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-port any emotion in a scene. Longevity

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. CopyingDigital 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. StorageAnalogue 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 entire wall's worth of space. Length of Play

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). FlexibilityOnce 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.

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-Thiswaveformiscommonlyusedtorepresentdigitalinformation. A square wave of constant period contains odd harmonics that fall off at −6 dB/octave.• Triangle-Itcontainsoddharmonicsthatfalloffat−12dB/octave.• Sawtooth-Thislooksliketheteethofasaw.Foundoftenintime 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 generatorA 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 recordingwav - standard audio file format used mainly in Windows PCs. Com-monly used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality sound files, whichmeansthattheycanbelargeinsize-around10MBperminuteofmusic. 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