Instruction Manual

1209
Audio
Beginner’s Guide to Cakewalk Software
Audio
The audio format works by converting any sound that’s recorded into a long
series of numbers, storing and usually editing the numbers, and then
converting the numbers back into sound.
When you record sound using this format, the microphone you use causes
the voltage in its cable to change rapidly as the mic’s diaphragm vibrates.
These rapid changes in voltage are measured and recorded by an analog-
to-digital converter, and these measurements make up what we call
digital audio. To convert digital audio back into sound, a digital-to-analog
converter uses the stored numbers to cause the voltage in a cable to
change rapidly, and this voltage then moves the diaphragm in a
loudspeaker in a similar way to the way that the microphone’s diaphragm
moved originally (unless the numbers have been edited to produce a more
desirable sound). These converters, commonly referred to as A to D or A/D,
and D to A or D/A, are part of your computer’s sound card. Better sound
cards usually keep their converters in a separate box that’s not in the
computer itself, because the computer’s fan and disk drives add noise to
the sound card’s signal.
Digital audio works like cartoon animation. In a cartoon, a series of still
photographs is displayed rapidly in sequence to make it look as if the
objects in the photographs are moving. When digital audio is converted
back into sound, the voltage is changed at regular intervals to simulate
continuous sound. To make high-quality sound, the original voltage during
recording has to be measured, or “sampled,” at rapid enough intervals to
fool your ears into hearing continuous sound. Audio CDs use a sampling
rate of 44,100 per second. To store and edit so many numbers places a big
load on most PCs, much bigger than the processing of MIDI data causes.
For more information, see:
Audio Playback in Cakewalk
Tracks
Clips
Track-by-Track Playback
Connecting an Instrument, Home Stereo, or Microphone to your Sound
Card
Choosing Inputs
Audio Recording
Audio Hardware (Sound Cards) and Drivers