PCM and Sampling
How digital audio turns sound waves into numbers.
Read moreDigital Audio Programming
How sound becomes numbers: sampling, PCM, mixing, and the concepts behind digital audio software.
Digital audio programming is the study of how sound becomes numbers and what software can do with those numbers once it has them. It starts with sampling: measuring a sound wave at evenly spaced instants and storing each measurement as a value, the approach known as PCM.
From there the section moves to mixing and levels: how separate sounds are combined, adjusted, and balanced so they work together without clipping or distortion. These two ideas, sampling and levels, are the foundation that every audio tool is built on.
The articles here explain both in plain language, with the concepts first and the tools second.