Sound Research

The principles of sound

Sound is produced when something vibrates against air molecules which pick up the vibration and pass it along as sound waves. So if there is no air there wont be sound, which mean there is no sound in space as there is no air. We hear sounds when these vibrations hit our ears as our eardrums are sensitive to sound pressures. Sound waves travel outward from the sounds source at about 1130 feet per second.

The functions of sound have many different principles. One of their main purpose is to express emotion in entrainment such as films and games. For example in a film with a sad scene sad music will be played to enforce sad emotions on the viewers. In interactive media you hear two types of sound, diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sounds are sounds that would naturally be there, like the sound of cheering in a stadium or the sound of a car on the street. These sounds are used to add more realism to any form of interactive media. Non-diegetic sounds are sounds that would not naturally be there, for example music playing in the background or a narrator. These sounds are used to add more emotion depth. Both sounds are used often and for different purposes.

Audio cues are commonly used in interactive media as a sound design principle. These are sounds that people can recognize really quickly without wondering what that noise was. They play a sound when something happens on screen so the user is aware of it. For example when someone receives a message on facebook a short sound plays so you know you have a message. Another way sound is used in interactive media would be in the form of Acousmetre. Which is like the sound of a narrator for a video game or a movie. They speak throughout the game and movie to tell the story they are never seen. This sound is non-diegetic as it would not normally be there.

There are two types of sound used today analogue and digital and long going argument over which one is better.
Analogue sound is sound that has come directly from microphone recordings. Their information is stored in simple waves that can be fed through a speaker in its original form. In a tape recorder, for example, the microphone’s signals is taken and placed onto tape, which will get you the exact copy of the recorded sound.

Digital sound is digitised pre-recorded analogue sound waves that are converted and stored on the computer in the form of numerical information, which are processed by the computer to create and play the sound directly from the information.  This conversion is normally called sampling analogue sound. Look at music on a CD, the sampling rate is normally 44,000, meaning there is 44,000 numbers per second of music. To hear the music, the numbers are turned into voltage waves.  In conclusion, the higher the sampling rate, the better the quality of the sound, the bigger that file.

Both analogue and digital sounds have advantages and disadvantages. For advantages digital sounds never degrade over time like analogue and does not take up as much space as it can be compressed. Also digital does not have an annoying hissing sound in the background like analogue does. The advantages of using analogue sounds is that it will all ways be the best quality of sound, as there are no sampling rates.

Over all it depends on the preference of the person as some people prefer the hissing sound that analogue sounds have as the say it sounds more natural but I, my self find it irritating. So in my opinion digital sound is better as it takes up less space and lasts longer.