Intro

To DAW

SAE Instructor
Lamarr Miller

Intro To DAW
v What is the denition of DAW?
v Digital Audio Workstation
v A Hardware or computer-based hard disk
recording system that oers multi-track
recording, editing and signal processing in
one package.
v Extremely dierent from the old school
tape reel recording process.

Intro To DAW
v What is the denition of DAW?
v Audio signals are now almost exclusively
stored and transmitted digitally.
v What are the advantages of digital audio?
v No tape noise
v Easier to Edit
v Does not lose quality when copied

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v Digital audio is a numerical (Binary) version of
analog audio.
v Binary is simply a language.
v The English language uses 26 characters
v (A-Z) to create words

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v Binary uses 2 characters
v (0 & 1) to create words.
v Each character in a binary word is called a
bit and is expressed by wither a 1 or a 0.
v For every bit that you add to a binary word,
the total number of values which that word
can express doubles.

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v 1 bit word has values:
v 0 = 0
v 1 = 1

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v 2 bit word has 4 values:
v 00 = 0
v 01 = 1
v 10 = 2
v 11 = 3

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v 3 bit word has 8 values:
v 000 = 0
v 001 = 1
v 010 = 2
v 011 = 3
v 100 = 4
v 101 = 5
v 110 = 6
v 111 = 7

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v So, an audio waveform has to be converted
to binary (0s & 1s)
v An audio wave form has 2 basic
characteristics:
v Amplitude = (Volume)
v Frequency = (Time)

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v Digital audio represents these characteristics
with:
v Bit Depth = (Volume)
v Sample Rate = (Time)

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v Bit depth is how many 0s and 1s (bits)
are used to create 1 binary word.
v Each binary word is one
measurement of amplitude (a
sample).
v The more bits used for each
measurement will result in a higher
dynamic range (better delity).

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v Sample rate is the number of
measurements taken every second.
v Each measurement is one sample
v It is time based and determines the
frequency response of the recording.

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v Analog signal moves continually without
break.
v Digital recording measures the amplitude
periodically and converts that measurement
to a binary number.
v It then repeats the process thousands of
times every second
v Digital is not continuous
v The audio between samples is lost

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory

Intro To DAW
v Digital Audio Theory
v An Analog To Digital Converter (ADC) convert the analog
voltage uctuations into pulsing binary words by means of a
Sample and Hold Circuit.
v A Sample and Hold Circuit measures an instantaneous voltage
(amplitude) and holds it steady until an ADC converts it to a
binary number.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Amplitude:
v Quantization is the process of assigning a
binary word (numeric value) to represent the
value of an amplitude measurement.
v Captured as a bit depth.
v Represents the amplitude part of the
sampling process.
v 4 bits (nibble) has 16 possible values.
v 8 bits (byte) has 256 possible values.
v 16 bit (word) has 65,536 possible values.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Amplitude:
v Quantization Error is the dierence between each
instantaneous value of amplitude and the
quantization value assigned to it by the ADC.
v When the analog amplitude falls between digital
values, the ADC must round o the value to the
nearest bit.
v More audible in low amplitude signals because
only a few bits are used.
v Each additional bit reduces the audible level of
quantization error by 6dB.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Amplitude:
v Dither is a solution to quantization error
v It is noise added before quantization.
v It makes the quantization error less
audible, but is a compromise
v A low level hiss for less digital
distortion.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Amplitude:
v Dither is applied by the ADC, but must
also be applied when converting digital
audio to a lower bit depth.
v Ex: 24 bit audio le to a 16 bit audio
le.
v Clipping occurs when the amplitude/voltage
is too high for the ADC to measure
v Creates clicks and pops in the audio.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Frequency:
v Sample Rate determines the frequency
response.
v Discovered by Harry Nyquist
v The Nyquist Theory states that the
highest frequency that can be recreated
digitally is the sample rate.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Frequency:
v In order to record a frequency, the amplitude
must be sampled twice per cycle.
v Once during compression, and once during
rare fraction.
v The Nyquist Frequency is the highest frequency
in a digital system.
v Its the sample rate.
v Whats the highest frequency that a 44.1kHz 16
bit system can faithfully reproduce?
v 22.05 KHz

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Frequency:
v When a frequency is higher than the Nyquist
Frequency, the ADC does not measure it
often enough and creates a misinterpreted
wave waveform known as an alias le.
v The resulting alias is a lower frequency
than the original waveform.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Frequency:
v To prevent aliasing, we send analog audio
thru a LPF before the sample and hold circuit.
v These LPFs use very steep roll o rates,
and are known as Anti-Aliasing Filters.
v This eliminates frequencies above the
Nyquist Frequency, and therefore
eliminates aliases.

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Frequency:
v Wordclock is the timing mechanism for the
sample rate.
v Sample time is the elapsed time between
measurements
v Its the reciprocal of the sample rate (1/
sample rate)
v 44100 or 44.1 sample rate is (1/44100) = .
02268ms

Intro To DAW
v How Sampling Aects Frequency:
v If the wordclock is bad timing drifts between
samples, and jitter occurs.
v Jitter is the amount of variation in latency/
response time, in milliseconds.
v In addition to frequency response, your
sample rate also aects stereo imaging.
v The faster that the samples are recorded,
then your ears receive more ITD
information (binaural localization).

Intro To DAW
v A typical Analog To Digital Converter (ADC) chain:
Line In

Dither

Anti Alias

Sample & Hold

ADC

Processing

Storage

v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:

v Bandwidth bit rate needed to communicate
all of the digital data.
v Bit depth x sample rate x # of channels
v Bandwidth of a CD =
v 16 x 44100 x 2 = 1,411,200 bits/sec,
approximately 10mb min.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v We use that bandwidth because it has been
accepted as the minimal amount of data to
create a believable digital recreation of our
hearing spectrum.
v 16 bit = 96 db ; 44.1 kHz = 22.05 kHz Nyquist
Frequency ; Stereo imaging of 2 channels.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v A digital signal that is stereo interleaved
means that it has been multiplexed into one
stream of numbers containing both L & R
channels.
v The bandwidth of a digital system will aect
the audio quality, track count and processing
capabilities of a DAW.
v Higher bandwidth requires more processing
power.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v File compression is sometimes used to
reduce the size of audio les
v Lossy Compression: MP3, AAC, WMA, etc.
v Reduces delity and le size by reducing
resolution and /or sample rate.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v Lossless Compression: Zip, Flac, etc.
v Reduces le size, but not delity by
nding redundant data and removing it
during compression.
v Replaces the data when expanding.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v Connecting Digital Gear:
v CDs, DVDs and most digital audio
connections uses Pulse Code Modulation
(PCM) to communicate the binary code.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v In PCM, the magnitude of a signal is
measured at regular intervals to
communicate bits
v High level pulse = 1
v Low level pulse = 0
v Wordclock must be synchronized to all
machines connected (Master-Slave)

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v Digital Connection Types:
v AES/EBU: Audio Engineering Society / European Broadcast
Union.
v XLR Connector: Transmits 2 channels in one direction.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v Digital Connection Types:
v S/PDIF: Sony / Phillips Digital Interface
v RCA Connector: Transmits 2 channels in one direction.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v Digital Connection Types:
v ADAT Lightpipe: Alesis Digital Audio Tape
v Optical Connector: Transmits 8 channels in one
direction.

Intro To DAW
v Storage and Playback of Digital Audio:
v Digital Connection Types:
v TDIF: Tascam Digital Interface
v db 24 connector: Transmits 8 channels in both
directions.

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio
Workstations:
v Computer based DAWs have pretty much
replaced alternative recording methods.
v Analog tape, digital tape and traditional
hard disk recorders . (i.e. Radar)
v As audio recorders moved towards digital,
synthesizers and sound modules did too
thanks to MIDI.

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio
Workstations:
v All of these digital advancements are
becoming integrated into DAW applications.
v Samplers were the beginning of DAWs
v Sampler record sound to short digital les
and trigger them using MIDI.

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio Workstations:
v The rst instrument to use pre-recorded sounds
was the mellotron.
v The rst digital sampler to be mass produced was
the EMU Emulator 1 in 1981 which was an 8 bit
sampler.
v Samplers became more aordable in the mis
80s.
v Akai S612: 12 bit, 32kHz 1 sec storage
v $900

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio Workstations:

Mellotron

EMU Emulator

Akai S612

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio
Workstations:
v MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface):
v Developed at 1982 NAAM (National
Association of Music Merchants) and
introduced in 1983.

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio
Workstations:
v MIDI was created so that synthesizers and
samplers could communicate.
v MIDI is not audio; Its a communication
language.
v Since MIDI is already in the digital domain,
most DAWs have integrated MIDI
sequencing.

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio Workstations:
v First computer based DAW was Post Pro by New
England Digital.
v Digidesign quickly became the main computer DAW
with Pro-Tools introduced in 1983.
v Pro-Tools created the standard for computer
DAWs.
v Sequencing multiple audio tracks to waveform
displays.
v Made editing easy and visual.

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio
Workstations:
v A DAW is fundamentally like a tape recorder,
but is not linear and now is expected to
include sequencing (audio and MIDI), editing,
mixing capabilities, and more.
v The power of your DAW can be augmented
with 3rd party plugins.
v More RAM, faster processor, or more I/O

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio
Workstations:
v The rst DAW you will work with is GarageBand.
v A multi-track DAW for audio and MIDI
recording, editing, sequencing and mixing.
v What was the rst well-known song to sample
another well-known song?

Intro To DAW
v The Development of the Digital Audio
Workstations:
v 1982 song, "Planet Rock", by Afrika Bambaataa
& Soul Sonic Force using a chunk of Kraftwerk's
"Trans Europe Express" as a back beat.
v A good DAW operator can manipulate audio in
remarkable ways with todays software.
v They are also fully aware of when they are
editing destructively, or non destructively.

Intro To DAW
v Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express.

Intro To DAW
v 1982 song, "Planet Rock", by Afrika Bambaataa
& Soul Sonic