1. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
IG2 Task 1
1
Produce a glossary of terms specific to the methods and principles of sound design and production. Using a provided template, you must
research and gather definitions specific to provided glossary terms. Any definitions must be referenced with the URL link of the website you
have obtained the definition.
You must also, where possible, provide specific details of how researched definitions relate to your own production practice.
Name: Joseph kenyon RESEARCHED DEFINITION (provide short internet
researched definition and URL link)
DESCRIBE THE RELEVANCE OF THE
RESEARCHED TERM TO YOUR OWN
PRODUCTION PRACTICE?
SOUND DESIGN
METHODOLOGY
Foley Artistry “A Foley Artist 'recreates' sound effects for film, television and
radio productions on a Foley Stage in a Post Production Studio.”
http://www.marblehead.net/foley/whatisitman.html
Sound Libraries A sample library is a collection of digital sound
recordings, known as samples, for use by composers,
arrangers, performers, and producers of music. The
sound files are loaded into a sampler - either hardware
or computer-based - which is then used to create music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_library
SOUND FILE FORMATS Uncompressed Uncompressed audio files are the most accurate
digital representation of a soundwave, but can
also be the most resource-intensive method of
recording and storing digital audio, both in terms
of storage and management. Their accuracy
makes them suitable for archiving and delivering
audio at high resolution, and working with audio
at a professional level, and they are the 'master'
audio format of choice.
http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/guide/uncompressed-audio-file-
formats
.wav The format for storing sound in files developed jointly
by Microsoftand IBM. Support for WAV files was built
into Windows 95 making it the de facto standard for sound

2. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
IG2 Task 1
2
on PCs. WAV sound files end with a.wav extension and can
be played by nearly all Windows applications that support
sound.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/WAV.html
.aiff AIFF is short for Audio Interchange File Format, which is an audio
format initially created by Apple Computer for storing and
transmitting high-quality sampled audio data. It supports a variety
of bit resolutions, sample rates, and channels of audio. This format
is quite popular upon Apple platforms, and is commonly adopted in
professional programs that handle digital audio waveforms.
http://www.abyssmedia.com/formats/aiff-format.shtml
.au AU is a file extension for a sound file format belonging to Sun, NeXT
and DEC and used in UNIX. The AU file format is also known as the
Sparc-audio or u-law fomat.
http://whatis.techtarget.com/fileformat/AU-Sun-NeXT-DEC-UNIX-
sound-file
.smp (1) Short for Symmetric Multiprocessing, a computer architecture
that provides fast performance by making multiple CPUs available
to complete individual processes simultaneously (multiprocessing).
Unlike asymmetrical processing, any idle processor can be assigned
any task, and additional CPUs can be added to improve
performance and handle increased loads.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SMP.html
Lossy Compression Refers to data compression techniques in which some amount of
data is lost. Lossy compression technologies attempt to eliminate
redundant or unnecessary information.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/lossy_compression.html
.mp3 The name of the file extension and also the name of the type of file
for MPEG, audio layer 3. Layer 3 is one of three coding schemes
(layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3) for the compression of audio signals.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MP3.html
AUDIO LIMITATIONS Sound Processor Unit (SPU) A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal computer
expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals
to and from a computer under control of computer programs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_card
Digital Sound Processor (DSP) Digital signal processing (DSP) is the mathematical manipulation of
an information signal to modify or improve it in some way. It is
characterized by the representation of discrete time, discrete
frequency, or other discrete domain signals by a sequence of

3. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
IG2 Task 1
3
numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signal_processing
Random Access Memory (RAM) RAM (pronounced ramm) is an acronym for random access
memory, a type of computer memory that can be accessed
randomly; that is, any byte of memory can be accessed without
touching the preceding bytes. RAM is the most common type of
memory found in computers and other devices, such as printers.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAM.html
Mono Audio (1) Also referred to as the Mono Project, a development initiative
sponsored by Ximian to create an open source Unix version of
Microsoft��s .NET development platform. Mono focuses just on
the development platform (a runtime for the Common Language
Infrastructure, a compiler for C# and a set of class libraries) and not
the end user applications that the term .NET also refers to.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Mono.html
Stereo Audio A technique for giving more depth to traditional stereo sound.
Typically, 3-D sound, or 3-D audio, is produced by placing a device
in a room with stereo speakers.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/3/3_D_audio.html
Surround Sound Surround sound is a term used to describe a type of audio output in
which the sound appears to "surround the listener" by 360 degrees.
Surround sound systems use three or more channels and speakers
in front and behind the listener to create a surrounding envelope of
sound and directional audio sources.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/surround_sound.html
Direct Audio (Pulse Code
Modulation – PCM)
Short for pulse code modulation, a sampling technique for digitizing
analog signals, especially audio signals. PCM samples the signal
8000 times a second; each sample is represented by 8 bits for a
total of 64 Kbps.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/pulse_code_modulation.html
AUDIO RECORDING
SYSTEMS
Analogue A device or system that represents changing values as continuously
variable physical quantities.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/analog.html
Digital Mini Disc A type of optical disk technology similar to the CD-ROM. A DVD
holds a minimum of 4.7GBof data, enough for a full-length movie.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/DVD.html
Compact Disc (CD) Pronounced see-dee-rom. Short for Compact Disc-Read-
Only Memory, a type of optical disk capable of storinglarge

4. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
IG2 Task 1
4
amounts of data -- up to 1GB, although the most common size
is 650MB (megabytes). A single CD-ROM has
the storage capacity of 700 floppy disks, enough memory to
store about 300,000 text pages.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/CD_ROM.html
Digital Audio Tape (DAT) Acronym for digital audio tape, a type of magnetic tape that uses a
scheme called helical scan to record data. A DAT cartridge is slightly
larger than a credit card in width and height and contains a
magnetic tape that can hold from 2 to 24 gigabytes of data.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/DAT.html
MIDI Pronounced middy, an acronym for musical instrument digital
interface, a standard adopted by the electronic music industry for
controlling devices, such as synthesizers and sound cards, that emit
music. At minimum, a MIDI representation of a sound includes
values for the note's pitch, length, and volume.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MIDI.html
Software Sequencers A key that moves the cursor (or insertion point) to the beginning of
the next line, or returns control to whatever program is currently
running. After a program requests information from you (by
displaying a prompt), it will usually not respond to your input until
you have pressed the Enter or Return key.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/Enter_key.html
Software Plug-ins (n.) A hardware or software module that adds a specific feature or
service to a larger system. The idea is that the new component
simply plugs in to the existing system.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/plug_in.html
MIDI Keyboard Instruments Pronounced middy, an acronym
for musical instrument digital interface, a standard adopted by
the electronic music industry for controlling devices, such as
synthesizers and sound cards, that emit music. At minimum, a
MIDI representation of a sound includes values for the note's
pitch, length, and volume.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MIDI.html
AUDIO SAMPLING File Size Constraints - Bit-depth
Files are stored on the disk in what is called called clusters (a

5. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
IG2 Task 1
5
group of disk sectors). Size on disk refers to the amount of
cluster allocation a file is taking up, compared to file size
which is an actual byte count.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/size_on_disk.html
File Size Constraints - Sample
Rate
In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of
a continuous signal to a discrete signal. A common
example is the conversion of a sound wave (a
continuous signal) to a sequence of samples (a
discrete-time signal).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(signal_processing)