The document discusses the advantages and disadvantages of analogue and digital technologies for sound. It covers topics such as longevity, copying, storage, length of play, and flexibility. Analogue formats like tapes and records can degrade over time and have limited storage and playback duration. In contrast, digital formats like MP3s and CDs have much longer longevity and greater storage capacity without degradation. They also allow for easier copying and more flexible playback through features like playlists and randomization.

1. Advantages and disadvantages of analogue and digital
technologies for sound.
Sound is used frequently in products such as computer
games, websites and films. When it comes to any interac-
tive media, sound is often necessary to keep the user from
becoming disinterested.
With computer games, sound is necessary to support the
overall feel of the gameplay, for example in a racing game
such as ‘Need For Speed’, fast paced however rhythmic mu-
sic will be chosen to play as the player is travelling at high
speeds as the game ensues.
With websites, such as official band websites, there is often
a music player automatically playing the artists’ tracks as
you browse through the various pages on the site.
When it comes to films, sound is a must (obviously apart
from silent films such as Charlie Chaplin). Sound supports
all the action in the scene, and music used can help sup-
Longevity
port any emotion in a scene.
Most analogue mediums tend to wear out after a while.
Audiotape loses its clarity after multiple playbacks, while
vinyl albums can be easily scratched or damaged. CDs and
MP3s have no such problems. They entail no moving parts
and are never touched by a record needle or the like. The
music they hold will thus play just as well the millionth
time you listen as the first.
Copying
Digital music is typically easier to copy than analogue
music. Since the information is stored as a code, the signal
doesn't degrade from one copy to the next, meaning that
every digital edition of the song can sound as good as the
original.
Storage
Analogue music must be stored on tapes or similar mate-
rial, which can end up taking up a lot of space. Digital mu-
sic can be stored on a computer hard drive, which is much
smaller. An iPod, which fits in the palm of your hand, can
carry hundreds of albums that might otherwise take up an
Length of Play entire wall's worth of space.
An analogue playlist is limited by the physical capacities
of the medium on which it is recorded. Put more simply,
you have to turn over the record or change the tape
every hour or so if you want to keep listening to new
music. Digital music, on the other hand, has no such
limitations. As long as the battery on your MP3 player
holds out, you can play thousands of digital songs for
days without having to touch it (and without hearing the
same song twice).
Flexibility
Once an analogue recording is set down on a tape, it’s
more or less stuck that way. The songs play in a set order,
and while you can record new songs over them, you can’t
alter the playlist on a whim. In contrast, digital music
is supremely flexible. Not only can you build your own
playlists and alter them at will, but randomizers allow
the computer to switch around the playlist order accord-
ing to set specifications. That basically lets you create
your own radio station in the palm of your hand.

2. Theory of sound: waveform- Waveform means the shape and form of
a signal such as a wave moving in a physical medium or an abstract
representation.
In many cases the medium in which the wave is being propagated does
not permit a direct visual image of the form. In these cases, the term
‘waveform’ refers to the shape of a graph of the varying quantity against
time or distance. An instrument called an oscilloscope can be used to
pictorially represent a wave as a repeating image on a screen. By exten-
sion, the term ‘waveform’ also describes the shape of the graph of any
varying quantity against time.
Sine - The amplitude of the waveform follows a trigonometric sine func-
tion with respect to time.
• Square - This waveform is commonly used to represent digital
information. A square wave of constant period contains odd harmonics
that fall off at −6 dB/octave.
• Triangle - It contains odd harmonics that fall off at −12 dB/
octave.
• Saw tooth - This looks like the teeth of a saw. Found often in
time bases for display scanning. It is used as the starting point for sub-
tractive synthesis, as a saw tooth wave of constant period contains odd
and even harmonics that fall off at −6 dB/octave.
Sound generator
A sound generator is a vibrating object
which produces a sound. There are two
main kinds of sound generators (thus, two
main kinds of musical instruments).
Sound recording
wav - standard audio file format used mainly in Windows PCs. Com-
monly used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality sound files,
which means that they can be large in size - around 10MB per minute of
music.
mp3 - the MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format for down-
loading and storing music. By eliminating portions of the audio file that
are essentially inaudible, mp3 files are compressed to roughly one-tenth
the size of an equivalent PCM file while maintaining good audio quality.
ogg - a free, open source container format supporting a variety of co-
decs, the most popular of which is the audio codec Vorbis. Vorbis files
are often compared to MP3 files in terms of quality. But the simple fact
mp3 are so much more broadly supported makes it difficult to recom-
mend ogg files.
aiff - the standard audio file format used by Apple. It is like a wav file for
the Mac.
Signal distortion happens when a system cannot handle a signal pattern
without altering the details of its shape in some way. One of the most
common (and severe) types of distortion is clipping. This is when a cir-
cuit - usually an amplifier - cannot cope with the largest levels present
in the signal and ‘clips them off ’ just like we had take a pair of scissors
to the wave form.
Music deals in emotion, its universal language is built on innate body
rhythms like heartbeat and breathing, and its form reflects the ups and
downs of human moods and passions. A sound editor enhances ac-
tion and dialog by fitting the musical score and sound effects into the
recording