Digital Languages

If only it were all as simple as I have described above. Naturally, it isn’t!

The digital data is a code of one and zeroes. Unlike the continuous analog recording, the digital code is organized into a language of words, complete with organizing information, error detection and correction information, syntax information, and so on. These languages are designed to make it easy to store, transmit and/or process the digital data. In any case, the languages are not simple digital bit-streams of audio data, but contain much more information than that. See the section on interfaces below.

Other Types of Digital Data used for music-making

Just to make matters more confusing, there are other kinds of digital data used in music production than just the data streams for simple audio recordings. The most obvious of these is the general purpose control language called MIDI which we use to operate synthesizers and related equipment. MIDI data is data that controls equipment. It is not audio, but it happily coexists with audio data and works in parallel with it.

Another control language is SMPTE time code, which is an elaborate digital clock designed for film work which has become widely used in audio. Time code data is used to synchronize mechanical recorders and computers in time, so that they function in real-time as a single synchronous system.

An example of a hybrid audio language is the “audio sample,” a brief recording of a single note or event. The “sample” is often used in place of either a continuous recording (think of it as a “discrete” recording) or a synthesized voice. It has a couple of interesting quirks about it that make it special: the main one is that it is usually played back with a variable clock rate (generated by the keyboard of the sampler) so that it can be played at different pitches on demand. This means that in order for such digital data to be mixed in with normal audio recordings, it needs to either be reconstructed into the analog realm or have its various sample rates all converted.