Italy Secondaria di secondo grado – classe 1ª Music technology

1. Acoustics and audio tools

Sound and software

• Acoustics: How Rooms, Ears and Audio Tools Handle Sound – Acoustics is the science of sound: how it is made, how it travels and reflects in rooms, how we hear it, and how we record it. In a room we hear the direct sound plus many reflections; the time the sound takes to die away is the reverberation time, T = 0.161 V / A (Sabine). Soft materials absorb sound and shorten T. Loudness is measured in decibels, pitch depends on frequency and timbre on the mix of overtones. Microphones turn sound into electrical signals, which computers sample into numbers; MIDI sends note instructions, not sound.