Sound Storage

Question 1

Analogue Sound Waves and binary:

Answer 1

• Analogue sound waves must be digitally recorded and stored in binary.
• To record the sound, the amplitude of the analogue sound wave is measured and recorded in binary at specific intervals.

Question 2

Sampling an Analogue Sound Wave:

Answer 2

• Digital sampling is discrete (separate) and not continuous like analogue waves.
• To get the highest quality sound, many samples are taken to recreate the analogue wave as closely as possible.

Question 3

Sample Rate:

Answer 3

• Number of times per second the amplitude of the sound wave is measured (kHz).

Question 4

Higher Sample Rate Advantage:

Answer 4

• The higher the sample rate, the better the audio quality as the digital data closely resembles an analogue wave.

Question 5

Higher Sample Rate Disadvantage:

Answer 5

• Higher sample rates result in larger file sizes because more data is stored for each individual type.

Question 6

Bit Depth:

Answer 6

• The number of bits available to represent each sample.

Question 7

Advantage of having higher bit depth:

Answer 7

• More bits are available to be used for each sample. - Therefore, the quality is often higher as the wave more closely resembles an analogue wave.

Question 8

Disadvantage of having higher bit depth:

Answer 8

• File size will also be larger as each sample stores additional bits.

Question 9

Sound File Size calculation:

Answer 9

• Sound file size = sample rate x bit depth x duration (seconds).
• Divide by 8 to convert to bytes.