13/10/15

IT3743 – Multimedia Systems & Design

Handling Sound

Lecture 05

Sound
Vibrations in the air creates waves of pressure that are perceived as sound.

Sound waves vary in sound pressure level (amplitude) and in frequency or

pitch.

Acoustic is the branch of physics that studies sound.

Sound pressure levels (loudness or volume) are measured in decibels (dB).

Humans hear sound over a very broad range.

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Power of Sound
Sound is energy, caused by vibrations of the molecules.

Too much volume can permanently damage your ears and hearing.

The perception of loudness depend on the frequency or pitch.

Harmonics cause the same note played on a cello to sound different

from one played on a piano.

Digital Audio
• Digital audio is created when you represent the characteristics of sound wave
using numbers - a process referred to as Digitizing.

• We can digitize any sound. ( Microphone, synthesizer….).

• Digitized sound is sampled sound.

• Every nth fraction of a second, a sample of a sound is taken and stored as digital
information in bits and bytes.

• The quality of digital recording depends on the how often the samples are taken.
i.e. higher the sampling rate better is the quality of sound.
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Making Digital Audio Files

• It’s a straight forward process.

• Plug a microphone in its jack , Then make use of audio digitizing

software like Audacity to do the work.

• 2 crucial aspects to be considered :

• Balancing the need for sound quality against the file size.(Higher Quality

Larger File size).

• Setting proper recording levels to get a good ,clean recording.

Making Digital Audio Files

• Sampling rate is measured in Kilo Hertz.
• Three sampling rates are normally used in Multimedia.
• 44.1 kHz
• 22.05 kHz
• 11.025 kHz
• Larger the sample size, more accurate data will describe the recorded
sound.
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Basic Sound Editing Operations

1. Trimming 6. Fade in and Fade out

2. Splicing and assembly 7. Equalization

3. Volume and adjustments 8. Time Stretching

4. Format conversion 9. Digital Signal Processing

5. Resampling and down sampling

10. Reversing sounds

11. Multiple Tracks

Basic Sound Editing Operations

1. Trimming: Removing dead air or blank space and so on. Done using commands
like cut , clear , Erase, Silence.

2. Splicing and Assembly: Removal of extraneous noise , touch up, creating a

longer recording by mixing many small recordings.

3. Volume adjustments: when we combine one or more recording with different

volume level, they must be made to run with a consistent volume level. We
need to normalize it with a sound editor to a particular level.
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Basic Sound Editing Operations

4. Format Conversion: While saving different formats are made
available for sounds. Data may be lost during conversion.
MP3,MP4

5. Resampling and down sampling: if we have sound recorded and

edited the sound at 16 bit sampling rate and using lower rates then
RS & DS is necessary, as we may save lots of disk space.

6. Fade in & Fade out: useful for sections that requires this effect.
This enveloping helps to smooth out a beginning and end of the
sound file.

Basic Sound Editing Operations

7. Equalization: allow us to modify a recordings frequency content
so that it sounds brighter or darker .

8. Time Stretching: allows to alter the length of the file . Useful but
may degrade audio quality of the file.

9. Digital Sound Processing: allows signals with reverberation, multi tap delay,
chorus, flange and other special effects using DSP routines.
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Basic Sound Editing Operations

10. Reversing Sound: Reversing or a part of a recording.

11. Multiple Tracks: Being able to edit and combine multiple tracks, merge tracks
and then export them in a final mix to a single audio file is important.

Vaughan’s Law of Minimums

• There is an acceptable level of adequacy that will satisfy the audience;

• If your handheld microphone is good enough to satisfy you and your audience,
conserve your money and energy.
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Multimedia Sound Systems

• We can use sound on computer for any action performed with it.

• Open the sound control panel to listen to the system sounds , change them, make
new , or custom sound.

• In windows, sounds are wave files, they reside in Windows/Media Sub directory.

• They include chimes.wav, chord.wav , logoff.wav and so on.

• In OS X on Mac system, we can only change the system alert sound.

Adding Sound to your Multimedia Project

Following steps are required to bring an audio recording into MM project :
1. Determine the file formats that are compatible with MM authoring S/W .

2. Determine the sound playback capabilities that the end user’s system
offers.

3. Decide the type of sound needed.

4. Decide where and when you want to use the digital audio or MIDI data
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Adding Sound to your Multimedia Project

• 5. Acquire source material by creating it from scratch or buying it.

• 6. Edit the sounds to fit your project.

• 7. Test the sounds to be sure they are timed properly with the project’s images.
(This may involve steps 1-4 until everything is in sync).

Space Consideration
• Large amount of digital information is required for high quality sound.

• Which in turn requires large amount of space.

• If monaural sound is adequate then one can cut the storage space by half or get
double the playing time in the same memory space.

• With compression codecs we can reduce the size to 1/8th the space but there is
loss of quality.

• We can also down sample.

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Space Consideration
• The following formula helps you to estimate your storage needs. If you are
using 2 channels for stereo then double the space.

• (Sampling rate * bits per sample) / 8 = bytes / sec

• The same can be solved in terms of Kilobytes :

• Sample rate * sample size / 8 * # sec * 2 (if stereo) = file size in KB

Audio Recordings
• If we require CD quality recording, then digitize sound at 44.1 kHz and 16 bit to
store, at a sound studio.

• If we decide to do it our self then we need to invest in :

acoustically treated room ,

high end amplifiers.

recording equipment.

 powerful microphones.