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Desktop Audio Technology Digital audio and MIDI
principles Music Technology 1st Edition Francis Rumsey
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Francis Rumsey
ISBN(s): 9780240519197, 0240519191
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 5.07 MB
Year: 2003
Language: english
Desktop Audio Technology
Titles in the Series
Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2nd edition (with website)
David M. Howard and James Angus
Composing Music with Computers (with CD-ROM)

Eduardo Reck Miranda
Computer Sound Design: Synthesis techniques and programming, 2nd edition

(with CD-ROM)
Eduardo Reck Miranda
Desktop Audio Technology: Digital audio and MIDI principles

Francis Rumsey
Digital Sound Processing for Music and Multimedia (with website)

Ross Kirk and Andy Hunt
Network Technology for Digital Audio

Andrew Bailey
Sound and Recording: An introduction, 4th edition

Francis Rumsey and Tim McCormick
Sound Synthesis and Sampling

Martin Russ
Sound Synthesis and Sampling CD-ROM

Martin Russ
Spatial Audio
Francis Rumsey
Desktop Audio
Technology
Digital audio and MIDI principles
Francis Rumsey
Focal Press
An imprint of Elsevier
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP
200 Wheeler Road, Burlington MA 01803
First published 2004
Copyright © 2004, Francis Rumsey. All rights reserved
The right of Francis Rumsey to be identified as the author of this work

has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including

photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether
or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without
the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the
provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of
a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road,
London, England W1T 4LP. Applications for the copyright holder’s written
permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed
to the publisher
Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science and Technology Rights
Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (⫹44) (0) 1865 843830; fax: (⫹44) (0) 1865 853333;
e-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request on-line via the
Elsevier homepage (www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Customer Support’
and then ‘Obtaining Permissions’
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 0 240 51919 1
For information on all Focal Press publications visit our website at:
www.focalpress.com
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India

Printed and bound in the Netherlands
Contents
Series introduction xiii
1 Introduction to desktop audio technology 1

1.1 About this book 1
1.2 Audio workstations 2
1.3 Audio and the computer industry 3
1.4 Audio and quality 3
2 Digital audio principles 5

2.1 Analog and digital information 5
2.2 Binary number systems 7
2.2.1 Basic binary 7
2.2.2 Negative numbers 9
2.2.3 Fixed- and floating-point representation 10
2.2.4 Logical operations 10
2.3 Basic A/D and D/A conversion of control information 11
2.4 A/D conversion of audio signals 13
2.4.1 Audio sampling 13
2.4.2 Filtering and aliasing 16
2.4.3 Quantisation 18
2.4.4 Relationship between sample resolution and sound quality 21
2.4.5 Use of dither 22
2.4.6 Types of dither 27
2.4.7 Oversampling in A/D conversion 29
2.4.8 Noise shaping in A/D conversion 30
2.5 D/A conversion 32
2.5.1 A basic D/A convertor 32
2.5.2 Oversampling in D/A conversion 33
v
Contents
2.6 Sound quality versus sample rates and resolutions 33

2.6.1 Psychoacoustic limitations 33
2.6.2 Sampling rate 34
2.6.3 Quantising resolution 37
2.7 Direct Stream Digital (DSD) 38
2.8 Changing the resolution of an audio signal (requantisation) 39
2.9 Dynamic range enhancement 41
2.10 Error correction 42
2.11 Introduction to digital audio signal processing 44
2.11.1 Gain changing (level control) 44
2.11.2 Crossfading 45
2.11.3 Mixing 46
2.11.4 Digital filters and equalisation 46
2.11.5 Digital reverberation and other effects 48
2.11.6 Dynamics processing 49
2.11.7 Sample rate conversion 50
2.12 Audio data reduction 51
2.12.1 Why reduce the data rate? 51
2.12.2 Lossless and lossy coding 52
2.12.3 MPEG – an example of lossy coding 53
2.12.4 Other data-reduced formats 56
Further reading 57
3 Recording, replay and editing principles 58

3.1 The sound file 58
3.2 RAM buffering 59
3.3 Disk drive performance issues 62
3.4 Allocation units or transfer blocks 64
3.5 Multichannel recording and replay 64
3.5.1 Multitrack or multichannel? 64
3.5.2 Inputs, outputs, tracks and channels 65
3.5.3 Track usage, storage capacity and disk assignment 66
3.5.4 Dropping-in 67
3.6 System latency 68
3.7 Principles of audio editing 69
3.7.1 Advantages of non-linear editing 69
3.7.2 Sound files and sound segments 69
3.7.3 Edit point handling 70
3.7.4 Crossfading 71
3.7.5 Editing modes 73
3.7.6 Simulation of ‘reel-rocking’ 77
4 MIDI and synthetic audio control 79

4.1 Background 79
4.2 What is MIDI? 81
4.3 MIDI and digital audio contrasted 81
vi
Contents
4.4 Basic MIDI principles 82

4.4.1 System specifications 82
4.4.2 Simple interconnection 83
4.4.3 MIDI channels 84
4.4.4 Message format 84
4.5 MIDI messages in detail 85
4.5.1 Channel and system messages contrasted 86
4.5.2 Note on and note off messages 86
4.5.3 Velocity information 87
4.5.4 Running status 88
4.5.5 Polyphonic key pressure (aftertouch) 88
4.5.6 Control change 89
4.5.7 Channel modes 91
4.5.8 Program change 93
4.5.9 Channel aftertouch 94
4.5.10 Pitch bend wheel 94
4.5.11 System exclusive 95
4.5.12 Universal system exclusive messages 95
4.5.13 Tune request 96
4.5.14 Active sensing 96
4.5.15 Reset 97
4.6 MIDI control of sound generators 97
4.6.1 MIDI note assignment in synthesisers
and samplers 97
4.6.2 Polyphony, voice and note assignment 100
4.6.3 MIDI functions of sound generators 100
4.6.4 MIDI data buffers and latency 100
4.6.5 Handling of velocity and aftertouch data 102
4.6.6 Handling of controller messages 102
4.6.7 Registered and non-registered parameter numbers 105
4.6.8 Voice selection 106
4.7 MIDI tuning control 106
4.8 General MIDI 108
4.9 Scalable polyphonic MIDI (SPMIDI) 110
4.10 Standard MIDI files (SMF) 110
4.10.1 General structure of MIDI files 111
4.10.2 Header chunk 111
4.10.3 Track chunks 112
4.10.4 MIDI file track events 113
4.10.5 Time signatures and tempo maps 115
4.11 Downloadable Sounds (DLS) and SoundFonts 115
4.12 RMID and XMF files 117
4.13 SAOL and SASL in MPEG 4 Structured Audio 117
4.14 MIDI and synchronisation 118
4.14.1 Introduction to MIDI synchronisation 118
4.14.2 Music-related timing data 118
vii
Contents
4.14.3 Timecode and synchronisation 121

4.14.4 MIDI timecode (MTC) 123
4.15 MIDI machine control (MMC) 125
4.16 MIDI over USB 128
4.17 MIDI over IEEE 1394 129
4.18 After MIDI? 130
Further reading 131
Useful websites 131
5 Hardware and systems issues 132

5.1 Storage media 132
5.1.1 Storage requirements of digital audio and video 132
5.1.2 Disk drives in general 133
5.1.3 Disk drive specifications 135
5.1.4 Magnetic hard disk drives 136
5.1.5 RAID arrays 138
5.1.6 Removable magnetic media 138
5.1.7 Optical disks in general 140
5.1.8 CAV and CLV modes in optical storage 141
5.1.9 The magneto-optical (M-O) drive 141
5.1.10 Phase-change optical recording 143
5.1.11 Compact discs and drives 143
5.1.12 DVD 145
5.1.13 Optical disc filing structures 147
5.1.14 Tape storage media 147
5.2 Peripheral interfaces 148
5.2.1 SCSI 149
5.2.2 ATA/IDE interface 151
5.2.3 PCMCIA 151
5.2.4 IEEE 1394 (Firewire) and USB 151
5.3 Filing systems and volume partitions 152
5.4 Formatting, fragmentation and optimisation of media 153
5.5 Audio processing and synthesis hardware 153
5.5.1 Introduction 153
5.5.2 Audio processing latency 155
5.5.3 DSP cards 155
5.5.4 Host-based audio processing 156
5.5.5 Integrated sound cards 156
5.5.6 Synthesis engines on sound cards 156
5.6 External synchronisation interfaces 159
5.7 User interfaces 159
5.8 Serial control interfaces 160
5.8.1 RS-232 and RS-422 160
5.8.2 The basic MIDI interface 160
5.8.3 MIDI connectors and cables 163
5.8.4 Interfacing a computer to a MIDI system 164
viii
Contents
5.9 Drivers and audio I/O software 165

Useful websites 167
6 Audio formats and data interchange 168

6.1 Audio file formats 168
6.1.2 File formats in general 169
6.1.3 Sound Designer I format 171
6.1.4 Sound Designer II format 171
6.1.5 AIFF and AIFF-C formats 172
6.1.6 RIFF WAVE format 173
6.1.7 WAVE-format extensible 175
6.1.8 Broadcast WAVE format 175
6.1.9 MPEG audio file formats 177
6.1.10 DSD-IFF file format 179
6.1.11 Edit decision list (EDL) files 180
6.1.12 AES 31 format 180
6.1.13 The Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI) 182
6.1.14 MXF – the Media Exchange Format 183
6.1.15 AAF – the Advanced Authoring Format 184
6.2 Disk pre-mastering formats 185
6.3 Interconnecting audio devices 186
6.4 Computer networks and digital audio interfaces compared 187
6.5 Dedicated audio interface formats 189
6.5.1 Digital interface types 189
6.5.2 The AES 3 interface (AES 3) 189
6.5.3 Standard consumer interface (IEC 60958-3) 192
6.5.4 Carrying data-reduced audio over standard digital interfaces 194
6.5.5 Tascam digital interface (TDIF) 195
6.5.6 Alesis digital interface 195
6.5.7 Roland R-bus 196
6.5.8 Sony digital interface for DSD (SDIF-3) 196
6.5.9 Sony multichannel DSD interface (MAC-DSD) 196
6.6 Networking 197
6.6.1 Basic principles of networking 197
6.6.2 Extending a network 199
6.6.3 Network standards 200
6.6.4 Network protocols 202
6.6.5 Audio network requirements 203
6.6.6 ISDN 204
6.6.7 Protocols for the Internet 205
6.6.8 Wireless networks 206
6.7 Streaming audio over computer interfaces 206
6.7.1 Audio over Firewire (IEEE 1394) 206
6.7.2 Audio over universal serial bus (USB) 210
6.7.3 AES 47: Audio over ATM 212
ix
Contents
6.7.4 CobraNet 215

6.7.5 MAGIC 215
6.7.6 MOST 216
6.7.7 BSS SoundWeb 216
6.8 Digital content protection 216
Further reading 218
Useful websites 218
7 Audio software 219

7.1 Sequencers 219
7.1.2 Tracks, channels, instruments and environments 220
7.1.3 Input and output filters 221
7.1.4 Timing resolution 222
7.1.5 Displaying, manipulating and editing information 222
7.1.6 Quantisation of rhythm 224
7.1.7 Automation and non-note MIDI events 224
7.1.8 MIDI mixing and external control 226
7.1.9 Synchronisation 226
7.1.10 Synchronised digital video 226
7.2 Plug-in architectures 227
7.2.1 What is a plug-in? 227
7.2.2 Plug-in examples 228
7.3 Virtual instruments 229
7.4 Librarians and editors 231
7.5 Audio editing and post-production software 231
7.5.1 Sonic Studio HD 232
7.5.2 SADiE 233
7.6 Mastering and restoration software 235
7.7 Advanced audio processing software and development tools 235
7.8 Computer music software 237
Further reading 239
8 Operational and systems issues 240

8.1 Level control and metering 240
8.2 Spatial reproduction formats 242
8.2.1 Introduction to multichannel formats 242
8.2.2 4-channel surround (3-1 stereo) 242
8.2.3 5.1 channel surround (3-2 stereo) 244
8.2.4 Dolby EX 246
8.2.5 7.1 channel surround 247
8.2.6 Surround panning and spatial effects 248
8.3 Controlling and maintaining sound quality 249
8.4 Preparing for and understanding release media 252
8.4.1 CD-Audio 252
8.4.2 DVD 252
x
Contents
8.4.3 Super Audio CD (SACD) 255

8.4.4 MP3 256
8.4.5 MPEG-4, web and interactive authoring 257
8.5 Synchronisation 257
8.5.1 Requirements for synchronisation 258
8.5.2 Timecode synchronisation 258
8.5.3 Synchronisation to external audio, film or video references 259
8.6 System troubleshooting 259
8.6.1 Troubleshooting MIDI 259
8.6.2 Digital interface troubleshooting 262
8.6.3 Troubleshooting software 264
Further reading 264
Index 265
xi
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Series introduction
The Focal Press Music Technology Series is intended to fill a growing need for authoritative
books to support college and university courses in music technology, sound recording,
multimedia and their related fields. The books will also be of value to professionals already
working in these areas and who want either to update their knowledge or to familiarise
themselves with topics that have not been part of their mainstream occupations.
Information technology and digital systems are now widely used in the production of sound
and in the composition of music for a wide range of end uses. Those working in these fields
need to understand the principles of sound, musical acoustics, sound synthesis, digital
audio, video and computer systems. This is a tall order, but people with this breadth of
knowledge are increasingly sought after by employers. The series will explain the technol-
ogy and techniques in a manner which is both readable and factually concise, avoiding the
chattiness, informality and technical woolliness of many books on music technology.
The authors are all experts in their fields and many come from teaching and research
backgrounds.
Dr Francis Rumsey
Series Consultant
xiii
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
1 Introduction to desktop
audio technology
1.1 About this book
Audio in computers and other modern desktop devices is inherently digital. This is a book
about how digital audio works and how to make best use of its capabilities, including con-
trol technologies that are related to the MIDI protocol. The argument for digital audio has
been well and truly made by now so there is no particular attempt in this book to justify the
merits of it against analog audio. It is a fact that the resources of the computer technology
described in this book would not be available unless audio information was converted into
a digital form, so the case is closed. The future of audio is now digital, without question, and
the devices that audio engineers use are increasingly just generic computing devices that
happen to be suitable. Of course audio signals need to be analog at the point where they are
converted into acoustic signals, in order for them to be transmitted through the air, but stor-
age, transfer and processing are the topics of this book.
The technology covered in this book is divided into a number of areas. The book is based to
some extent on earlier books that are now out of print, bringing together the most important
information on digital audio and MIDI in one place. The two are so often combined in applica-
tions now that it seems sensible to present them in one book. It also introduces a lot of more
recent information on these topics because the field has moved on considerably since those
books were written. In this book, therefore, the reader will find coverage of recent develop-
ments such as surround sound formats, direct stream digital, new audio project formats, new
interfaces and alternatives to MIDI.
The first main chapter, Chapter 2, is concerned with the principles of digital audio and
Chapter 3 discusses specific aspects of how this is applied in recording, replay and editing
within workstations. Chapter 4 is all about MIDI and synthetic audio control, looking at the
means by which artificial sounds can be controlled and manipulated. Chapter 5 deals with
hardware of various sorts, including storage devices, buses, computer interfaces and audio
1
processing options. Chapter 6 then concentrates on the question of how to transfer audio
between systems, including coverage of audio interfaces, networking and file formats.
Chapter 7 deals with audio software or applications, giving examples of different commer-
cial packages that exemplify some of the concepts previously described in practice. The book
is not about specific commercial software, however, so readers or manufacturers should look
elsewhere if they want detailed coverage of these. Chapter 8 concludes by considering oper-
ational issues that may not be familiar to some readers, such as recent spatial reproduction
formats, consumer format mastering and quality control issues. It also covers troubleshooting
and systems issues such as synchronisation.
Coverage is primarily aimed at professional operations but it is acknowledged that a good
definition of this is hard to come by and that many people who use such technology are not
professionals. However, the intention is to cover the systems and concepts that apply in opera-
tions such as production and post-production, broadcasting and music. To a large extent this
book stops at the point where audio leaves the studio environment. Topics such as Internet
streaming and consumer delivery of audio have intentionally been avoided as these are large
topics in their own right.
1.2 Audio workstations

I have called this book Desktop Audio Technology to highlight the coverage of digital audio as
it applies in desktop devices such as computer-based audio workstations. There are many
different definitions one could use here but for the purposes of this book it is convenient to
describe an audio workstation as any computer-based device that stores and processes digi-
tal audio and/or control data (such as MIDI data). It is assumed that such devices use some
form of direct access storage such as hard disks or solid-state memory, as opposed to tape, as
the primary storage medium, so dedicated digital audio tape formats are not covered here.
Many devices that will be termed audio workstations here are also general-purpose multi-
media workstations that may handle video and other media data. However the emphasis in
this book is on the audio technology and principles involved. There is an increasing use of
general purpose computing platforms for audio, both in professional and consumer envi-
ronments, whereas previously there was wider use of dedicated hardware. This is largely
because the processing power available on the average desktop PC is now more than
adequate for dealing with multiple channels of audio recording and replay, whereas previ-
ously there was a need for hardware that was specially engineered for the purpose. So fast and
capacious have desktop machines become that they can now accommodate digital signal
processing of audio information (for effects, mixing, and so forth) using the main processor
of the computer, at least for a number of channels and depending on the sophistication of the
processing required.
The decline in popularity of dedicated audio workstations has had one notable disadvantage
to the user – that being the loss of hardware dedicated to control system functions. Modern
software packages running on PCs use screen-based interfaces, with keyboard and mouse
controls, just like any other application, whereas dedicated devices often had physical con-
trols dedicated to the functions required in editing and processing. This has enabled pack-
ages to be sold much more cheaply, but now there is a rapid growth in external physical
2
Introduction to desktop audio technology
controllers that restore some of the lost usability of dedicated systems. The result of this is
that users can now decide whether they are content to operate a system using screen and
mouse or whether they need something larger and more physical.
1.3 Audio and the computer industry

The fact that audio engineers now use general-purpose computers for much of their work
highlights the position in which the field of audio engineering now finds itself. Once a clearly
distinct field of endeavour with arcane dedicated equipment that needed lining up and care-
ful handling by those in the know, there is a sense (a false one) that anyone can do audio these
days. Just give them a computer and a bit of software and ‘Bob’s your uncle’, so to speak.
This situation is not unlike that encountered in the late 1980s by the typesetting, graphic
design and publishing industry. Desktop publishing was taking the world by storm and all
of a sudden anyone with a computer and a bit of software could produce camera ready art-
work. Who needed typesetters or graphic designers any longer? We could do it all ourselves
on our desks! Of course it rapidly became clear that there was still a need for people with the
creative skills and the time to do it properly, they just had to learn to use the new equipment.
If they insisted on sticking with hot metal or pen and paper they ran the risk of being
branded as dinosaurs and losing out on a lot of new work. Sales executives, no matter how
much they might fancy themselves as designers, are better off selling things and not wasting
hours creating second rate brochures, for example.
The same or similar is true of audio, and there is a strong danger that the field will take some
backward steps in terms of quality unless audio engineers continue to make clear what is
good audio and what will not do. Audio is rapidly being swallowed up by the computer
industry and many of the standard architectures and operating systems are incorporating
audio features that will dictate what is possible in numerous future applications. Things like
correct dithering, sampling frequency conversion, timing issues and so forth, are all crucial
to achieving high quality. They are things that have been known about in relation to dedi-
cated audio systems for years but they don’t always migrate into the computer industry,
which now increasingly thinks it understands audio. So by all means we should take advan-
tage of the economies of scale and the huge benefits that the computer industry brings to
audio but we have a duty to ensure that high quality audio remains our key goal.
1.4 Audio and quality

Quality is going both ways in audio at the moment as depicted in Figure 1.1. When digital
audio first appeared in consumer and professional forms it was normally fixed at a resolu-
tion of 16 bits and a sampling frequency of 44.1 or 48 kHz. This provided very good tech-
nical quality that, with good conversion hardware, arguably represented a noticeable
improvement over existing analog formats in most respects. Since then there has been devel-
opment both upwards and downwards in terms of quality.
Quality has gone upwards with the introduction of higher sampling frequencies and resolu-
tions, offering bandwidths into the hundreds of kilohertz if required, and a dynamic range
3
Extended resolution audio

(e.g. DSD, 96/24)
CD quality (linear PCM,

44.1 kHz, 16 bit)
Increasing data rate
Lower quality audio

(e.g. data-reduced natural audio
coding such as MP3)
Very low rate audio

(e.g. object representation of audio
such as MPEG-4 synthetic, MIDI)
Figure 1.1 Audio quality is developing both upwards and downwards from the original reference point of ‘CD
quality’. Note that lower data rates do not automatically lead to lower quality – this depends on the encoding
method used. As the data rate gets lower the method of representation tends towards object representation
(description of ‘scene’ elements, requiring resynthesis by a decoder) rather than natural audio coding (coding of
the original audio waveform)
that equals or exceeds that of human hearing. For those audiophiles that still exist in the
world this will be appealing, but the economics and practicalities of supplying them with
such delights have yet to be completely demonstrated. Spatial quality is also on the increase
with the introduction of surround sound and other 3D audio formats. On the other hand,
quality is being pushed downwards by the need to deliver audio over potentially very low
rate links such as the Internet and mobile communications. Here the question is not how
good the quality can be made but how bad it can be made without anyone noticing too much.
Technologies such as MPEG audio coding enable audio to be represented at much lower rates
than previously, with minimal impact on audio quality. It is possible to trade off audio qual-
ity and bit rate to suit a particular context. Audio quality can also be scaled in MPEG 4 so that
a decoder chooses the level of representation depending on the data rate and resources avail-
able. There is also a move towards representing audio in the form of objects and control infor-
mation so that the sound can be resynthesised or rendered in the replay device. This
effectively breaks the link between the source and destination in terms of technical quality,
because the quality in such a case is dictated primarily by the resources available in the
rendering engine, as discussed further in Chapter 8. It is also affected by the completeness of
the description of the sound that is supplied. This type of representation is likely to be increas-
ingly common in virtual and synthetic audio authoring environments, for games and the like.
4
2 Digital audio principles
This chapter explains the fundamental principles of digital audio as they apply in computers.
The aim is to aid understanding of the inner workings of equipment so that appropriate
operational and technical decisions can be made.
2.1 Analog and digital information

The human senses deal mainly with analog information but computers deal internally with
digital information, resulting in a need for conversion between one domain and the other at
various points.
Analog information is made up of a continuum of values of some physical quantity, which at
any instant may have any value between the limits of the system. For example, a rotating
knob may have one of an infinite number of positions – it is therefore an analog controller
(see Figure 2.1). A simple switch, on the other hand, can be considered as a digital controller,
since it has only two positions – off or on. It cannot take any value in between. The bright-
ness of light that we perceive with our eyes is analog information and as the sun goes down
the brightness falls gradually and smoothly, whereas a household light without a dimmer
may be either on or off – its state is binary (that is it has only two possible states). A single
unit of binary information is called a bit (binary digit) and a bit can only have the value one
or zero (corresponding, say, to high and low, or on and off states of the electrical signal).
Electrically, analog information may be represented as a varying voltage or current. If the
rotary knob of Figure 2.1 is used to control a variable resistor connected to a voltage supply,
its position will affect the output voltage (see Figure 2.2). This, like the knob’s position, may
occupy any value between the limits – in this case anywhere between 0 V and ⫹V. The switch
could be used to control a similar voltage supply and in this case the output voltage could
only be either 0 V or ⫹V. In other words the electrical information that resulted would be
binary. The high (⫹V) state could be said to correspond to a binary one and the low state to
binary zero (although in many real cases it is actually the other way around). One switch can
represent only one binary digit (or bit) but most digital information is made up of more than
one bit, allowing digital representations of a number of fixed values.
5
(a) (b)
Continuously-variable
position ON OFF
Figure 2.1 (a) A continuously variable control such as a rotary knob is an analog controller. (b) A two-way
switch is a digital controller
(a) +V (b) +V
Voltage
Variable Output between Voltage is
0 and +V O/P 0 or +V
resistor Switch
depending depending
on position on position
0 0
Figure 2.2 Electrical representation of analog and digital information. The rotary controller of Figure 2.1(a)
could adjust a variable resistor, producing a voltage anywhere between the limits of 0 and ⫹V, as shown in (a).
The switch connected as shown in (b) allows the selection of either 0 or ⫹V states at the output
(a)
+ =
(b)
High
+ = Low
Figure 2.3 When noise is added to an analog signal, as shown at (a), it is not possible for a receiver to know
what is the original signal and what is the unwanted noise. With the binary signal, as shown at (b), it is possible
to extract the original information even when noise has been added. Everything above the decision level is high
and everything below it is low
Analog information in an electrical form can be converted into a digital electrical form using
a device known as an analog-to-digital (A/D) convertor. This must be done if the informa-
tion is to be handled by any logical system such as a computer. The process will be described
later. The output of an A/D convertor is a series of binary numerical values representing the
analog voltage as accurately as possible, at discrete points in time (sampling instants).
Digital information made up of binary digits is inherently more resilient to noise and inter-
ference than analog information, as shown in Figure 2.3. If noise is added to an analog signal
it becomes very difficult to tell what is the wanted signal and what is the unwanted noise,
6
Digital audio principles
as there is no means of distinguishing between the two. If noise is added to a binary signal it is
possible to extract the important information at a later stage, as it is known that only two states
matter – the high and low, or one and zero states. By comparing the signal amplitude with a
fixed decision point it is possible for a receiver to treat everything above the decision point as
‘high’ and everything below it as ‘low’. Any levels in between can be classified in the nearest
direction. For any noise or interference to influence the state of a digital signal it must be at least
large enough in amplitude to cause a high level to be interpreted as ‘low’, or vice versa.
The timing of digital signals may also be corrected to some extent, giving digital signals
another advantage over analog ones. This arises because digital information has a discrete
time structure in which the intended sample instants are known. If the timing of bits in a digi-
tal message becomes unstable, such as after having been passed over a long cable with its
associated signal distortions, resulting in timing ‘jitter’, the signal may be re-clocked at a sta-
ble rate. There is no equivalent way of removing unwanted speed or timing distortions from
analog signals because they have a time-continuous structure.
2.2 Binary number systems

2.2.1 Basic binary
In the decimal number system each digit of a number represents a power of ten. In a binary
system each digit or bit represents a power of two (see Figure 2.4). It is possible to calculate the
decimal equivalent of a binary integer (whole number) by using the method shown. A number
made up of more than one bit is called a binary ‘word’, and an 8-bit word is called a ‘byte’ (from
‘by eight’). Four bits is called a ‘nibble’. The more bits there are in a word the larger the num-
ber of states it can represent, with 8 bits allowing 256 (28) states and 16 bits allowing 65 536 (216).
The bit with the lowest weight (20) is called the least significant bit or LSB and that with the
(a) One bit

A binary
word or ‘byte’ 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0
(b) Binary 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0
Decimal weights 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
Decimal equivalent
0 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 = 114
of the binary number
(c) High = 1
Low = 0
0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0
Figure 2.4 (a) A binary number (word or ‘byte’) consists of bits. (b) Each bit represents a power of two.
(c) Binary numbers can be represented electrically in pulse code modulation (PCM) by a string of high and
low voltages
7
greatest weight is called the most significant bit or MSB. The term kilobyte or Kbyte is used to
mean 1024 or 210 bytes and the term megabyte or Mbyte represents 1024 Kbytes.
Electrically it is possible to represent a binary word in either serial or parallel form. In serial
communication only one connection need be used and the word is clocked out one bit at a
time using a device known as a shift register. The shift register is previously loaded with the
word in parallel form (see Figure 2.5). The rate at which the serial data is transferred depends
on the rate of the clock. In parallel communication each bit of the word is transferred over a
separate connection.
Because binary numbers can become fairly unwieldy when they get long, various forms of
shorthand are used to make them more manageable. The most common of these is hexadeci-
mal. The hexadecimal system represents decimal values from 0 to 15 using the sixteen symbols
0–9 and A–F, according to Table 2.1. Each hexadecimal digit corresponds to four bits or one
Parallel input
0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0
Serial output
Clock (bit rate)
Figure 2.5 A shift register is used to convert a parallel binary word into a serial format. The clock is used to
shift the bits one at a time out of the register, and its frequency determines the bit rate. The data may be
clocked out of the register either MSB or LSB first, depending on the device and its configuration
Table 2.1 Hexadecimal and decimal equivalents

to binary numbers
Binary Hexadecimal Decimal
0000 0 0
0001 1 1
0010 2 2
0011 3 3
0100 4 4
0101 5 5
0110 6 6
0111 7 7
1000 8 8
1001 9 9
1010 A 10
1011 B 11
1100 C 12
1101 D 13
1110 E 14
1111 F 15
8
0 0 1 01 1 1 11 0 1 11 1 1 0
2 F B E
Figure 2.6 This 16-bit binary number may be represented in hexadecimal as shown, by breaking it up into 4-bit
nibbles and representing each nibble as a hex digit
nibble of the binary word. An example showing how a long binary word may be written in
hexadecimal (hex) is shown in Figure 2.6 – it is simply a matter of breaking the word up into
4-bit chunks and converting each chunk to hex. Similarly, a hex word can be converted to
binary by using the reverse process.
Hexadecimal numbers are often labelled with the prefix ‘&’ to distinguish them from other
forms of notation.
2.2.2 Negative numbers

Negative integers are usually represented in a form known as ‘twos complement’. Negative
values are represented by taking the positive equivalent, inverting all the bits and adding a
one. Thus to obtain the 4-bit binary equivalent of decimal minus five (⫺510) in binary twos
complement form:
510 ⫽ 01012
⫺510 ⫽ 1010 ⫹ 0001 ⫽ 10112
Twos complement numbers have the advantage that the MSB represents the sign (1 ⫽ nega-
tive, 0 ⫽ positive) and that arithmetic may be performed on positive and negative numbers
giving the correct result:
e.g. (in decimal): 5

⫹ (⫺3)
⫽2
or (in binary): 0101
⫹ 1101
⫽ 0010
The carry bit that may result from adding the two MSBs is ignored.
An example is shown in Figure 2.7 of 4-bit, twos complement numbers arranged in a
circular fashion. It will be seen that the binary value changes from all zeros to all ones as it
crosses the zero point and that the maximum positive value is 0111 whilst the maximum
negative value is 1000, so the values wrap around from maximum positive to maximum
negative.
9
0100
0101 0011
0110 0010
0111 Max + Positive 0001

values
1000 Max – 0 0000
1001 Negative –1 1111

values
1010 1110
1011 1101
1100
Figure 2.7 Negative numbers represented in twos complement form create a continuum of values where
maximum positive wraps round to maximum negative, and bits change from all zeros to all ones at the zero
crossing point
1 byte 3 bytes
Exponent Mantissa Mantissa Mantissa
MSB = sign of exp. MSB = sign of mantissa
Figure 2.8 An example of floating point number representation in a binary system
2.2.3 Fixed- and floating-point representation

Fixed-point binary numbers are often used in digital audio systems to represent sample
values. These are usually integer values represented by a number of bytes (2 bytes for 16 bit
samples, 3 bytes for 24 bit samples, etc.). In some applications it is necessary to represent
numbers with a very large range, or in a fractional form. Here floating-point representation
may be used. A typical floating-point binary number might consist of 32 bits, arranged as
4 bytes, as shown in Figure 2.8. Three bytes are used to represent the mantissa and one byte
the exponent (although the choice of number of bits for the exponent and mantissa are open
to variance depending on the application). The mantissa is the main part of the numerical
value and the exponent determines the power of two to which the mantissa must be raised.
The MSB of the exponent is used to represent its sign and the same for the mantissa.
It is normally more straightforward to perform arithmetic processing operations on fixed-
point numbers than on floating-point numbers, but signal processing devices are available in
both forms.
2.2.4 Logical operations

Most of the apparently complicated processing operations that occur within a computer are
actually just a fast sequence of simple logical operations. The apparent power of the
10
A B C
AND
0 0 0
A
C 1 0 0
B 0 1 0
1 1 1
A B C
OR
0 0 0
A Inverter (NOT)
C 1 0 1
B 0 1 1
1 1 1
A B C
EXOR
0 0 0
A 1 0 1
C
B 0 1 1
1 1 0
Figure 2.9 Symbols and truth tables for basic logic functions. The inverter shown on the right has an output
which is always the opposite of the input. The circle shown on the inverter’s output is used to signify inversion on
any input or output of a logic gate
computer and its ability to perform complex tasks are really due to the speed with which
simple operations are performed.
The basic family of logical operations is shown in Figure 2.9 in the form of a truth table next
to the electrical symbol that represents each ‘logic gate’. The AND operation gives an output
only when both its inputs are true; the OR operation gives an output when either of its inputs
are true; and the XOR (exclusive OR) gives an output only when one of its inputs is true. The
inverter or NOT gate gives an output which is the opposite of its input and this is often
symbolised using a small circle on inputs or outputs of devices to indicate inversion.
2.3 Basic A/D and D/A conversion of control information

In order to convert analog information into digital information it is necessary to measure its
amplitude at specific points in time (called ‘sampling’) and to assign a binary value to each
measurement (called ‘quantising’). The diagram in Figure 2.10 shows a rotary knob against a
fixed scale running from 0 to 9. If one were to quantise the position of the knob it would be nec-
essary to determine which point of the scale it was nearest and unless the pointer was at exactly
one of the increments the quantising process would involve a degree of error. It will be seen
that the maximum error is actually plus or minus half of an increment, as once the pointer is
more than halfway between one increment and the next it should be quantised to the next.
Quantising error is an inevitable side effect in the process of A/D conversion and the degree
of error depends on the quantising scale used. Considering binary quantisation, a 4-bit scale
offers 16 possible steps, an 8-bit scale offers 256 steps, and a 16-bit scale 65 536. The more bits,
the more accurate the process of quantisation.
11
4 5
3 6
2 7
1 8
0 9
Figure 2.10 A rotary knob’s position could be measured against a numbered scale such as the decimal scale
shown. Quantising the knob’s position would involve deciding which of the limited number of values (0–9) most
closely represented the true position
+V Nearest equivalent
binary value
Variable A/D
resistor convertor
Analogue voltage
0 representing
control's position
Figure 2.11 In older equipment a control’s position was digitised by sampling and quantising an analog voltage
derived from a variable resistor connected to the control knob
In older systems, the position of an analog control was first used to derive an analog voltage (as
shown earlier in Figure 2.2), then that voltage was converted into a digital value using an A/D
convertor (see Figure 2.11). More recent controls may be in the form of binary encoders whose
output is immediately digital. Unlike analog controls, switches do not need the services of an
A/D convertor for their outputs to be useable by a computer – a switch’s output is normally
binary in the first place. Only one bit is needed to represent the position of a simple switch.
The rate at which switches and analog controls are sampled depends very much on how
important it is that they are updated regularly. Some older audio mixing consoles sampled
the positions of automated controls once per television frame (40 ms in Europe), whereas
some modern digital mixers sample controls as often as once per audio sample period
(roughly 20 ␮s). Clearly the more regularly a control is sampled the more data will be
produced, since there will be one binary value per sample.
Digital-to-analog conversion is the reverse process and involves taking the binary value that
represents one sample and converting it back into an electrical voltage. In a control system this
voltage could then be used to alter the gain of a voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA), for exam-
ple, as shown in Figure 2.12. Alternatively it may not be necessary to convert the word back
to an analog voltage at all. Many systems are entirely digital and can use the binary value
derived from a control’s position as a multiplier in a digital signal processing operation.
A signal processing operation may be designed to emulate an analog control process.
12
Binary
value
DC voltage
D/A
convertor
Control voltage input
VCA
Figure 2.12 A D/A convertor could be used to convert a binary value representing a control’s position into an
analog voltage. This could then be used to alter the gain of a voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA)
2.4 A/ D conversion of audio signals

The process of A/D conversion is of paramount importance in determining the inherent
sound quality of a digital audio signal. The technical quality of the audio signal, once con-
verted, can never be made any better, only worse. Some applications deal with audio purely
in the digital domain, in which case A/D conversion is not an issue, but most operations
involve the acquisition of audio material from the analog world at one time or another. The
quality of convertors varies very widely in digital audio workstations and their peripherals
because the price range of such workstations is also great. Some stand-alone professional
convertors can easily cost as much as the complete digital audio hardware and software for
a desktop computer. One can find audio A/D convertors built in to many multimedia desk-
top computers now, but these are often rather low performance devices when compared with
the best available. As will be seen below, the sampling rate and the number of bits per sam-
ple are the main determinants of the quality of a digital audio signal, but the design of the
convertors determines how closely the sound quality approaches the theoretical limits.
Despite the above, it must be admitted that to the undiscerning ear one 16-bit convertor
sounds very much like another and that there is a law of diminishing returns when one com-
pares the increased cost of good convertors with the perceivable improvement in quality.
Convertors are very much like wine in this respect.
2.4.1 Audio sampling

An analog audio signal is a time-continuous electrical waveform and the A/D convertor’s
task is to turn this signal into a time-discrete sequence of binary numbers. The sampling
process employed in an A/D convertor involves the measurement or ‘sampling’ of the ampli-
tude of the audio waveform at regular intervals in time (see Figure 2.13). From this diagram
it will be clear that the sample pulses represent the instantaneous amplitudes of the audio
signal at each point in time. The samples can be considered as like instantaneous ‘still frames’
of the audio signal which together and in sequence form a representation of the continuous
waveform, rather as the still frames that make up a movie film give the impression of a con-
tinuously moving picture when played in quick succession.
In order to represent the fine detail of the signal it is necessary to take a large number of these
samples per second. The mathematical sampling theorem proposed by Shannon indicates
that at least two samples must be taken per audio cycle if the necessary information about
13
Audio waveform Sample pulses

+
Amplitude
0 Time
t = sample period
Figure 2.13 An arbitary audio signal is sampled at regular intervals of time t to create short sample pulses
whose amplitudes represent the instantaneous amplitude of the audio signal at each point in time
(a)
(b)
Figure 2.14 In the upper example many samples are taken per cycle of the wave. In the lower example less
than two samples are taken per cycle, making it possible for another lower-frequency wave to be reconstructed
from the samples. This is one way of viewing the problem of aliasing
14
Constant amplitude
Audio
pulses (frequency = 1/t )
waveform
Amplitude
Amplitude
modulates
Time Time
t = sample period
produces
Pulse amplitude
Amplitude
modulation
Time
Figure 2.15 In pulse amplitude modulation, the instantaneous amplitude of the sample pulses is modulated by
the audio signal amplitude (positive values only shown)
the signal is to be conveyed. It can be seen from Figure 2.14 that if too few samples are taken
per cycle of the audio signal then the samples may be interpreted as representing a wave
other than that originally sampled. This is one way of understanding the phenomenon
known as aliasing. An ‘alias’ is an unwanted representation of the original signal that arises
when the sampled signal is reconstructed during D/A conversion.
Another way of visualising the sampling process is to consider it in terms of modulation, as
shown in Figure 2.15. The continuous audio waveform is used to modulate a regular chain of
pulses. The frequency of these pulses is the sampling frequency. Before modulation all these
pulses have the same amplitude (height), but after modulation the amplitude of the pulses is
modified according to the instantaneous amplitude of the audio signal at that point in time.
This process is known as pulse amplitude modulation (PAM). The frequency spectrum of the
modulated signal is as shown in Figure 2.16. It will be seen that in addition to the ‘baseband’
audio signal (the original audio spectrum before sampling) there are now a number of addi-
tional images of this spectrum, each centred on multiples of the sampling frequency.
Sidebands have been produced either side of the sampling frequency and its multiples, as a
result of the amplitude modulation, and these extend above and below the sampling
frequency and its multiples to the extent of the base bandwidth. In other words these side-
bands are pairs of mirror images of the audio baseband.
15
Time domain Frequency domain
Audio
waveform
Amplitude
Amplitude
Time Frequency
Constant amplitude
pulses
Amplitude
Amplitude
Time fs 2fs 3fs
Nyquist frequency
Pulse amplitude
Amplitude
modulation
Amplitude
Time 0.5fs fs 2fs 3fs
Figure 2.16 The frequency spectrum of a PAM signal consists of a number of repetitions of the audio baseband
signal reflected on either side of multiples of the sampling frequency
2.4.2 Filtering and aliasing

It is relatively easy to see why the sampling frequency must be at least twice the highest base-
band audio frequency from Figure 2.17. It can be seen that an extension of the baseband
above the Nyquist frequency results in the lower sideband of the first spectral repetition
overlapping the upper end of the baseband and thus appearing within the audible range that
would be reconstructed by a D/A convertor. Two further examples are shown to illustrate the
point – the first in which a baseband tone has a low enough frequency for the sampled
sidebands to lie above the audio frequency range, and the second in which a much higher
frequency tone causes the lower sampled sideband to fall well within the baseband, forming
an alias of the original tone that would be perceived as an unwanted component in the
reconstructed audio signal.
16
(a) (b)
fn fs fn fs
Alias
region
Audio Sampled
baseband spectrum
(c) fs 2f s (d) fs 2f s
Alias
Orig.
1 kHz 29 31 59 61 13 17 43 47
Figure 2.17 Aliasing viewed in the frequency domain. In (a) the audio baseband extends up to half the sampling
frequency (the Nyquist frequency fn) and no aliasing occurs. In (b) the audio baseband extends above the Nyquist
frequency and consequently overlaps the lower sideband of the first spectral repetition, giving rise to aliased
components in the shaded region. In (c) a tone at 1 kHz is sampled at a sampling frequency of 30 kHz, creating
sidebands at 29 and 31 kHz (and at 59 and 61 kHz, etc.). These are well above the normal audio frequency
range, and will not be audible. In (d) a tone at 17 kHz is sampled at 30 kHz, putting the first lower sideband at
13 kHz – well within the normal audio range. The 13 kHz sideband is said to be an alias of the original wave
The aliasing phenomenon can be seen in the case of the well-known ‘spoked-wheel’ effect on
films, since moving pictures are also an example of a sampled signal. In film, still pictures
(image samples) are normally taken at a rate of 24 per second. If a rotating wheel with a
marker on it is filmed it will appear to move round in a forward direction as long as the rate
of rotation is much slower than the rate of the still photographs, but as its rotation rate
increases it will appear to slow down, stop, and then appear to start moving backwards. The
virtual impression of backwards motion gets faster as the rate of rotation of the wheel gets
faster and this backwards motion is the aliased result of sampling at too low a rate. Clearly
the wheel is not really rotating backwards, it just appears to be. Perhaps ideally one would
arrange to filter out moving objects that were rotating faster than half the frame rate of the
film, but this is hard to achieve in practice and visible aliasing does not seem to be as annoying
subjectively as audible aliasing.
If audio signals are allowed to alias in digital recording one hears the audible equivalent of the
backwards-rotating wheel – that is, sound components in the audible spectrum that were not
there in the first place, moving downwards in frequency as the original frequency of the signal
increases. In basic convertors, therefore, it is necessary to filter the baseband audio signal
before the sampling process, as shown in Figure 2.18, so as to remove any components having
a frequency higher than half the sampling frequency. It is therefore clear that in practice the
choice of sampling frequency governs the high frequency limit of a digital audio system.
In real systems, and because filters are not perfect, the sampling frequency is usually made
higher than twice the highest audio frequency to be represented, allowing for the filter to roll
off more gently. The filters incorporated into both D/A and A/D convertors have a pro-
nounced effect on sound quality, since they determine the linearity of the frequency response
17
Analog Anti-aliasing A/D

input To coder
filter convertor
Filter response
Output
level Audio band
Nyquist Sampling f
limit frequency
Figure 2.18 In simple A/D convertors an analog anti-aliasing filter is used prior to conversion, which removes
input signals with a frequency above the Nyquist limit
within the audio band, the slope with which it rolls off at high frequency and the phase lin-
earity of the system. In a non-oversampling convertor, the filter must reject all signals above
half the sampling frequency with an attenuation of at least 80 dB. Steep filters tend to have
an erratic phase response at high frequencies and may exhibit ‘ringing’ due to the high ‘Q’ of
the filter. Steep filters also have the added disadvantage that they are complicated to
produce. Although filter effects are unavoidable to some extent, manufacturers have made
considerable improvements to analog anti-aliasing and reconstruction filters and these may
be retro-fitted to many existing systems with poor filters. A positive effect is normally noticed
on sound quality.
The process of oversampling and the use of higher sampling frequencies (see below) has
helped to ease the problems of such filtering. Here the first repetition of the baseband is
shifted to a much higher frequency, allowing the use of a shallower anti-aliasing filter and
consequently fewer audible side effects.
2.4.3 Quantisation
After sampling, the modulated pulse chain is quantised. In quantising a sampled audio signal
the range of sample amplitudes is mapped onto a scale of stepped values, as shown in
Figure 2.19. The quantiser determines which of a fixed number of quantising intervals (of size
Q) each sample lies within and then assigns it a value that represents the mid-point of that
interval. This is done in order that each sample amplitude can be represented by a unique binary
number in pulse code modulation (PCM) (PCM is the designation for the form of modulation
in which signals are represented as a sequence of sampled and quantised binary data words).
In linear quantising each quantising step represents an equal increment of signal voltage.
The quantising error magnitude will be a maximum of plus or minus half the amplitude of
one quantising step and a greater number of bits per sample will therefore result in a smaller
error (see Figure 2.20), provided that the analog voltage range represented remains the same.
18
011
Binary values of quantising intervals (3 bit quantiser)

010 Q
001
time
000
111
110
101
100
Figure 2.19 When a signal is quantised, each sample is mapped to the closest quantising interval Q, and given
the binary value assigned to that interval. (Example of a 3-bit quantiser shown.) On D/A conversion each binary
value is assumed to represent the voltage at the mid point of the quantising interval
(a)
011
Max. error 0.5Q

3 bit quantising scale
Q
010
Error
Mid points of
quantising
intervals
001
time
000
Figure 2.20 In (a) a 3-bit scale is used and only a small number of quantising intervals cover the analog voltage
range, making the maximum quantising error quite large. The second sample in this picture will be assigned the
value 010, for example, the corresponding voltage of which is somewhat higher than that of the sample.
19
(b)
Voltages equivalent to these binary numbers 011
010
001
time
000
(c)
0111
0110
Q
4 bit quantising scale
0101
Max. error 0.5Q
0100 Mid points of

quantising
Error intervals
0011
0010
0001
time
0000
Figure 2.20 (continued) During D/A conversion the binary sample values from (a) would be turned into pulses
with the amplitudes shown in (b), where many samples have been forced to the same level owing to quantising. In
(c) the 4-bit scale means that a larger number of intervals is used to cover the same range and the quantising
error is reduced (expanded positive range only shown for clarity)
Figure 2.21 shows the binary number range covered by digital audio signals at different
resolutions using the usual twos complement hexadecimal representation. It will be seen
that the maximum positive sample value of a 16-bit signal is &7FFF, whilst the maximum
negative value is &8000. The sample value changes from all zeros (&0000) to all ones
(&FFFF) as it crosses the zero point. The maximum digital signal level is normally termed
20
(a) (b) (c)

Max. +ve signal voltage 7F 7FFF 7FFFF
Positive values
Zero volts 00 0000 00000

FF FFFF FFFFF
Negative values
Max. –ve signal voltage 80 8000 80000
Figure 2.21 Binary number ranges (in hexadecimal) related to analog voltage ranges for different convertor
resolutions, assuming twos complement representation of negative values. (a) 8-bit quantiser, (b) 16-bit
quantiser, (c) 20-bit quantiser
0 dBFS (full scale) signals above this level are clipped
Large signal Zero-crossing level
Range of
convertor
Maximum negative signal level
Figure 2.22 Signals exceeding peak level in a digital system are hard-clipped, since no more digits are
available to represent the sample value
0 dBFS (FS ⫽ full scale). Signals rising above this level are normally hard-clipped, resulting
in severe distortion, as shown in Figure 2.22.
2.4.4 Relationship between sample resolution and sound quality

The quantising error may be considered as an unwanted signal added to the wanted signal,
as shown in Figure 2.23. Unwanted signals tend to be classified either as distortion or noise,
depending on their characteristics, and the nature of the quantising error signal depends
very much upon the level and nature of the related audio signal. Here are a few examples,
the illustrations for which have been prepared in the digital domain for clarity, using 16-bit
sample resolution.
First consider a very low level sine wave signal, sampled then quantised, having a level only
just sufficient to turn the least significant bit of the quantiser on and off at its peak (see
Figure 2.24(a)). Such a signal would have a quantising error that was periodic, and strongly
correlated with the signal, resulting in harmonic distortion. Figure 2.24(b) shows the frequency
spectrum, analysed in the digital domain of such a signal, showing clearly the distortion prod-
ucts (predominantly odd harmonics) in addition to the original fundamental. Once the signal
21
5 bit 2’s complement

0 1 0 0 0
0 0 1 1 0 10
0 0 1 0 1 8
0 0 1 0 0 6
0 0 0 1 1 4
0 0 0 1 0 2
0 0 0 0 1 0 Time
0 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1 1 –2
1 1 1 0 1 –4
1 1 1 1 1 –6
1 1 1 0 0 –8
1 1 0 1 1 –10
1 1 0 1 0 –50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
1 1 0 0 1
1 1 0 0 0
Figure 2.23 Quantising error depicted as an unwanted signal added to the original sample values. Here the
error is highly correlated with the signal and will appear as distortion. (Courtesy of Allen Mornington West)
falls below the level at which it just turns on the LSB there is no modulation. The audible result,
therefore, of fading such a signal down to silence is that of an increasingly distorted signal sud-
denly disappearing. A higher-level sine wave signal would cross more quantising intervals
and result in more non-zero sample values. As signal level rises the quantising error, still with
a maximum value of ⫾0.5Q, becomes increasingly small as a proportion of the total signal
level and the error gradually loses its correlation with the signal.
Consider now a music signal of reasonably high level. Such a signal has widely varying
amplitude and spectral characteristics and consequently the quantising error is likely to have
a more random nature. In other words it will be more noise-like than distortion-like, hence
the term quantising noise that is often used to describe the audible effect of quantising error.
An analysis of the power of the quantising error, assuming that it has a noise-like nature,
— where Q is the voltage increment represented
shows that it has an r.m.s. amplitude of Q/√12,
by one quantising interval. Consequently the signal-to-noise ratio of an ideal n-bit quantised
signal can be shown to be:
6.02n ⫹ 1.76 dB
This implies a theoretical S/N ratio that approximates to just over 6 dB per bit. So a 16-bit
convertor might be expected to exhibit a S/N ratio of around 98 dB, and an 8-bit convertor
around 50 dB. This assumes an undithered convertor, which is not the normal case, as
described below. If a convertor is undithered there will only be quantising noise when a
signal is present, but there will be no quiescent noise floor in the absence of a signal. Issues
of dynamic range with relation to human hearing are discussed further in Section 2.6.
2.4.5 Use of dither

The use of dither in A/D conversion, as well as in conversion between one sample resolu-
tion and another, is now widely accepted as correct. It has the effect of linearising a normal
22
1 kHz sine wave, ampl. 1 LSB, no dither

(a) 000400
Hex
000300
000200
000100
000000
FFFF00
FFFE00
FFFD00
SCOPE
FFFC00
ms SCOPE
0.00 0.36 0.73 1.09 1.45 1.81 2.18 2.54 2.90
1 kHz sine wave, ampl. 1 LSB, no dither

(b) 0.00
dBFS
–17.50
–35.00
–52.50
–70.00
–87.50
–105.00
–122.50
FFT
–140.00
0 Hz 2756 5512 8268 11025 13781 16537 19293 FFT 22050
Figure 2.24 (a) A 1 kHz sine wave at very low level (amplitude ⫾1 LSB) just turns the least significant bit of
the quantiser on and off. Analysed in the digital domain with sample values shown in hex on the vertical axis
and time in ms on the horizontal axis. (b) Frequency spectrum of this quantised sine wave, showing distortion
products
convertor (in other words it effectively makes each quantising interval the same size) and
turns quantising distortion into a random, noise-like signal at all times. This is desirable for
a number of reasons. Firstly because white noise at very low level is less subjectively annoy-
ing than distortion; secondly because it allows signals to be faded smoothly down without
the sudden disappearance noted above; and thirdly because it often allows signals to be
reconstructed even when their level is below the noise floor of the system. Undithered audio
signals begin to sound ‘grainy’ and distorted as the signal level falls. Quiescent hiss will
disappear if dither is switched off, making a system seem quieter, but a small amount of con-
tinuous hiss is considered preferable to low level distortion. The resolution of modern high
resolution convertors is such that the noise floor is normally inaudible in any case.
23
Dithering a convertor involves the addition of a very low level signal to the audio whose
amplitude depends upon the type of dither employed (see below). The dither signal is usu-
ally noise, but may also be a waveform at half the sampling frequency or a combination of
the two. A signal that has not been correctly dithered during the A/D conversion process
cannot thereafter be dithered with the same effect, because the signal will have been irrevo-
cably distorted. How then does dither perform the seemingly remarkable task of removing
quantising distortion?
It was stated above that the distortion was a result of the correlation between the signal and the
quantising error, making the error periodic and subjectively annoying. Adding noise, which is a
random signal, to the audio has the effect of randomising the quantising error and making it
noise-like as well (shown in Figure 2.25(a) and (b)). If the noise has an amplitude similar in level
to the LSB (in other words, one quantising step) then a signal lying exactly at the decision point
between one quantising interval and the next may be quantised either upwards or downwards,
depending on the instantaneous level of the dither noise added to it. Over time this random
effect is averaged, leading to a noise-like quantising error and a fixed noise floor in the system.
(a) Amplitude
12
10
8
6
4
2
0 Time
–2
–4
–6
–8
–10
–12
–50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
(b) Amplitude
10
8
6
4
2
0 Time
–2
–4
–6
–8
–10
–50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Figure 2.25 (a) Dither noise added to a sine wave signal prior to quantisation. (b) Post-quantisation the error
signal is now random and noise-like. (Courtesy of Allen Mornington West)
24
Figure 2.26(a) shows the same low-level sine wave as in Figure 2.24, but this time with dither
noise added. The quantised signal retains the cyclical pattern of the 1 kHz sine wave but is
now modulated much more frequently between states, and a random element has been
added. The frequency spectrum of this signal, Figure 2.26(b), shows a single sine wave com-
ponent accompanied by a flat noise floor. Figure 2.26(c) and (d) show the waveform and
1 kHz sine wave, ampl. 1 LSB, TPDF dither

(a) 000400
Hex
000300
000200
000100
000000
FFFF00
FFFE00
FFFD00
SCOPE
FFFC00
0.00 ms 0.36 0.73 1.09 1.45 1.81 2.18 2.54 2.90
SCOPE
1 kHz sine wave, ampl. 1 LSB, TPDF dither
(b) 0.00
dBFS
–17.50
–35.00
–52.50
–70.00
–87.50
–105.00
–122.50
FFT
–140.00
0 Hz 2756 5512 8268 11025 13781 16537 19293 FFT 22050
Figure 2.26 (a) 1 kHz sine wave, amplitude ⫾1 LSB, with dither added, analysed in the digital domain.
(b) Spectrum of this dithered low level sine wave showing lack of distortion and flat noise floor.
25
1 kHz sine wave, –104 dBFS, TPDF dither

(c) 000400
Hex
000300
000200
000100
000000
FFFF00
FFFE00
FFFD00
SCOPE
FFFC00
0.00 ms 0.36 0.73 1.09 1.45 1.81 2.18 2.54 2.90
SCOPE
1 kHz sine wave, –104 dBFS, TPDF dither
(d) 0.00
dBFS
–17.50
–35.00
–52.50
–70.00
–87.50
–105.00
–122.50
FFT
–140.00
0 Hz 2756 5512 8268 11025 13781 16537 19293 FFT 22050
Figure 2.26 (continued) (c) 1 kHz sine wave at a level of ⫺104 dBFS with dither, showing occasional modulation
of LSB. (d) Spectrum of this signal showing that it is still possible to discern the original signal. An undithered 16-
bit system would be incapable of representing a signal below about ⫺97 dBFS
26
spectrum of a dithered sine wave at a level that would be impossible to represent in an

undithered 16-bit system. In this case the LSB is in the zero state much more frequently than
the one state, but an element of the original 1 kHz period can still be seen in its modulation
pattern if studied carefully. The duty cycle of the LSB modulation (ratio between time on and
time off) varies with the instantaneous amplitude of the original signal. When this is passed
through a D/A convertor and reconstruction filter the result is a pure sine wave signal plus
noise, as can be seen from the spectrum analysis.
Dither is also used in digital processing devices such as mixers, but in such cases it is
introduced in the digital domain as a random number sequence (the digital equivalent of
white noise). In this context it is used to remove low-level distortion in signals whose gains
have been altered and to optimise the conversion from high resolution to lower resolution
during post-production (see below).
2.4.6 Types of dither

Research has shown that certain types of dither signal are more suitable than others for high
quality audio work. Dither noise is often characterised in terms of its probability distribution,
which is a statistical method of showing the likelihood of the signal having a certain amplitude.
A simple graph such as that shown in Figure 2.27 is used to indicate the shape of the distri-
bution. The probability is the vertical axis and the amplitude in terms of quantising steps is
the horizontal axis.
Logical probability distributions can be understood simply by thinking of the way in which
dice fall when thrown (see Figure 2.28). A single die throw has a rectangular probability distri-
bution function (RPDF), because there is an equal chance of the throw being between 1 and 6
(unless the die is weighted!). The total value of a pair of dice, on the other hand, has a roughly
triangular probability distribution function (TPDF) with the peak grouped on values from 6 to
8, because there are more combinations that make these totals than there are combinations
making 2 or 12. Going back to digital electronics, one could liken the dice to random number
generators and see that RPDF dither could be created using a single random number genera-
tor, and that TPDF dither could be created by adding the outputs of two RPDF generators.
RPDF dither has equal likelihood that the amplitude of the noise will fall anywhere between
zero and maximum, whereas TPDF dither has greater likelihood that the amplitude will be
Probability
– Amplitude 0 Amplitude +
Figure 2.27 A probability distribution curve for dither shows the likelihood of the dither signal having a certain
amplitude, averaged over a long time period
27
(a)
Probability 1 2 3 4 5 6 Value
(b)
Probability
1 6–8 3
Figure 2.28 Probability distributions of dice throws. (a) A single die throw shows a rectangular PDF. (b) A pair of
thrown dice added together has a roughly triangular PDF (in fact it is stepped)
(a) Probability
–1Q 0 +1Q
2Q peak-to-peak
(b) Probability
–0.5Q 0 +0.5Q
Q peak-to-peak
Figure 2.29 Most suitable digital dither signals for audio. (a) TPDF dither with a peak-to-peak amplitude of 2Q.
(b) RPDF dither with an amplitude of 1Q
zero than that it will be maximum. Analog white noise has Gaussian probability, whose
shape is slightly more unusual than either of the logically generated dithers. Although RPDF,
TPDF and Gaussian dither can have the effect of linearising conversion and removing dis-
tortion, RPDF dither tends to result in noise modulation at low signal levels. The most suit-
able dither noise is found to be TPDF with a peak-to-peak amplitude of 2Q (see Figure 2.29).
If RPDF dither is used it should have a peak-to-peak amplitude of 1Q.
28
Whilst it is easy to generate ideal logical PDFs in the digital domain, it is likely that the noise
source present in many convertors will be analog and therefore Gaussian in nature. With
Gaussian noise, the optimum r.m.s. amplitude for the dither signal is 0.5Q, at which level
noise modulation is minimised but not altogether absent. Dither at this level has the effect of
reducing the undithered dynamic range by about 6 dB, making the dithered dynamic range
of an ideal 16 bit convertor around 92 dB.
2.4.7 Oversampling in A/D conversion

Oversampling involves sampling audio at a higher frequency than strictly necessary to
satisfy the Nyquist criterion. Normally, though, this high rate is reduced to a lower rate in a
subsequent digital filtering process, in order that no more storage space is required than for
conventionally sampled audio. It works by trading off sample resolution against sampling
rate, based on the principle that the information carrying capacity of a channel is related to
the product of these two factors. Samples at a high rate with low resolution can be converted
into samples at a lower rate with higher resolution, with no overall loss of information (this
is related to sound quality). Oversampling has now become so popular that it is the norm in
most high-quality audio convertors.
Although oversampling A/D convertors often quote very high sampling rates of up to 128
times the basic rates of 44.1 or 48 kHz, the actual rate at the digital output of the convertor is
reduced to a basic rate or a small multiple thereof (e.g. 48, 96 or 128 kHz). Samples acquired
at the high rate are quantised to only a few bits resolution and then digitally filtered to reduce
the sampling rate, as shown in Figure 2.30. The digital low-pass filter limits the bandwidth
of the signal to half the basic sampling frequency in order to avoid aliasing, and this is cou-
pled with ‘decimation’. Decimation reduces the sampling rate by dropping samples from the
oversampled stream. A result of the low-pass filtering operation is to increase the word
length of the samples very considerably. This is not simply an arbitrary extension of the
wordlength, but an accurate calculation of the correct value of each sample, based on the
values of surrounding samples (see Section 2.11 on digital signal processing). Although over-
sampling convertors quantise samples initially at a low resolution, the output of the decimator
consists of samples at a lower rate with more bits of resolution. The sample resolution can
then be shortened as necessary (see Section 2.8 on requantising) to produce the desired word
length.
Oversampling brings with it a number of benefits and is the key to improved sound quality
at both the A/D and D/A ends of a system. Because the initial sampling rate is well above
Small number Larger number

of bits per sample of bits per sample
Digital LPF
Audio in Sample Quantise and
decimate
Rate = Multiple of f s Rate = f s
Figure 2.30 Block diagram of oversampling A/ D conversion process
29
(a)
Amplitude Potential alias region
fs Frequency Multiple
Audio of f s
band
(b)
Digital LPF
Amplitude
fs 2f s 3f s 4f s
Audio
band
Figure 2.31 (a) Oversampling in A/D conversion initially creates spectral repetitions that lie a long way from the
top of the audio baseband. The dotted line shows the theoretical extension of the baseband and the potential for
aliasing, but the audio signal only occupies the bottom part of this band. (b) Decimation and digital low pass
filtering limits the baseband to half the sampling frequency, thereby eliminating any aliasing effects, and creates a
conventional collection of spectral repetitions at multiples of the sampling frequency
the audio range (often tens or hundreds of times the nominal rate) the spectral repetitions
resulting from PAM are a long way from the upper end of the audio band (see Figure 2.31).
The analog anti-aliasing filter used in conventional convertors is replaced by a digital
decimation filter. Such filters can be made to have a linear phase response if required, resulting
in higher sound quality. If oversampling is also used in D/A conversion the analog recon-
struction filter can have a shallower roll-off. This can have the effect of improving phase
linearity within the audio band, which is known to improve audio quality. In oversampled
D/A conversion, basic rate audio is up-sampled to a higher rate before conversion and recon-
struction filtering. Oversampling also makes it possible to introduce so-called ‘noise shaping’
into the conversion process, which allows quantising noise to be shifted out of the most audible
parts of the spectrum.
Oversampling without subsequent decimation is a fundamental principle of Sony’s Direct
Stream Digital system, described in Section 2.7.
2.4.8 Noise shaping in A/D conversion

Noise shaping is a means by which noise within the most audible parts of the audio frequency
range is reduced at the expense of increased noise at other frequencies, using a process that
30
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Och hon skulle lett däråt som åt en orimlighet om någon för några
dar sen sagt henne att det skulle plåga henne så, att hon skulle ta
så djupt intryck af detta.
Hon grubblade, funderade, resonnerade och öfvertalade sig sjelf

allt möjligt förnuft.
Det stod ändå kvar, orubbligt, detta ena. Hvart hon vände sig, om
hon gick eller kom gick det med henne, eller kom det efter henne,
och när hon i skymningen gick ut för att få en smula luft, slog det
emot henne, rakt i ansigtet med snöslagg och isiga vindar:
Förlofvad karl, förlofvad karl!
15.
HAN KOMMER.
Slasket på gatorna gick en ända upp till smalbenen när man skulle
från den ena trottoaren till den andra, och på endel ställen var det
sä djupt att bottnen tycktes liksom försvinna under stegen.
Det var våren som kom…
För en månad sen hade man varit tvungen att göra tunnlar genom
snön ut från husen och till gatorna. Nu hade solen gifvit drifvorna
fart, de skyndade sig hvad de kunde, gaturenhållningsgubbarne
hjelpte till, men, det som var kvar var så oregerligt, det ville inte i
väg.
Under snösmörjan var ännu en tjock isskorpa. Här och dar var den
sprucken i fogningarne och bildade djupa hål och gropar som för
både hästar och folk voro värkliga fällor och gärna kunde gjort tjenst
som varggropar.
Folk gick och traskade i smörjan som om de trampat i nysstjärnadt

smör. Det kluckade dem om fötterna, stod om dem som kaskader vid
hvarje steg, slog upp mot benkläder och kjolar, lade sig tyngande på
fållarne, vätte och dröp.
Från takrännorna åkte nu och då ett lossnadt snötäcke ned mot

trottoaren, rutschade blikstsnabbt öfverända och klatschade ned i
backen med ett brak som hade det varit glas alltsammans.
Det sjöd öfver allt, sakta och försigtigt gick våren framåt, ty ännu
var iskostymen alldeles för solid, men man kunde märka att det
snart skulle bli fart i det hela, solen sken blid, och sparfvarne
hoppade förväntningsfulla.
En frisk, ren luft strömmade fram från Sandviksfjärden, för saltig

och blid genom Boulevardens gatlängd, skvallrade om råkan borta
vid Gråharabåk och lade sig att hvila bland de vackra träden i Gamla
kyrkogården.
På backen vid kampen syntes en liten flock komma gående, gatan

var eljes som vanligt rätt tom, och man kunde därför dess tydligare
observera dem som besökte den.
De gingo en om en och följde alla tätt i hälarne på den som gick

först.
De voro alla kvinnor, utom han som gick i spetsen.

Alla voro de ungefär lika klädda, i svarta veckrika klädningar, enkla
kappor och pelsar, små hattskrollor på sina hufvuden, och svarta flor.
Ingen hade något kulört på sig icke så mycket som en duk.
De buro i händerna små inbundna böcker; några med knäppen af

metall, andra simplare.
Deras långa kjolar togo vid hvarje steg i gatan, doppade i

snöslagget, slogo dem om benen, drogo med sig slask och smörja
utan att deras ägarinnor märkte det.
Han som förde an var en prelat. En stor figur, bredakslad, med

lemmar som en atlet, kraftfull och tung, ännu helt ung. Dertill ett
vackert manligt ansigte, godmodigt och friskt.
Han bar en lång gammalmodig sjubbskinnspels, pelsmössa och

öfverstöflar. Pelsen fladdrade, mössan satt en smula i nacken,
stöflarne klaskade, man kunde under pelsen se hans rock och den
hvita tvåklufna kraglappen som sakta flägtade för hvarje af hans
steg.
Om eftertruppens fysionomier kunde man föga döma, dolda som

de voro af floren, — men presten såg ut som sjelfva hälsan. Hans
fasta kinder skeno af välmåga och hans ögon hade en klarblå färg.
Det såg ut, där han kom med väldiga steg plaskande ned för
backen, som om det varit honom temligen likgiltigt om damerna
kunde hålla takt med honom eller oj.
Sviten tycktes honom nästan nog likgiltig. När någon bakom

honom tilltalade honom, svarade han utan att vända sig om. Han
tycktes blott tänka på att komma fram.
Men desto mer tänkte den lilla eftertruppen på honom. Under
slöjorna brännde hängifna blickar, med svärmiska ögon såg man på
pastor Lämmenens breda rygg, och hvar och en af de elfva
damernas hållning bar en så tydlig prägel af underdånighet och
tillgifvenhet för honom framför dem, att det icke kunde ha
missförståtts af en iakttagare.
De följde honom alltid, från morgon och till middag från middag
och till kväll.
Han hade varit i staden några veckor, sänd af Domkapitlet att

tjenstgöra för gamle Mattias Ljung som var slagrörd och sjuk.
Och så passade han på, predikade prof, gjorde stormande lycka,

slog de andre mera meriterade ur brädet, och hade nu, — obekant
och obetydlig som han var — alla chancer.
Han hade gjort lycka! Och som alltid när en berömdhet skapas
voro genast en hop damer till hands, som månarna kring en planet,
svärmade omkring honom, skeno med hans sken, värmdes af hans
värme, sögo sig fast som sommarflugor på en häst, dyrkade och
"gingo opp" i den nye.
Han fick fort sin klick färdig. Gamla genralskan Utter afsade sig
redan första söndagen världen, d.v.s. sin man, sina barn, sitt hus,
sin slägt, sin umgängeskrets, sina sidenklädningar, och sitt eleganta
ekipage.
Hon åkte aldrig mer, gick bara till fots i sin fordna fattigklädning,
den som förr endast satts på då hon som medlem af
Fruntimmersföreningen gjorde de nödvändiga
barmhertighetsbesöken med flygskrifter och böcker i fattigkvarteren.
Och nu gick hon upp i bara "gudsfruktan", blef utom sig af
hänryckning för hvarje af pastorns ord, gret så hon var färdig att
flyta bort när han predikade och hade dessemellan den varmaste
omtanke för hans person.
Häradshöfdingskan Gröning, den högmodiga och dryga

världsmenniskan med sina tre fåfänga döttrar var lika upptagen.
Döttrarne togo ej mer timmar i sång och rörde aldrig pianots
tangenter; de voro så ängsliga för synden att de aldrig gjorde
någonting annat än läste betraktelser, kurtiserade pastor Lämmenen,
eller suckade vid sina stickstrumpor. Båda fröknarne Gelén som
också förr varit förhärdade, hade omvändt sig, och trodde.
De beundrade pastorn som konstkännare beundra en antik staty.

Anna hade försett sig på hans stora hvita händer, Hanna älskade
hans buskiga Johannes döparaktiga skägg. De råkade i hänryckning
då de fingo tillfälle att tala om honom, och när den unga öfvergifna
fru Aianius och hennes syster som lemnat Barnabasföreningen för
Lämmenens skull och egnat sin kult till den nykomne, blandade sina
röster med deras, blef det en underbar enhet och harmoni i denna
lofsång.
Den unga frun tyckte hans ögon voro så himmelska. Hon älskade
himmelska ögon, ack! hennes mans hade ju varit så innerligen
jordiska! Han nästan sjöng när han talade, Jyväskylä accenten fann
hon vara den vackraste af alla accenter, och hon gick alltid och
åhörde honom, på aftonsånger som på högmessor, tillochmed då
han predikade finska, och det fast hon ej förstod ett ord af sjelfva
språket.
Ack! hon visste ju ändå så godt hvad han menade.

Fröken Langfelt fann honom vackrast när han från predikstolen
sträckte ut armarne och talade evangeliets ord.
Men de andra voro stumma — för dem var det andliga

öfvervägande. De älskade i honom förkunnarn af ordet, manarn till
tro, själasörjarn.
Men alla, hvar enda en hade föresats sig att han skulle ha
pastoratet, om det så skulle kosta deras sista skilling, deras allra
sista blodsdroppe.
Man kom in på Esplanadgatan, gick öfver Salutorget förbi

Kejsarinnans obelisk, passerade Högvakten och gick upp åt
Mariegatan, vek af vid Margelins hörn och slank in i gården där
systrarne Donner bodde.
I tamburn voro elfva par händer redo att hjelpa pelsen af pastorn,
medan tvenne af de yngsta gjorde min af att böja sig ned till
öfverstöflarne hvilka dock med en kraftig rörelse af pastorns ben
slängdes af, och föllo ned på golfvet där de så i timtal sednare lågo
och läkte.
Inne hos den sjuka voro de nykomne väntade.

Barnabasföreningen som aldrig återkommit var skingrad under
vintern, pastor Lämmenen hade samlat omkring sig några af
spillrorna, och man skulle i afton, just doktor Collins bröllopsafton,
ha bönemöte hos fröken Donner som förresten nu på våren kände
sig betydligt bättre. Ty Collin hade med ifver åtagit sig sitt kall som
läkare hos fröken Donner, hade börjat med början och vakade
strängt öfver att hon "lefde ordentligt." Bad och gnidningar hade
blifvit använda hela vintern, och medikamenter fick hon numera
föga.
Hans förhoppningar gäckades dock en tid, men som sagt, nu de
sista veckorna såg hon ut som en annan människa. Isynnerhet
märkbart var det i afton.
Pastor Lämmenen som först nästan motvilligt lät sig föras till "den
heliga" på besök, blef högst frapperad af henne redan från början.
Hon intog honom genast, hennes varma religiositet, så fanatisk

den var, gjorde stort intryck på honom, och han hade aldrig förr,
hvarken under sin korta studenttid, eller sednare på bondlandet
påträffat något dylikt.
Snart nog funno de hvarandra. Icke att någondera skulle uttalt sig
i ord.
Hon tog honom icke som han var utan lät sin fantasi omskapa
honom till en storhet, en genial ordförkunnare. Hon såg ej i honom
landspresten, som genom en nyck af modet med ens blifvit upphöjd
till hufvudstadens fasionablaste predikant, utan hon tyckte sig i
honom finna den värkliga profeten, gudsmannen, sjelfva
fullkomligheten, dygden personifierad.
Hans fysiska kraft, hans talareentusiasm hänförde henne. Han var

för henne en apostel, men en apostel som kommit till för henne, för
att ge hennes lif innehåll, hennes tro än mer stadga, hennes hjärta
tusen nya heliga känslor.
Nu trädde han in i rummet, allvarlig, rörd som hade han gått in i

en kyrka. Han hälsade aktningsfullt på Lina, men på Luba blott med
en lång blick.
"Systrarne" satte sig, öppnade sina böcker och slöto dem igen.
Pastorn stod en stund stilla själsfrånvarande, alldeles distraherad,
med ögonen fastade någonstädes framför sig. Man observerade
honom noga, allas blickar voro riktade på honom utan att han gaf
akt därpå.
Det var alldeles tyst i rummet. Damerna sutto utanför skärmen,

och pastorn tog plats närmare den sjukas säng, straks bredvid den.
Alla böjde sig ned, hukade med hufvudena och dolde ansigtena i
händerna.
Pastorn föll på knä, och mumlade en stund sakta. Han såg med
sina klara, ljusblä ögon på kristusbilden, försökte lägga i sin blick all
möjlig innerlighet och tycktes bedja.
Så såg han på Luba som låg där i sin fina, hvita morgondrägt, blek
och genomskinlig, lika förandligad som han tycktes materiel.
Hans rödbruna ansigte var den största motsatts till hennes hvita,
med de stora djupa ögonen. Och när hon betraktade honom blef där
en sällsam glans i blicken, och munnen log. Man skulle i denna stund
kunnat glömma att hon var ett helgon, öfverjordisk och luttrad som
renaste silfver.
Sä började pastorn i knäböjande ställning att tala.
Först sakta, hviskande, med stora betydelsefulla pauser. Rösten

smekte, den var vek ock klar, man skulle icke tänkt sig att den kunde
komma från all denna kroppslighet. Han bad, bad för de ensamma,
de fattiga, de lidande. Han fick sanna accenter, ord som godt tydde
hans hjärtas mening. Och hans hjärta tycktes värkligen klappa varmt
för de olycklige, de ringe, de föraktade…
Men så lemnade han dessa, och riktade för endast en sin bön till
Gud. För en som lidit, som kanske felat först, fångad i världens garn,
men som sedan i fjorton långa år lidit, och gjort bot.
Han bad med sträckta händer, med darrande röst, bäfvande af

varm hänförelse, bad som för sitt eget lif.
Han trängde på, blef allt mer uppeldad, stormade på Guds

barmhärtighet, Gud måste, måste höra, han kunde icke neka, nej
hon skulle bli frisk, hon skulle stä upp, miraklet skulle ske, den
bedjande syndarens tro kunde ju försätta bärg, ja visst, det var
säkert, bara intet tvifvel, den allsmäktige skulle hjelpa, hon skulle stä
upp, i dag, redan i dag, straks på stund!
Han stannade, väntande, i from andäktig bidan, så uppmanade

han de andra att bedja, sakta eller högt, hur som helst.
Åter blef det tyst en minut, — en lång stämningsrik minut… så

hörde man ånyo hans stämma, vek och manande.
De mumlade nu alla, på knä, med höjda händer och slutna

ögonlock.
Pastorn steg upp, närmade sig sängen, gjorde korsets tecken, och
kysste
Luba på pannan — det var den kristna broderskyssen.
Hon höjde armarne som till en omfamning, och han såg på henne
lika som nyss, — hans läppar hviskade några ohörbara ord.
Darrande, leende, lycksalig besvarade Luba hans blick. Hennes
ögon besvarade hans kyss, och hon höjde sig upp ur sin liggande
ställning, dröjande liksom ofrivilligt…
Han gick sakta baklänges, med armarne sträckta, som inbjudande

henne att följa.
Hon reste sig, lade sin ena fot på mattan, och så den andra.
Där satt hon rak, med strålande blickar, blek som en skugga men
med ett leende som den lyckligaste bland dödliga.
Han vinkade, hon steg upp, stod på benen, tog ett steg.
Pastorn sträckte sig ut i hela sin längd, öppnade sina armar och
jublade: "se, se Guds nåd! Hon går, hon kommer! Hon år frisk!
Frälst! Lofvad vare Herren!"
Alla damerna foro upp! Lina kom framrusande från sitt rum,
skrämd och urstånd att tro sina egna ögon.
Luba, Luba som i fjorton år, med få mellanstunder legat till sängs,
hon stod där, i sin hvita drägt midt i rummet, som en uppenbarelse,
vacklande med darrande framräckta händer!
Det varade ett ögonblick. I det nästa låg hon i pastorns famn,
betagen, ifrån sig af glädje, urståndsatt att röra sig, men
triumferande, hoppfull, lycksalig.
Hon var frälst, frisk, färdig!
Halleluja, ett undervärk, ett himlens undervärk.
Och der blef sjungen en lofsång af jublande, hänryckta stämmor.

Ut, ut, att förkunna undret! Alla de elfva kysste pastorns händer
och Lubas, de välsignade, omfamnade, voro utom sig, alldeles
hejdlösa, utan sans, sprungo åstad som jagade.
Hon låg nu på sängen och smålog. Han satt vid hennes sida, höll
hennes hand, och hviskade.
Lina lagade thé och vikte servietter. Hon förstod sig inte på något.
Hvad hade då skett? Pastorn hade varit där fyra, fem gånger, talat
med
Luba, läst för henne, bedt med henne.
Och Luba hade biktat sig — — — hvar enda tanke, hvar skiftning,
hvarje liten strid. Han skulle veta, allt, — — — det fick sedan gå som
det ville.
Under dessa besök var Lina alltid inne hos sig, men hon märkte
att pastorns umgänge uppmuntrade Luba som intet annat.
Luba blef allt raskare, talade om att bli frisk, fick aptit, började se
sig i spegeln och vårda sin drägt.
Hon fick en ny broderad liggklädning och små sockor af stickadt

hvitt ullgarn.
Så kom denna bönestund, — den första i flere vittnens närvaro,

och nu — hvad hvar det? Undret! Undret! Luba var frisk, kunde gå,
röra sig.
Pastorn ropade Lina.
Hon gick in. Han satt på sängen, vid hufvudgärden och höll
handen kring
Lubas lif. Luba lutade sitt hufvud mot hans aksel.
"Bed Gud välsigna vårt förbund syster Lina", sade presten, "Luba
och jag ha i denna stund lofvat hvarann tro, och ämna ingå kristligt
äktenskapsförbund! Bed Gud välsigna oss."
Lina var nära att falla baklänges. Men hon hämtade sig snart,
välsignade dem, lyckönskade dem af fullaste hjärta, och tassade så
oförmärkt in i köket, att taga bort den kokande thépannan från
elden. Eljes hade den helt säkert kokat öfver och förstört hela spisen
som just var upputsad och fin nu på lördagsafton.
16.
IDEALET FUNNET.
Pastorn var bjuden på förmiddagskaffe till moster Thilda som

gärna ville ha reda på hur allting förhöll sig, och alls inte kunde
känna sig tillfreds med de knappa upplysningar Lina meddelat.
Han gick gårdsvägen in till presthuset, tog trappan i tre väldiga

steg, drog af öfverstöflarno i förstugan och steg in i köket.
Pigan Lisa satt på en långpall och skalade potatis, gamla Leena

höll på att baka.
"Godmorgon, mina barn", hälsade pastorn och klappade Leena på

akseln, "det är god lukt ni här består er, och varmt är det med
besked! Jag tycker så innerligt bra om ett sådant här kök. Här trifs
jag så väl, så. Gud välsigne er gärning, barn, hvad heter ni?"
Pigorna nego, Leena sken som en sol, gned med ärmen mjölet
bort från näsan, och skakade af sig allt löst, så hon blef allt svartare
och svartare medan pastorn blef mer hvit.
Lisa steg upp, snöt sig med fingrarne och var så öfverlycklig att få
se den högvördige pastorn på så nära håll, att hon fick tårar i
ögonen. Att sjelfva Lämmenen ville komma och göra sig så gemen
och se in till deras kök! Gud välsigne den gode pastorn, och om de
kunde få lof att gratulera till förlofningen och önska allt godt!
Pastorn gaf sig i tal med pigorna, berömde anordningen af

messingskärlen på väggen, af porslinet på hyllan, tog reda på hvad
hvar och en af dem gjorde i huset, frågade om deras kyrkobesök,
emottog en hop osökt beröm öfver sina bibelförklaringar, förmanade
till flit och gudsfruktan, varnade för syndens och världens frestelser,
klappade dem ännu engång hvar, och steg in i matsalen där onkel
Mattias orörlig satt i sin rullstol och halfsof vid brasan.
Moster Thilda kom rultande från förmaket och tog emot, gjorde
krus för att han kommit köksvägen och begynte straks förhöret.
"Kusin, — jag får väl säga kusin efter vi nu blir tjocka slägten, —
kusin kan tala uppriktigt med mig, alldeles som om inte den gamla
söta gubben där fanns, han hör inte mycket nu, stackare, och om
han sku' höra, sku' han ändå int' kunna tala om, så skralt som det ä'
med alla gångjärnen! Kusin vet att männen ä' ena skröpliga kärl, di,
när di engång börjar… vi ä' lika gamla, Mattias och jag, men där ser
kusin hur det går. Han är redan slut, och jag kunde gifta mig ännu
engång, jag, och börja på ny kula, så rask är jag. Ska' man gifta sig,
kusin, så ska' man ha något att ta på. Det skall vara
krigsmanskrafter, kusin, när man skall föda fram barn i världen, och
min Mattias var också riktigt bra på landet, men här i stan, kusin,
här dugde han inte.
"Sitt ner, bästa vän, och välkommen i gungstolen, nå, hur står det
till med hälsan och kärleken?"
Lämmenen satte sig, fick skorpor och kringla till kaffet, åt och
drack.
"Hela stan talar om miraklet", pratade moster, "liksom om det nu

var något! Doktor Collin sade ren längesen att hon gärna kunde
stiga opp. Hela året har han ju gått där och gnidit och plaskat med
henne. Hörde kusin hur han körde ut Barnabasföreningen som halft
osat ihjäl henne med sina sjumilslånga predikningar och gjort henne
halfgalen med sina psalmsjungningar? Det blef annat när han fick
kommandot, ett luftande, ska' kusin tro! Han satt i henne mat och
dryck, och rentvättad blef hon. Det kosta' på pinadt skinn att lägga
af helgonglorian så länge, men doktorn tålte inte prut. Han hade en
sjuksköterska med sig, och det hjelpte inte att krusa".
Moster skrattade, och gaf pastorn ett klask på akseln.
"Tala om nu, helt unter uns", sade hon, "hur gick det till, var det
aftalt, eller var det stundens ingifvelse? Kusin är ju en redbar själ,
tala om alltihop är han snäll, jag tycker det ä' så roligt!"
Pastorn var en smula generad, nog hade han hört talas om att
kyrkoherdskan var originel, men han hade aldrig tänkt sig att man i
en prestgård kunde finna en i så hög grad ovanlig, ja så världslig
person som moster.
Han log mildt och godmodigt, blickade liksom urskuldande på
onkel Mattias som alltjemt försjunken i egna tankar satt och stirrade
framför sig in i kakelugnen, samt påbörjade ett litet värdigt tal med
denna klingande vältalighet som förskaffat honom så många vänner.
"Det var ett Herrans under", slutade han, "och jag, hans ringaste
tjenare, var det ovärdiga medlet".
"Snick, snack", afbröt moster. "Nå — kusin vill inte ut med det,
alltså: det var kärleken".
"Herrens stora kärlek i det ringa har magt att göra under",
menade pastorn.
"Ja naturligtvis, näst Gud var det doktorn, och så kom kärleken
och krönte värket. Men vet kusin, Luba är inte något barn nu, hon är
öfver trettitvå år, och en kratta har hon alltid varit. Hur ska' kusin
som är så firad kunna vara nöjd med henne som är så svag?"
"Våra vägar gå inte i samma riktning som andra världsbarns",

yttrade pastorn förmanande, "vi ha inte samma begär som andra.
Och dessutom, Han som redan gjort så mycket, kan göra än mer".
"Men hon kan inte mer bli ung, och inte stark heller".
"Min hustru behöfver inte gå på baler", sade pastorn mulnande.
"Neej, min käre kusin", sade moster med lugnande ton, "men han
skulle kanske gärna vilja ha en hustru som kunde se om hans hus
och föda hans barn, hvasa? Luba var i sin ungdom en glad flicka,
men frisk var hon inte. Hon ville inte gifta sig med en, sade hon,
utan med flere! Hon hade för mycket blod förstås, och borde ha
åderlåtits, men det ville salig Miloff inte, och så blef hon liggande".
"Luba har bekännt sina ungdomsdårskaper för mig", sade pastorn,
"och
Herren har längesen förlåtit henne".
"Ingenting att förlåta, det kunde hon inte rå för. Folk ä' som de blir
uppfostrade till. Mina pojkar ha inte en smula mer frestelser än mina
flickor, och mina flickor inte en smula mindre än mina pojkar! Men
de ha gått hederligt genom världen, och det tackar jag Gud för.
Tidigt lät jag dem se in i korten, både flickor och pojkar. De ha hjelpt
hvarann in i lifvet och från sitt fjortonde år ha de vetat af
alltsammans. Inga mysteringar, inga mirakler. Låt kropp vara kropp,
och själ själ. Så ha vi lagat att de kommit straks i den riktiga
kärleken och inte lärt dem att det är svårt att stå emot frestelser. Vi
ha visat dem frestelsernas afvigsida straks, och lärt dem att man har
något som heter fri vilja".
"Det strider emot Guds bud att alltför mycket lita på den egna
viljan och den egna kraften", tog pastorn till ordet, "det är Herren
som väksten gifver. Min syndiga vilja duger inte, om den icke af
Herren blifvit helgad".
"Prat smörja", sade moster. "Det finns bara en duglig sak på oss
människor, det är den fria viljan".
"Men gärningarne, de egna gärningarne äro Herren inte till behag,

allt hvad vi göra är synd, det är blott tron, blott tron som gör salig!"
"Såå! det där talet orkar jag inte höra. En latmanslära, kära kusin,
och som för raka vägen till helvete. Det är lögn att det är synd att ha
fri vilja och att använda den att strida emot det onda och att lefva
för det goda, och för att bli god! Jag vet att de nya evangelisterna
predika om att tron gör allt och gärningarne intet, men det är en
täckmantel för all möjlig andlig slapphet och för alla möjliga
dumheter. Det är en lära som de lagat till åt sig för att få göra illa
och ändå få förlåtelse. Synda kan de ogeneradt, jo gudbevars, ty
Gud förlåter när man ångrar. Man behöfver bara slå sig för pannan
och be om ursägt, så är allt bra, hvad man så dessförinnan kan ha
ställt till. Nej kusin, det är en ren syltreligion, den kan han bjuda de
andre herrarne! Jag biter inte på så grof krok, jag gamla mört! Vill
kusin ha mer kaffe, det är varmt och starkt — och kringlor, inte?"
Pastorn ville ingenting ha. Han måste bort, moster var alldeles
omöjlig.
Så tog han höfligt och kallt afsked, gick genom rummen till
kansliet, stängde långsamt dörrarne efter sig, hälsade där med
förströdd min på Tölponi, talade med komministern, lagade sina
lysningspapper i ordning och gick sedan till sin brud som väntade.
Luba satt i sin hvilstol, Lina var ute och hon hade så god tid att
tänka på sig sjelf och sin nya lycka.
Så underligt det gått.
Hon var så lycklig att hon ej kunde tänka redigt. Dock — det var
något som en smula tryckte henne — en oklar förnimmelse,
någonting som icke riktigt ville stämma in med det öfrigas harmoni.
Hon tyckte att hennes kristendom blifvit liksom mattare, och

trängts tillbaka för något annat.
Försakelsens religion — — hvar var den nu? Hvar var den lära hon
hört predikas så länge, allt detta som i lidandets dagar uppehållit
henne, och gjort henne stark i sin svaghet? Hvar var detta glödande
trosnit?
Hon stötte bort dessa tankar, hon ville vara lycklig, ville ha allt, det
mesta hon kunde få, allt hvad jordelifvet egde att bjuda.
Men tankarne kommo igen — — — försaka, lida, strida, det är

större.
Nej! det var förfärligt, onaturligt, omänskligt.
Hur hade hon kunnat lefva alla dessa fjorton år? Hon som velat ha
mer än andra, som velat njuta, bara njuta, och som aldrig ens tänkt
sig att låta sig nöja med en hvardagslycka som andra kvinnor, hur
hade hon kunnat lefva? Lefva som en nunna, som ett helgon, som
en asket, en martyr?
Lefva? Nej, hon hade icke lefvat, hon hade legat i skendöd, och i
går, i går hade hon vaknat till lif!
Men kristendomen, hennes underbara, sköna kristendom, var den

då borta?
Hon som varit Kristi brud, hvad var hon nu?
Hon ville ej svara på dessa frågor som kommo farande ur luften,

emot hennes vilja. Hon ville vara lycklig, glömma det förflutna, tro
på framtiden. Allt var intet, utom att han fanns, han som hon
älskade.
Han som var mer än allt annat, mer än hennes första ungdoms
drömdemon, mer än hennes första, falska jordiska kärlek, mer än
hennes religiösa bildideal, Kristusporträttet, han som var hennes
första värklighet.
Hon ville bara tänka på honom, inkarnationen af alla dygder,

honom, den ädle, den fullkomlige, den gode.
Och nu tyckte hon att han liknade Kristusbilden… naturligtvis en

smula mer mänsklig, men — — blicken, minen, skägget.
Det ringde och han kom.
Rummet låg i skymning — — hon skymtade hans gestalt, och slöt

ögonen.
Han såg sig omkring. Där fanns ingen, genom fönstrens jalusier
kunde ingen se in.
Han föll på knä framför henne och gömde sitt ansigte i hennes
famn. Med sina läppar kysste hon hans hår, smekte hans hufvud och
akslar, tryckte hans hand mot sin barm och lyfte upp hans ansigte
för att se in i det och läsa i hans ögon den kärlek hon, längtade
efter.
"Icke sannt, Elias", hviskade hon, "du är den bästa bland

människor, du är som du lär, du är sann och ren som den lära du
förkunnar? Jag måste veta att du är sådan du fordrar att andra skola
vara, du har ju aldrig gjort grof synd Elias, säg mig, säg mig, du är
ju ren — säg det ännu engång, du är ju obefläckad? Säg."
Pastorn hostade.
"Jag är en fattig syndig människa inför Gud, full af skröplighet".
"Men inför människor", inföll Luba, "inför människor är du ju

fläckfri?"
"Ja, naturligtvis. Jag har intet orätt gjort med vilja".
"Aldrig en synd?" jublade Luba.
"Aldrig".
"Och du är ärlig och sann?"
"Gud straffe mig eljes".
"Och du vill berätta mig hela ditt lif, ännu nogare än det du talade
om i går… och intet dölja, vill du?"
"Förstås att jag vill".
"Alla dina småfel och svagheter?"
"Ja", smålog Lämmenen, "alla, gärna".
"Och dina frestelser, alla de frestelser du haft?"
Pastorn såg henne i ansigtet.
"Jag bar ingenting att berätta", smålog han vänligt, "alls ingenting.
Du vet ju redan allt. Du vet hur jag lefde i arbetsamhet och
försakelser hela min ynglingatid, hur tidigt jag blef väckt och kom
upp till Orivara. Du vet hur jag sen lefvat i sträng värksamhet i mitt
allvarliga, världsförsakande kall tills jag kom hit och — — fick se dig.
Du vet allt".
"Allt?"
"Allt".
Luba teg en stund, hennes strålande ögon sökte hans, men det
var för mörkt, hon kunde icke skönja något.
"Svär att du är obefläckad — — — inför människor", sade hon,

"svär, så att jag får falla ned och dyrka dig!"
Pastorn kysste henne. Eder väkslades och togos. Skymningen

väkste, månen steg upp och lyste in i rummet. En bred, hvitblå stråle
silade sig in mellan rullgardinerna, strödde sitt sken på byrån med
dess porslinsprydnader, föll som ett regn af matt silfver på mattan,
och målade Lubas nu uppbäddade säng skimrande hvit som ett
altare.
De talade ej mer om dessa allvarliga saker. Pastorn hade sakta fört

samtalet på en angenämare stråt. Han var musikalisk och hade
kommit in i en vekare stämning, talade om sin ungdoms favoritvisor,
och gnolade de vackraste.
Luba var hänryckt. I öfversvinnlig dyrkan såg hon upp till honom
där han nu satt bredvid henne — — en oändlig tacksamhetskänsla
fyllde hennes själ.
"Ja", hviskade hon, — "Gud har skapat oss för hvarann".
Pastorn sjöng "Kristallen den fina" och tryckte henne i sina armar
vid refrängen "Du ädla ros och förgyllande skrin".
Hon lutade sig bakåt i sin stol, knäppte sina händer och önskade
att tiden måtte stanna… att intet måtte bli annorlunda — — att hon
finge dö just nu.
Nej — nej — hon ville vidare. Vidare. Lefva mer. Lefva mycket.
Lefva, bara lefva — med honom. Hon hade ju lidit nog, gjort bot, —
— lifvet hade ju gifvit henne bara lidande. Nu var hennes dag!
Nu skulle hennes tur komma.
Lefva, lefva!
Månen sken allt klarare, gjöt sin glans öfver dem och förskönade
dem, gaf dem ett skimmer af poesi och skänkte denna stund en
stämning af äkta lycka som ingen af dem kännt förut.
Och de trodde sig kunna börja ett lif tillsammans, ett lif i sällhet.
Det ringde ånyo och syster Lina kom hem.
Lämmenen hade aldrig ätit med mer aptit än i kväll. Linas lilla
supé var förträfflig — och ingen kunde göra en så bra skinkomelett
som hon. Den skulle Luba lära — — naturligtvis.
17.
LUBA GIFT.
Ännu in i April var där kvar en mängd is på skuggställena. Inne i

staden kunde man möjligen använda hjuldon men ute på landet
åktes för det mesta med släde.
Det unga paret skulle ut och åka för första gången. Pastorskan
Lämmenen kunde icke begagna sig af vagn eller droska, det skulle
skakat alldeles för mycket, så ojemna som gatorna ännu voro, men
doktorn hade gifvit lof att hon skulle få försöka den friska luften,
åkande i släde.
Sakta hade man förberedt detta, först fick hon några minuter stå
vid ett öppet fönster, sedan kom hon ut på trappan och tilläts att en
stund, sittande i en stol, inandas den ännu vinterklädda vårens
första milda fläktar.
Straks efter bröllopet blef hon svagare, — man fruktade ett

återfall. Hon hade kanske öfveransträngt sig en smula vid flyttningen
till det nya hemmet… dit hon hade transporterats i bärstol eller
kanske hade glädjen tagit på henne för mycket! Alltjemt öfverretad
och eksentrisk gladde henne allt detta nya i så hög grad att hon
ofta, just efter det hon skrattat af förtjusning brast ut i gråt, och
snyftade tills hon somnade.
Förvånad och orolig öfver dessa alldeles icke helgonlika små

humörer, aflägsnade sig Lämmenen, med hufvudet fullt af farhågor,
han förstod intet af allt detta.
Han hade trott sig blifva gift med den heliga Caecilia sjelf, med en
kristen martyr i samma stil som dem hans gamla kyrkohistoria
berättat om, och han fann en människa, därtill en rätt komplicerad
natur i hvilken tillika med hälsan en mängd nycker uppvaknade, en
massa nya fordringar, en hop känslor, tycken, ja passioner som han
icke alls kunde manövrera med, och helst ville gå ur vägen för, så
länge som möjligt.
När han på tal om sitt föregående lif anförtrodde sin unga hustru
ett och annat af det han ej velat förtro bruden, blef hon orolig, —
grät och förhäfde sig öfver världens ondska — — — vid några och
trettio år hade hon ännu en adertonårings hela osanna
föreställningar om lifvet.
Luba var mycket ömtålig på denna punkt, hon hade så gärna velat
vara den enda riktiga, och pastors berättelser lugnade henne endast
till hälften.
En annan gång på tal om det förflutna kom pastorn i förbigående

att tala om en tjenstekvinna, en halffånig skräddaredotter som hängt
sig på honom med sin dyrkan… en besvärlig person som han dock ej
haft hjärta att stöta bort utan antagit i sin tjenst. Det var en stackars
naturmänniska som hade svårt att skilja själasörjaren från sjelfva
gudaväsendet. Pastorn tyckte synd om henne, Gud vet hvad det
blifvit af henne nu… Hon hade varit par är i hans hus.
Luba våndades då hon hörde denna berättelse. Det var ju intet

ondt, ingalunda nej! historien var ju alldeles oskyldig, men — — —
det var ändå något dervid som pinade henne…
Visst var han ju likafullt hennes idealmänniska, visst var han

hennes apostel, hennes lekamliggjorda Kristusbild, men — — — der
var något som gnagde, något med hans förtid som hon icke tyckte
om.
Det hade gått ur hennes minne, hurudan hon sjelf varit, och hon
ville absolut att han skulle vara det han inför henne gjort sig till, än
mer sådan hennes fantasi skapat honom, den upphöjde, den kristligt
renhjertade, den fullkomlige, den oberörde.
Hon ville blott älska det fullkomliga, och hon fordrade att kunna
tro på honom som på ett öfvermänskligt väsen.
Hennes farhågor förstod han dock snart att jaga på flykten.
Han drog fram hela sin rika arsenal af bibelspråk, originela

liknelser, bizarra theologiska bilder, och med deras tillhjelp lyckades
han öfvertyga henne att allt var som det borde och som hon ville ha
det.
Men mer än af allt annat öfvertygades hon af hans kyssar och

omfamningar. Först när hon nästan försvann i hans stora armar blef
hon lugn och njöt af sitt lif så intensivt som blott den förstår att
njuta som länge lidit.
Hon lefde i ständigt väkslando stämningar, glädje och oro följde

ofta tätt på hvarann, omotiveradt gret eller skrattade hon, svag som
en flägt tordes hon ej sysselsätta sig med något arbete — — —
dagarne kommo och gingo utan att det uppstod någon allvarligare
förändring.
Ju längre det led desto mer flegmatisk och hvardagsaktig blef

mannen. Det var som om hans riktiga natur först nu, då han
ingenting mer hade att bråka för, kommit fram. Och han såg med
oförställd förvåning på sin hustru hvars lynne skiftade i lika många
olika brytningar som det var timmar på dagen.
Nu skulle hon alltså ut, och det var visst sista dagen man kunde
åka med släde. Ehuru vintern varat längre än eljes i mannaminne,
skrapade medarne redan hårdt i och det fastän kusken försigtigt
körde på de sista resterna af vinterns drifvor.
Luften var härlig, ifrån hafvet spelade en frisk, ljum bris, och när
de nådde Brunnsparken kastade Luba tillbaka floret som betäckt
hennes ansigte för att se sig omkring. Hon hade glömt hur det såg
ut, alltsammans. Detta var således bärg, riktiga bärg, skönare, högre
större, än hon mindes från fordom.
Och så såg då vägen ut — — stenar, buskar, träd! allting så

vackert, så fritt, så annorlunda än gatan därhemma.
Rundtomkring dem, inne i parken stodo granar och tallar gröna;

hvitstammiga björkar vajade sina fina löflösa grenar sakta för
luftningen — — undrande betraktade hon allt, med vidtuppspärrade
ögon, medan munnen begärligt sög in den starka, saltmängda
luften.
Och fåglarne! Att så små väsen kunde föra ett sådant lif! De pepo,
flögo af och an, kvittrade och hoppade, hon hade nästan glömt att
det fanns annat än damgrå sparfvar och grannens kanariefogel som
hon bara hörde men aldrig såg, ibland när hon hade fönstret uppe
för att vädra en smula.
De mossiga tufvorna med en fläck snö här och där förtjusade

henne, hon kunde aldrig tro att de voro så starkt gröna… och att
naturen härute var så vacker…
Naturn, ja naturn. Detta var då naturn! Guds sköna härliga natur!
Hänryckt betraktade hon allt. Hon kunde ej tala, hon sög luftens
kraft, men det öfverväldigade henne så hon nästan icke kunde bära
det allt på engång. För ett ögonblick måste hon sluta ögonen och
hämta sig.
Lämmenen satt och tänkte på sin predikan. Den gjorde honom
stort hufvudbry, han hade nu under det år han varit i Helsingfors
sagt näranog allt hvad han hade att säga — — — hade uttömt sitt
närvarande förråd af god modelltheologisk material och visste ej
hvad nytt han skulle skaffa sig.
Släden körde förbi badhuset vid Ulrikasborg. Där var hafvet, vidt
och oändligt. Mellan staden och Sveaborg låg ännu isen bitvis,
endast här och där arbetade sig vattnet fram i breda rännor. Gråblått
och daskigt i färgen, poröst och svagt såg det återstående istäcket
ut, men borta, på andra sidan fästningen syntes det öppna blå. Och
en mängd hvita segel lågo vid båken — foro framåt eller tillbaka,
belysta af solen, och glimrande som svanar.
Luba öppnade åter ögonen, och fattade i en enda blick denna syns
hela stora och underbara skönhet.
Hon tog sin mans hand, tryckte den darrande och frågade med
bäfvande stämma hvad han tyckte om allt detta.
Han svarade henne distraherad, med en fras, han satt lite lågt,
slädan var för trång för hans kraftiga ben…
Luba satte sig bättre upp i slädan, löste på sina hattband, drog
djupare andedrag och kisade med ögonen för att kunna se än längre
ut mot horizonten.
De grepo henne starkt, dessa öfverväldigade och nya intryck.
Hon kunde ej mer. Det var för mycket, alltför mycket. Det
mörknade för hennes ögon, och hon sjönk tillbaka med hufvudet;
tyst, medvetslös, som om hon slocknat föll hon i en af dessa
svimningar som förr kommo så ofta.
Skrämd och orolig körde nu Lämmenen hem igen, sände bud efter
läkaren och rörde upp himmel och jord.
Men det var ingenting, alldeles ingenting. Doktorn hviskade något

i kyrkoherdens öra, unga frun skulle vara försigtig — — det var allt.
Man telegraferade efter Lina, Anna kunde ej mer få behålla henne,

det var ju också otroligt dumt att man låtit henne resa bort på andra
brölloppsdagen, i tro att hon ej mer skulle behöfvas…
Detta var en kris. Tiden gick och hon blef bättre.
Doktorn var förvånad öfver Lubas härefter allt mer tiltagande

hälsa och en dag sade han att man hade de största förhoppningar
att hon efter ännu en vigtig kris skulle bli alldeles frisk.
Kyrkoherden strålade då han såg hur hon tog sig, han egnade sin
hustru de ömmaste omsorger och Luba sjelf blef efter den första
förskräckelsen som en annan människa.
Kunde det vara möjligt — — — ännu ett undervärk, ett det största
och mest oväntade!
Det som hon förr funnit så prosaiskt, så obehagligt och

förnedrande, nu var det ju en lycka så stor och oförtjent som någon,
en gåfva af Gud, ett tecken på den största nåd, en obegriplig glädje.
Hon såg från den dagen på lifvet genom en rosenslöja. Det onda
var borta, alla sorgsna tankar veko, och lifvet var idel ljus.
Fanns det värkligen synd och sorg i lifvet? Jo — — naturligtvis,
men hon tänkte därpå som på något utanförstående, någonting som
ej hörde till hennes horizont utan till mörkret, fattigdomen och
fängelserna.
Och medan tiden led blef hon allt raskare och bättre.
Man var i tillfälle att hålla Midsommarkalaset i prestgården utan all

fruktan att det skulle skada den unga frun… hon hade ju sin syster
nu, och sjelf kunde hon gerna sitta i sin soffa och presidera, föra en
konversation och se etherisk ut, det var ju allt som behöfdes.
Gästerna betraktade med undran och vördnad den nya

kyrkoherdens märkvärdiga hustru. Luba Donner, den heliga
martyren, hon var nu där ibland andra människor, rörde sig emellan
dem, säg ut som andra, visserligen blek och ytterligt mager, men
intressant med sina mörka ögon och sitt själfulla väsen.
Ibland märkte en eller annan att hon ändå ej fullkomligt hämtat

sig. Hon kunde stundom öfverfallas af en underlig skakning, fick
tårar i ögonen och rodnade…
Det kunde komma på helt oväntadt, just när man minst anade det
och stämningen var som muntrast. Ja, det råkade hända tillochmed
när kyrkoherden var som gladast och vid sitt toddyglas sade en wits
eller sjöng en liten visstump.
Men det gick snart öfver igen. Lina kom med litet eaudecologne,
och mannen med en smekning.
Skyn försvann fort och himlen blef åter klar som förut.
18.
SLUTET.
Det var åter vinter. Julen hade gått och det nya året kom med köld
och is.
Nätterna voro långa, och först mot förmiddag ljusnade det. Men
till middag kom solen stundom fram en smula, lifvade upp och
strålade en stund.
Klockan tre steg aftonrodnaden på himlen och solen sjönk igen,

lemnande jorden i skymning och skärpt kyla. En mörk, snötung
förmiddag när kyrkoherden gått till sitt kansli och Lina ut i bodarne,
kom pigan in till sin fru och sade att det var en "människa" i köket
som alls icke förstod svenska, och som ville tala med kyrkoherden.
Luba ville icke gärna störas, hon satt sömning i sin gungstol och
sydde. Dagarne föreföllo henne litet tunga, hon hade svårt att röra
sig, och den stora krisen kunde inträffa när som helst.
Nu sof hon bort största delen af tiden… och tyckte att hon
ständigt ville sofva mer.
Endast med våld höll hon sig uppe. Doktorn ville det… det skulle
ju vara så förslappande att öfverlemna sig till den dåsighet och
sömnsjuka som betog henne. Och så satt hon i sin gungstol,
arbetade på ett litet ylleplagg, drömmande, nöjd med ögonblickets
frid, och njutande af sin tillvaros nya rikedom.
"Kan inte Lisett be henne komma igen senare", frågade Luba sin
svensktalande piga, "jag är så trött just nu".

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Acoustics and Audio Technology Third Edition Kleiner

Digital Audio Broadcasting Principles and Applications of

Audio anecdotes tools tips and techniques for digital

Digital Audio Technology A Guide to CD MiniDisc SACD DVD A

Mastering Digital Audio Production The Professional Music

Audio Post Production for Television and Film Third

Digital Audio Signal Processing 2nd ed Edition Udo Zölzer

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Composing Music with Computers (with CD-ROM)

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Digital Sound Processing for Music and Multimedia (with website)

Network Technology for Digital Audio

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Sound Synthesis and Sampling

Sound Synthesis and Sampling CD-ROM

First published 2004

Copyright © 2004, Francis Rumsey. All rights reserved

The right of Francis Rumsey to be identiﬁed as the author of this work

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0 240 51919 1

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India

Series introduction xiii

1 Introduction to desktop audio technology 1

2 Digital audio principles 5

2.6 Sound quality versus sample rates and resolutions 33

3 Recording, replay and editing principles 58

4 MIDI and synthetic audio control 79

4.4 Basic MIDI principles 82

4.14.3 Timecode and synchronisation 121

5 Hardware and systems issues 132

5.9 Drivers and audio I/O software 165

6 Audio formats and data interchange 168

6.7.4 CobraNet 215

7 Audio software 219

8 Operational and systems issues 240

8.4.3 Super Audio CD (SACD) 255

1.2 Audio workstations

1.3 Audio and the computer industry

1.4 Audio and quality

Extended resolution audio

CD quality (linear PCM,

Lower quality audio

Very low rate audio

2.1 Analog and digital information

2.2 Binary number systems

(a) One bit

Decimal weights 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Clock (bit rate)

Table 2.1 Hexadecimal and decimal equivalents

Binary Hexadecimal Decimal

2.2.2 Negative numbers

e.g. (in decimal): 5