More Meaningful JargonOr,

All You Need to Knowto Speak Like a Geek

Sound

.AIFF

Audio Interchange File Format– A standard digital audio file on the

Macintosh and some Windows computers.

.MP3

A digital audio format popular on the Internet.

.WAV

A .WAV sound file is most often used on the Windows platform. It is also acceptable on the Macintosh. Therefore it is a good choice for cross-platform compatible sound files.

We will use .WAV files for some sounds on our multimedia projects.

QuickTime Sound-Only Movie

The QuickTime format, most often used for digital video, is also an efficient method of digitizing sound.– .MOV files.

Compressed Sound

A sound file that has been altered so that it requires less memory. Compressing a sound always reduces sound quality.– Generally, the higher the compression

ratio, the lower the sound quality.– We will not be using compressed sounds in

our multimedia project.

Decibels (dB)

Units for measuring sound level differences.

Sound Quality

Determined by– quality of source sound.

– quality of analog capture device.

– sampling rate when digitized.

– sampling resolution when digitized.

– compression ratio (if any) when digitized.

Sampling Rate

The number of sampling intervals per second used to capture a sound when it is digitized.

The higher the sampling rate, the higher the quality.

The computer (as well as audio CDs) are capable of sampling at 44,100 cycles a second.

Dynamic Range

Determined by the sampling resolution. The difference between the loudest sound

and the softest sound that can be recorded without distortion. – Eight-bit sounds have a dynamic range

of 48 dB– 16-bit sounds have 96 dB.– Human hearing ranges from silence

to 120 dB.

Downsampled Sound

A sound that has been converted to a lower sampling rate.

Decreases the memory required to store the sound, but reduces sound quality.

Waveform

A graphic representation of a sound.– The height of the waveform represents the

amplitude, or loudness.

Amplify

To adjust the strength or loudness of a sound.

Wavelength (period)

The distance between two successive peaks in a waveform.– The number of wavelength per second is

the “frequency.”

Frequency

The number of wave peaks or cycles in one second.

Specified in hertz (Hz) or kilohertz (kHz).

Also know as “Pitch” when applied to our perception of sound.