced in the Studio for Electronic Music of the German Public Broadcaster WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk). For the production of this composition, the automatic recall of very fast fader movements was used—which was made possible by Lawo's hybrid mixing console PTR ("Programmierbare Ton Regie" = programmable audio control).

History 1970 – founded by Peter Lawo as engineer's office for electronic equipment

1970s – Development of electronic sound processors (Vocoder, Halaphon and alike) and analog mixing consoles 1980s – Development of a programmable audio mixing console called PTR with digital control and analog signal processing 1990s – Development of the digital mc series mixing consoles 2007 – Introduction of DAW plugins for Windows. 2008 – Lawo acquire majority shares in French digital audio company Innovason. 2010 – Introduction of the Sapphire mixing console at the IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam. 2012 – 50 Lawo consoles were used for sound mixing in the 2012 London Olympics.

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lawo

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lawo claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lawo before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lawo ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lawo

In research: Lawo appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lawo in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lawo is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Audio equipment manufacturers of Germany, Audio mixing console manufacturers, Companies based in Baden-Württemberg, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lawo outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lawo in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lawo means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lawo out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lawo in simple terms?

Why does Lawo matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lawo?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lawo.