Intro to Audio Production:
Goals:
Examine the technical aspects of analog and digital audio
Activities:
Comparing Analog and Digital formats for audio recordings
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Audio refers to sound that may be captured and stored in a medium in either analog or digital formats.
Analog Audio:
Analog audio is like a continuous wave, similar to the way sound naturally travels through the air.
It's represented as a continuous and smooth electrical signal that mirrors the sound wave's shape. As you can see to the right
Analog Audio is prone to interference and degradation over long distances. Quality may degrade with time.
Examples: Vinyl records, cassette tapes, and older telephones use analog audio.
Digital Audio:
Digital audio breaks sound into tiny pieces or samples and represents it as numbers.
It's represented using a series of discrete numbers, usually in binary code (0s and 1s).
Resistant to interference and can maintain its quality over long distances and time.
Examples: CDs, MP3 files, and streaming services use digital audio.
In simple terms, analog is like a smooth wave, while digital is like choppy steps or numbers. Digital audio is more reliable and can be easily stored and transmitted, while analog audio can be affected by various factors and might lose quality over time.
Activity One
On your website answer the following questions:
Give three examples of devices that record in analog.
Give three examples of devices that record in digital.
a) From the diagram below, which of the two waves would be an analog wave and which would be a digital wave? How do you know?
b) What are the similarities and differences between the two waves?
What does it mean when we say a digital audio file is lossless? Give three examples of a lossless file format.
What does it mean when we say a digital audio file is lossy? Give three examples of a lossy file format.
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