What is the difference between digital and analog audio?
In: Technology
Here is electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos on the different between digital and analog audio:
” Digital, of course, is essentially computer data which accurately describes an audio signal. It’s easily manipulated and can be copied exactly — all those ones and zeros, you know. Analog is how we usually describe sound waves, a continuous change of pressure or an electrical signal, what a microphone produces, what we used to record on tape. It’s a much riskier way to handle audio, but historically was the method we first discovered.
Between the two, don’t look for deeper meaning or arbitrary differences. There is a cult of near-religious dogma that proclaims analog sound on LPs (“vinyl”) to be perfection (what a hoot that is for those of us who used to cut LPs for a living!). They think you have to use special wires and elaborate techniques they don’t even understand, and they claim that digital is in cahoots with Lucifer. It’s kind of pathetic, based on ignorance and flamboyant cheek. The simple answer for synthesizers or reproduction is: To the listener, it shouldn’t matter at all, as long as it sounds fine. If you’re a performer, it shouldn’t matter at all. If you have a very advanced analog synthesizer and then you have another that is all digital–and you get a lot out of both–fine, use them.
On the other hand, digital can, in principle, let you be more precise, with finer finesse and control. Analog runs out at five significant digits of accuracy (it doesn’t have infinite resolution), something like that, and there’s tape hiss to contend with. If you want to put the money and time into it, you can obsess with digital until you’re dead. It’s a potential that hasn’t often been tapped, but usually you reach a practical limit, there’s life for you. Microtonal tunings are a breeze with digital synthesizers, but very hard to do with analog.”
From: [http://www.wendycarlos.com/intvw01.html](http://www.wendycarlos.com/intvw01.html)
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