Analog & Digital – Half II


As we speak’s electronics are based mostly on the transistor, which might be switched both on (a one) or off (a zero).  Amongst different issues, the sounds coming from musical devices are principally easy variations, that are described as analog alerts.  To ensure that the alerts (digital representations of the sound waves) to be processed, there should be a conversion from the analog wave to a digital illustration of the unique wave.  An analog to digital converter constantly transforms analog alerts into the binary (ones and zeros) equal at every prompt of measurement that may be processed by the digital tools.

Take into account the piano and violin illustration of their frequencies between C and B (twelve notes) on a piano.  Determine 1 reveals the 12 notes from C by B, with the A being the important thing frequency of 440 Hz.  [Re. 1] The purpose of this chart is to current the truth that the piano has fastened notes and is extra like digital data from a pc.  The violin, alternatively would supply a steady vary of the assorted frequencies.  (There’s additionally a slight variation of the piano key frequencies from a straight line for the violin.)

Determine 1

One attention-grabbing merchandise is that because the piano has discrete frequencies related to the assorted keys, the precise sound will not be a easy ramp up and down like a sine wave. 

Determine Two depicts a violin and a piano word and reveals the speedy drop-off of the word from the violin.  [Ref. 2]

Determine 2

The piano word is created by the important thing hanging the stretched piano wire that has been correctly tuned.  The preliminary strike is stuffed with non-harmonic tones that dampen down quickly. [Ref. 3] This reverberation from the strike produces the wave kind.  The violin is completely different in that the vibrating string creates harmonics that create the multitude of peaks and valleys proven in Determine 3 [Ref. 4]. 

Determine 3

I’ll borrow some clarification of harmonics from reference 5.  It explains that the instrument produces completely different wave shapes based mostly on the form of the instrument. that reveal comparability of wave form and harmonics.  One other issue is the way in which the word is performed.  “When you press a piano key and launch it, the sound adjustments quantity regularly over time. First, it rises rapidly (or “assaults”) to its most quantity. Subsequent, the sound “decays” to a decrease stage and stays there or “sustains.” Lastly, once we let go of the important thing, the sound “releases” and dies all the way down to silence.”

” There are different components too. An instrument doesn’t simply produce a single sound wave at a single pitch (frequency). Even when it’s enjoying a gradual word, it’s making many various sound waves without delay: it makes one word (referred to as a elementary frequency or first harmonic) and plenty of increased, associated notes referred to as harmonics or overtones. The frequency of every harmonic is a a number of of the elemental frequency. So, if the elemental frequency (additionally referred to as the primary harmonic) is 200Hz (which we will consider as merely 1 × 200Hz), the second harmonic is 400Hz (2 × 200Hz), the third is 600Hz (3 × 200Hz), the fourth is 800Hz (4 × 200Hz), and so forth. Enjoying collectively, the harmonics make a dense, advanced sound a bit like a barber’s store choir, with low voices and excessive voices all singing in tune. The extra harmonics there are, the richer the sound.”

Getting again to Analog and Digital, what the instrument is delivering is a continues collection of advanced waves that embody small and smaller parts of the waves.  Taking these waves and “chopping” them up into discrete segments has to common out the variation in every of the measurement measurement chunks of sound waves.  So, irrespective of how effective one dissects the wave, there’s averaging with every bite-sized piece of the particular music.  It’s doable to take that measurement all the way down to a sufficiently small measurement that the everyday listener won’t discover the refined variations from the analog.  BUT, sound will also be subtly felt.  Regardless of how small the averaging measurement, there shall be a distinction from the unique analog sound wave.  Consequently, vinyl (data) is making a come again as a result of superior copy of precise sounds resulting from vinyl being an analog supply of the sounds.

References:

  1. https://www.intmath.com/trigonometric-graphs/music.php
  2. https://www.shaalaa.com/question-bank-solutions/two-musical-notes-of-the-same-pitch-and-same-loudness-are-played-on-two-different-instruments-their-wave-patterns-are-as-shown-in-following-figure-properties-of-sounds_36995
  3. https://dsp.stackexchange.com/questions/46598/mathematical-equation-for-the-sound-wave-that-a-piano-makes
  4. https://www.google.com/search?q=violinpercent20soundpercent20wave&tbm=isch&consumer=firefox-b-1-d&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQtI8BKAFqFwoTCMD74Mi9-YEDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAU&biw=1542&bih=994https://www.google.com/search?q=violinpercent20soundpercent20wave&tbm=isch&consumer=firefox-b-1-d&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQtI8BKAFqFwoTCMD74Mi9-YEDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAU&biw=1542&bih=994
  5. https://www.explainthatstuff.com/synthesizers.html

About Walt

I’ve been concerned in numerous facets of nanotechnology because the late Nineteen Seventies. My curiosity in selling nano-safety started in 2006 and produced a white paper in 2007 explaining the 4 pillars of nano-safety. I’m a expertise futurist and is at the moment targeted on nanoelectronics, single digit nanomaterials, and 3D printing on the nanoscale. My expertise contains three startups, two of which I based, 13 years at SEMATECH, the place I used to be a Senior Fellow of the technical workers once I left, and 12 years at Normal Electrical with 9 of them on company workers. I’ve a Ph.D. from the College of Texas at Austin, an MBA from James Madison College, and a B.S. in Physics from the Illinois Institute of Expertise.

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