From the course: Digital Audio Foundations
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What is sound made of?
- We take it for granted nowadays that computers can play and record digital audio. Digital audio is how computers represent sound. But there's a lot beneath the surface, and the better you understand digital audio in-depth, the more the technology can work for you instead of the other way around. To really understand what digital audio is, we need to start at the beginning of how sound is made. All around us are air molecules. Sound happens when those molecules are disturbed in some way. When I clap my hands together, for example, I'm causing a sudden disturbance in the air molecules around the place where I clapped my hands. (claps) This creates a sound wave that we can hear. Notice how the molecules themselves don't travel along with the wave. Instead, the wave is made of moving patterns of the molecules colliding with each other in the air. I should mention that sound can travel not just in air, but in any medium: solid, liquid, or gas. For example, sound can travel in water, like…
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