Digital Recording Essay

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Recommended: Impact of digitalization on the music industry

Kyle Rhine
Media 4
Communications Technologies
May 15 2014
Digital Recording
Recording technology wasn’t always a digital process. Before the 1970s, all recordings depended on capturing a physical analogue sound with microphones. This was done on either tape or disk. Analogue recordings lacked the sonic integrity that the 21st century demanded; it was becoming increasingly problematic and expensive in reducing noise and distortion that plagued analogue recordings. As a result, audio researchers began to study digital conversion techniques. They discovered that digitizing an electrical audio signal consisted of sampling the audio wave thousands of times a second, measuring the peak amplitude of each sample, and then assigning one of a limited number of binary values to each.
In analogue recording, the noise floor and distortion often accumulated at the recording and post-production stages, while a digital recordings signal was cleanly represented through binary values. In 1967, the first digital tape recorder was seen in Japan and was involved in the first digitally mastered records in 1972. The Sony PCM-1 was the first commercially available digital recording device. It converted captured analogue signal into a digital binary format. Initially digital records were still released on vinyl in analogue but in 1982 Sony and Philips released the first compact discs. Friction and noise from physical contact was now eliminated allowing a much clearer sonic representation. In 1987, digital audio tapes were introduced however record companies opposed a medium that allowed flawless copies of compact discs to be made so digital audio tapes were never released in America, however were quite popular for professional recordings. In 1995 the ...

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...popularized with absolutely no real instruments being played. We live in a world now where the keyboard is the best instrument you could play. Violins, drums, guitars, any instrument you could imagine can now be emulated with a synthesizer and programmed in a computer.
Digital Audio in music gave middle class people a chance to step foot in the music industry. Lowering costs, ultimately, allowing for a much larger demographic in audio engineering careers. People can now be creative and utilize affordable technologies with no limitations other than their own creativity. We live in a time of complete opportunity; limits are only defined by the individual. Technology will continue to improve and so will the music created by it. "There is a new, tonal vocabulary hidden there that could transform musical composition and create another wealth of great artistic works."

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