Sound wave project

What is a sound wave?

A sound wave is a series of disturbances caused by the movement of energy through a medium, such as air, water or any liquid or solid matter. The source of the disturbances are vibrations, the vibrations shake around the surrounding medium, which shake the particles next to them and so on and so forth until the vibrations have been distributed to the point of where they are inaudible.

compression

Compression is how dense the sound is, which affects the audio quality. A high compression sound would sound clearer while a low compression sound would sound faded and distorted. as a reference, imagine a high compression sound as a loud, clear, consistent voice. While a low compression sound is like a dull mumble.

decibel

A decibel is how the you measure the amplitude of sound.

Decibels are an expression of the relative loudness of sounds in air as perceived by the human ear.

Amplitude

Amplitude is the measurement of loudness, a real world example of this would be increasing your sound on your headphones, it does not only increase sound, but also control it.

frequency

Frequency is the speed of the vibrations that produce the sound, a low frequency sound would be a low deep sound while a high frequency sound would be high pitched and shrill, this is because the noise is more spaced out on the low frequency.

EqualizationEQ for short, is editing parts of the sound to improve the sound, such as increasing “bass” or “treble”, equalization is basically applying filters to audio, if that makes any sense.

bass

Bass describes the low “frequency” side of hearing, these are low sounds, such as a drum, or a low piano key, in short, the larger the subject creating sound, the more bass it will have. A short skinny string would have very low bass while a long fat one would have a lot. Bass is also the component of sound that makes things vibrate and that you can sometimes feel in your chest is the music is loud enough. Bass has a pitch range from 16-256 Hz

treble

Treble is the opposite of bass treble is the high pitched side of hearing, treble holds the details in sound, it's the high notes, such as guitars. A very good example of treble is when people use their fingers to make wine glasses to produce noise, this is a very high treble frequency.

harmonics

A harmonic is when the sound wave is dispersing and it gets to a positive integer multiple of the original moment the soundwave was produced. When a sound has dispersed to half its original sound wave it reaches harmonics, this continues “exponentially” which is basically saying that sound is constantly dividing, which is why it gets quieter.

Midrange

Mid range is a sweet spot in audio produced by a speaker, that doesn't have too much bass or too much treble, the threshold of what constitutes as “mid range audio” is from 250 to 2000 Hz.

Frequency spectrum

The frequency spectrum is very simply put, the range of human hearing. From the deepest bass we can hear, to the highest treble.

octave

An octave is a series of 8 notes that are in between each two notes, because sound dissipates on a gradient rather than a complete halt, it allows there to be space and sound in between each two notes.

velocity

Velocity is the speed that sound travels in a given direction. Simple as that.

pitch

Pitch is the quality of audio, governed by the rate of the vibrations causing the sound. An example of this is plucking strings vs. strumming, when you pluck it has a low frequency because the rates of vibration is lower

Wavelength

Wavelengths are the time in between crests, think of it as a wave, in between each wave theirs a length of space before it crests again, this is a wavelength.

infrasonic

When a sound wave is too low for human to hear, it's considered infrasonic, things that can cause such a low frequency are very large animals, such as whales, rhinoceroses and elephants. Subwoofers are also capable of making infrasonic sound.

hertz

Hertz is how you measure frequency, something with a lot of bass would have low frequency while something with high treble would have high frequency.

fundamental

A fundamental is the main part of the sound, a necessary bass that makes up the noise and gives it sustenance.

phase

A phase is when two sound waves combine to create a much deeper sound. It's like a math problem 1+1=2 and a sound plus an identical sound= a larger sound. Or if the frequencies are out of line it can cancel the sound completely.

Sound frequency spectrum

This is the spectrum of audio, from such a low pitch that it's inaudible, to such a high pitch it's inaudible.