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- DIGITAL TO ANALOG AUDIO CONVERTER HOW IT WORKS SOFTWARE
- DIGITAL TO ANALOG AUDIO CONVERTER HOW IT WORKS PROFESSIONAL
- DIGITAL TO ANALOG AUDIO CONVERTER HOW IT WORKS SERIES
There's a hard and fast rule (the Nyquist theorem) stating that the sample rate must be more than twice as high as the highest note you want to record. Sample rate represents the number of samples the program takes in a second.
DIGITAL TO ANALOG AUDIO CONVERTER HOW IT WORKS PROFESSIONAL
Some professional audio programs record at 24-bit, which lets it ask eight more "above or below" questions per moment, making it 256 times more accurate. So, 16-bit, which is standard CD-quality sound, asks 16 questions, and each value is represented by a 16-digit binary number, something like 0100010101101111. And so on, until you've narrowed it enough to come up with a number that's close to the real value.īitrate represents the number of questions that the program asks at each moment. The first question: is the value above or below the halfway point? Let's say it's above half, which the program records as a "1." The second question: if you cut that first half into half again, would the value be higher or lower? Above=1, below=0.
DIGITAL TO ANALOG AUDIO CONVERTER HOW IT WORKS SERIES
The program asks a series of questions to determine the value of the sound at the moment it's taking the sample. If you imagine the graph of the squiggly line, it's plotted against a theoretical top (the highest value the program can record) and bottom (the lowest possible value).
DIGITAL TO ANALOG AUDIO CONVERTER HOW IT WORKS SOFTWARE
In digital recording, a software program takes samples of that sound. For various reasons-physics and years of conditioning-these types of noise can sound acceptable, or even desirable, to many people. Other types of noise arise from irregularities in the surface of the tape ( modulation and asperity), or from trying to force more signal onto the tape than it can handle ( oversaturation). (Remember, we've taken time out of the equation because this is one point in the tape, so all that's left to measure is the value itself.) Even if there's no sound, the metal pieces are still passing by the head, which creates tape noise. Very roughly, the more of those pieces aligned in the same direction, the higher the value. In recording, the question is: how do you capture that changing value? Tape uses tiny magnetizable bits of metal. Or, in a more relevant example, a group of musicians playing instruments. There's only one value at any given moment, but over the course of a second or so, the changes in that average give you the overall character of the sound, which your ear interprets as a group of people saying their names. But instead of a perfect sine wave, it appears as a complicated squiggly line. A stream of such values, over time, can be charted as on a graph. So, at each moment, it's taking the average of all the frequencies and volumes of all the noises in the room and presenting a value for it. Imagine a microphone recording this incident: at any given moment, the diaphragm of that microphone can only be at one position. At any given moment, there are dozens of individual voices, all at different pitches and volumes. Think of a roomful of people all saying their names at the exact same time. The distance between one peak and the next is the frequency, or pitch, of that tone.īut pure tones don't occur in nature. Looking at the overall wave, the distance between the top and bottom of that wave is the volume of that tone. Each point on the sine wave has two values, height (volume) and its point in time. Here's a super-condensed version of an already simplified explanation.Ī pure tone can be represented as a perfect sine wave.
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Recently, one of these professionals presented the best explanation of analog vs. Or something like that.Īudio professionals don't use terms like these, largely because they're subjective and imprecise, and sometimes inaccurate. You've heard it before: digital music sounds "colder" or "cleaner" or "more sterile" because it's delivering a stream of 0s and 1s, instead of a pure sound wave. But included in those preferences are some preconceptions. I, like a lot of other musicians and music fans, have my own preferences-I own many more LPs than CDs, and have paid dearly to record some of my bands' music onto 2-inch tape instead of direct to hard drive.