Digital Music

Question 1

What is the difference between analog and digital?

Answer 1

Digital is the computer representation of information through numbers. Analog is basically the real world that uses non-discrete numbers.

Question 2

What is the Sampling Rate?

Answer 2

how often you store a number or take a sample
- in picture example it is the x-axis of a sound wave

Question 3

What is the Bit Depth/Dynamic Range?

Answer 3

how much space is being set aside to represent each number
- in picture example it is the y-axis of a sound wave

Question 4

What is MP3?

Answer 4

a lossy formate designed to store and compact digital audio

Question 5

What are techniques to reduce CD audio files?

Answer 5

• Psychoacoustics: humans can’t hear everything so use Fast Fourier Transform to change the wave and divide the different frequencies
• Huffman Encoding: re-encode information by reducing amount of space through considering which sounds are used more frequently

Question 6

What is FLAC?

Answer 6

a lossless audio format with no loss of music quality from CD audio