How Does Digital Recording Work?
Analog Signal
Any recording (except computer-based sequencing) starts with an analog (or analogue) audio signal. Analog signal is an electrical impression of a sound's vibration waveform, or the variations in pressure that reach your ears. In most cases, these variations are captured by a microphone, which transmits the vibrations of its diaphragm (much like our ear drum) to an electrical wave. This signal is then sent down an audio cable into a recording device or computer sound card.
Conversion to Digital Signal
Analog audio must be converted before it can be recorded as digital sound. In many cases, this is accomplished by a computer sound card, though stand-alone digital recorders perform the same process. When the electrical signal from the microphone is received by the card or recorder, hardware converters change the analog signal to digital code that can be read by a computer. The converter takes extremely rapid "snapshots" of the changes in electric wave patterns (between 16,000 and 96,000 per second) and outputs a code that allows a computer to mimic the original sound pressures. The more snapshots a converter takes per second, the more accurate the digital copy will be.
Digital Manipulation
After the analog audio is converted into digital code, the signal is sent to a computer's recording software or a recorder's built in processing unit. These devices decode the digital signal and map out the sound pressures, then route the code back to the sound card, which converts it back to analog signals that can be played by most speaker systems. The digital code can be saved to use later or manipulated and mixed with other recorded signals. Many recorded signals are drastically altered within these programs by recording engineers to wash out background noises picked up by the microphone and to bring out the most desirable elements of the sound.
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