Brainwagon Radio: Digital Audio 101

November 8, 2004 | Audioblogs and Podcasting, Blogging, Brainwagon Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Where your host tries to give a meaningful introduction into digital audio by explaining the basics of digital audio. Topics covered include:

  • What is sound?
  • What does your computer do when it records a digital audio file?
  • What does sample rate, sample size and bitrate mean?
  • The sound settings that I use to record these podcasts, namely:
    1. sample rate = 22050
    2. sample size = 16 bits
    3. I record in stereo (2 channels)
    4. I use a bitrate of 64kbps, which results in files which are 480Kbytes per minute

Anybody with any experience in digital recording will undoubtably be bored, but my lunch at Bloggercon gave some hint that this might be necessary.

Garageband closing music is Leigh Silver and the Bitter Things, playing Moody.

Comments

Comment from Herbert Baerten
Time 11/10/2004 at 2:30 am

Hi Mark,
my podcastclient – doppler – has stopped downloading the enclosures from your feed some time ago, apparently because of an error in the feed (according to the doppler error message, which is confirmed by feedvalidator.org). Could you please fix this, cause I really would like to get them in again 🙂
BTW, I couldn’t find your e-mail address anywhere, is that intentional?

Comment from Herbert Baerten
Time 11/10/2004 at 2:34 am

Mark,
could you please have a look at your feed with feedvalidator.org, there seems to be an error in it that prevents my podcastclient to parse it, so I’m not getting your shows anymore…

Comment from Gordon Smith
Time 11/10/2004 at 7:22 pm

Mark, even though you called this a basic level tutorial, I still learned something.

I’d be interested to know what microphone setup you use. I’m not happy with my own audio quality; I still use a crappy PC headset which explains the problem with my p-p-p-poppiness and breathiness. Your audio, however, seems fine in that regard.