Boca SoundExpression 14.4VSP, User Manual

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Appendix F: A Note on Digital Sound
Traditionally, sound has been recorded in analog format. Magnetic tape is
an example of the media used by analog recording. Analog audio uses
electrical signals to create a single model of a given sound or “waveform”
as shown below:
Digital sound applies computer-based technology to the recording,
handling, and regeneration of sound. A digital waveform reduces the
sound to a sequence of binary numbers. Digital audio systems sample the
waveform and extrapolate the complete sound from the sample. When a
digital recording is played, the numeric data is transformed back to its
original acoustic waveform.
Tradeoffs
While the quality of a digital sound recording is subject to almost no
degradation (unlike an analog recording), digital sound storage
requirements are quite high in terms of computer hard disk space.
0 1
0
1 0 0 1 1
0
Time interval
Digital Waveform
Amplitude
Time interval
Analog Waveform
Amplitude
A Note on Digital Sound