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Before you can learn about audio
hardware, recording, editing and mixing, you must
first have an understanding of the fundamentals
of audio. Once you understand these basic concepts,
we will be able to explain how they relate to what
you are doing, and apply them through your real
world experience.
We know that this material is
quite technical, but we are only presenting basic
concepts which are applicable to the most fundamental
aspects of digital music creation, and have consolidated
what many references spend chapters discussing.
If you would like information beyond what is presented
here, then you may want to visit your local library
for more detailed references.
Every sound consists of rapid
variations in air pressure (or any other medium
that conducts sound). Anything that makes sound;
guitar strings, drum heads, vocal chords, etc. does
so by vibrating back and forth. Vibrating surfaces
push air molecules back and forth, creating positive
and negative changes in air pressure. These changes
in air pressure are called sound waves. These waves
travel through space via the compression and rarefaction
of air molecules and upon reaching our ears the
waves are introduced to our aural receptors as vibrations.
The brain then interprets these signals as sound.
The most typical way of looking
at a sound is as a waveform.
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