FILE FORMATS AND SOUND INFORMATION
ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL SOUND (PCM PULSE CODE MODULATION)
SAMPLING AND BIT DEPTH The sampling rate is then the number of equally spaced samples that we take for one second of signal, and the bit depth is the number of bits used for encoding .
UN-COMPRESSED VS COMPRESSED FILES
SPECTROGRAPHS (VISUAL REPRESENTATION) LOSSY FILE (OGG)
LOSSLESS FILE (MP3)
ARE THE LOST SOUNDS IMPORTANT?
AUDIO FILE TYPES/CONTAINERS Containers – File type that holds the information
Codecs – Information and pre-determined process used when digitizing sound and converting it
HOW THEY CONNECT
METADATA Metadata is information about a sound beyond the audio and file name itself. • In short, it is additional information that “enriches” the sound file. This information is usually text, but in theory can be anything, such as photos or images. Typical metadata “fields” may be: • Time • Date • Location • Notes • …And so on. Some metadata provides only a few of these fields. Other files store metadata with dozens of fields that contain hundreds of characters.
WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO USE THIS AS A SOUND DESIGNER? You will hear a difference in the sound quality of your files if you use different containers If you use the wrong format and try to convert it you aren’t actually ‘saving’ or changing your file data e.g If you record the wrong file format and try to convert it to go into your game engine. You could potentially run out of storage room in your game engine if you don’t correctly record, save and store your files
You can read the sounds better to edit them more effectively by reading the data
Meta data can be used to impose Digital Rights Management (DRM) on your files. In other words, anti-piracy measures