A&R
(Artist and Repertoire) - Record label employees
who are in charge of finding and signing new bands.
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) - Also called
MPEG-2 AAC or MPEG-2 NBC, this audio codec is the logical continuation
of the MP3 codec created by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Due to
advances in the technology, AAC files encoded at a 96 kbps
bit rate sound slightly better than MP3s encoded at 128 kbps.
For more information, see here .
ADC (analog-to-digital converter) - This type
of converter changes an analog electrical signal into a digital
signal made of 1s and 0s. When you make a voice or line-in
recording with your MP3 player, you are using the device's
ADC.
ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) -
This method of encoding sound data files takes up less storage
space than the regular PCM format used by WAV and AIFF files--and
CD audio for that matter. ADPCM comes in more than one flavor:
IMA's ADPCM, for example, is used on the Sony MiniDisc to cram
more data onto a smaller platter; Microsoft's ADPCM is used
as part of Windows 95's canon of audio codecs. Many MP3 players
use ADPCM for their voice-recording feature.
AIFF - An uncompressed Macintosh audio file.
WAV files occupy an incredible amount of disk space, thus the
need for compressed formats, such as MP3s.
ASCAP - An organization that collects royalties
for its members (artists, bands, and music publishers) when
their music gets played on the radio, the Web, or in public.
Find out more here .
ATRAC - The audio compression algorithm used
by MiniDisc players. It involves dropping all frequencies below
and above the human hearing range (20Hz to 20KHz).
ATRAC3 - The audio codec used by MDLP MiniDisc
players and Sony MP3 players .
Audio compression - audio compression works
by setting a limit for how loud sound can get while raising
low parts of a song to a certain extent, depending on the level
of compression. Basically, the lowest and highest volume levels
of a song get closer together.
Audio player - A program that turns the 1s
and 0s in an audio file into an audio signal.
Bandwidth - The size of the "pipe" that
brings information to and from computers over the Internet.
Low bandwidth includes rates of 28 kbps and 56 kbps, while
high-bandwidth (broadband) connections deliver more information
at a faster pace, making full-screen video, for example, possible.
bit rate - in essence, a measure of how many
bits describes each sound in an audio file. A low bit rate
means lower quality and a smaller file size, while a high bit
rate means better quality and larger files. The standard bit
rate is 128 kbps.
BMI - An organization that collects royalties
for its members (artists, bands, and music publishers) when
their music gets played on the radio, the Web, or in public.
Find out more here .
Buffer - An area of memory (usually on your
hard drive) that is shared by two enabling processes, which
run at different speeds to sync up with each other. For example,
a buffer designed for streaming audio helps a patchy data stream
from a server sound consistent when played by your computer's
audio software.
Buffering - The process by which streaming
audio and video saves data in advance of playing it. Programs
such as RealPlayer or Windows Media Player will download a
part of the video or audio stream before starting to play,
then continue the downloading as the stream plays. If the playing
catches up to the end of the buffer, the stream will pause
while further buffering occurs.
CD Burning - The process of using a CD-R/RW
drive and burning software to put data or audio onto a CD.
CD-R disc - A read-only CD that cannot be
rewritten. A normal CD player can read a CD-R that the burning
software specified as an Audio CD when the disc was created.
CD-RW disc - A CD that can be erased and rewritten.
It can't be read by normal CD players, but it works great for
burning compressed music for computer playback.
CD-R/RW drive - A drive capable of writing
to CD-R and CD-RW discs.
CDA - The format of audio on a standard RedBook
CD; can be extracted to your hard drive by a ripper into WAV
(Windows) or AIFF (Macintosh) files.
CDDB - A centralized database on the Web that
can recognize most CDs and send track listings to your audio
player so that you don't have to type in all the information
yourself.
CD text - A method for including text on normal,
otherwise RedBook -standard CDs, denoting the title of the
CD, the name of the artist, the track information, and more.
Codec - A codec is an algorithm for compressing
and decompressing audio and video files without losing a significant
amount of information. Once a file has been compressed by a
codec like MP3 or RealAudio, it is smaller and easier to transmit
across the Web, and still sounds fairly true to the original.
Compulsory license - This type of licensing
means that whoever wants to broadcast a song owned by someone
else can do so as long as they pay the rate set by the relevant
industry organization. The lack of compulsory licensing for
music downloads has stalled the efforts of online music distributors
to go legit.
CRC (Cyclical Redundancy Checking) - A 16-bit
number that sits in every frame of some MP3 files and is used
to check for errors in streaming audio and MP3 playback. CRC
degrades sound quality slightly because it takes up room in
the file that would otherwise be used for the audio data itself.
Most MP3s have no CRCs.
DAC (digital-to-analog converter) - A circuit
that turns the digital 1s and 0s representing a sound to an
analog waveform (which, in turn, is usually amplified and turned
into audible sound).
DAT (Digital Audio Tape) - A small cassette
that records and plays back audio digitally, at CD quality
and better.
Download - To copy a file (for example, a
program or MP3 file) from a server to your machine, a.k.a.
the client.
DRM (Digital Rights Management) - A secure
technology which enables the copyright owner of a piece of
intellectual property (such as a music, video, or text file)
to specify what a user can do with it. Typically, this is used
to offer downloads without having to worry that the user is
freely distributing the file over the Web without any compensation
to the copyright holder.
DSP (Digital Signal Processing) - The (usually
real-time) processing of an audio signal in such a way that
it sounds different from the original. Examples include: bass
boost; 3D simulation; and Rock, Jazz, and Classical presets.
Encoder - Software that turns uncompressed
WAV (Windows) or AIFF files into compressed files, using a
CODEC such as MP3 or RealAudio.
EQ (equalization) - A filter for audio that
increases or decreases volume at certain frequencies, so that
treble, bass, or midrange sounds can be amplified or quieted.
Most audio devices and playback software contain some EQ options.
Firmware - The operating system and software
installed on a portable device. Some MP3 players have upgradable
firmware, meaning that their operating systems can be updated
to support future audio codecs or make small performance tweaks
such as improved power efficiency.
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) - This open-source
codec compresses audio by about 50 percent, but the good news
is that it does not lose a single bit during the process. Like
other lossless codecs, FLAC works in mysterious ways, by finding
parts of an audio file with a bunch of 1s or 0s in a row and
describing 11111 as five 1s. The details are much more complicated,
but that's the basic idea. FLAC is a favorite of audiophiles
because it sounds exactly as good as the original CD.
flash memory - Small, flat, solid-state type
of memory used in MP3 players, digital cameras, and PDAs. It
comprises CompactFlash, SmartMedia, and Memory Stick memory;
on per-megabyte basis, it is a very expensive form of storage.
FTP - An Internet protocol used to copy files between
computers; usually a client and an archive site filled with
MP3 files or whatever else the server administrator has seen
fit to upload. You can download shareware or freeware apps
(for PC or Macintosh ) that deal with the whole process for
you, so that you don't have to communicate with the FTP server
in its own language (Unix).
ID3 - The tag embedded in MP3s that tells
your MP3 file what song, artists, and album it comes from.
These tags can be edited.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) - An Internet chat
setup that uses client/server software and permits people to
exchange files such as MP3s with each other while chatting.
Download an IRC client here .
ISO 9660 - A standard format, invented by
High Sierra in 1988, for burning CD-Rs and CD-RWs. In the ISO
9660 format, directories and filenames get chopped to eight
letters..
Joliet - A standard format for burning CD-Rs
and CD-RWs, created as an extension to ISO 9660 by Microsoft
as part of Windows 95. In the Joliet format, long filenames
are preserved.
jukebox - A multipurpose audio program that usually incorporates
an audio player, a ripper, an encoder, and a file organizer.
LAME - Originally an acronym for LAME ain't
an MP3 encoder, LAME has evolved into a high-quality, high-speed,
and free MP3 encoding engine. Open-source developers began
LAME as an educational project to improve psychoacoustics,
noise shaping, and encoding efficiency. Today, the engine (found
in many forms, from uncompiled source code to software applications
) has a reputation of delivering the best-sounding MP3s.
line-in (line-level input) - An audio input
that records from line-level sources such as CD players, home
stereos, sound cards, tape decks, headphone outputs, or powered
microphones.
line out - This output sends an audio signal to its
intended destination. You might use a line out to send an audio
signal from a portable device to a receiver or from a receiver
to a recording device or from a portable device to a pair of
powered speakers.
Liquid Audio - A secure, proprietary compressed
audio format that lets artists offer downloads at a cost. Download
the client for Mac or PC .
M3U - When you create a playlist in audio
playback software such as Winamp, the playlist file contains
the extension M3U. Clicking an M3U file will bring up all of
the songs in the playlist in your default audio player.
MDLP
A method for doubling or quadrupling the amoung of audio that
a MiniDisc can hold, using ATRAC3 compression.
MIDI - MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
is a protocol that allows electronic musical instruments to
talk to each other and to computers. Because MIDI files contain
only a series of commands (such as note on, note off), they
are very small and efficient. On the other hand, they have
no sound of their own, and must be used in conjunction with
a wavetable, a synthesizer, or a drum machine.
Mirror - An alternate location for a file
on the Internet, initiated to avoid placing undue strain on
the primary server where the file resides.
Mono - One channel of audio. When you listen
to something in mono, the exact same sound comes out of the
left and right speakers or headphones. Since mono tracks contain
half the information of an equivalent stereo file, they are
half the size.
MP2 - A compressed MPEG1 sound file used before
MP3 that is larger than the now favored MP3 format.
MP3 - A sound file that has been compressed
through MP3 encoding, making the files smaller and easier to
send across the Internet.
MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) - MPEG
is a standard for compressing sound and movie files into an
attractive format for downloading--or even streaming--across
the Internet. The MPEG-1 standard streams video and sound data
at 150 kilobytes per second--the same rate as a single-speed
CD-ROM drive--which it manages by taking key frames of video
and filling only the areas that change between the frames.
normalize - A process that adjusts the volume
of a sound recording so that it plays back at a consistent
volume.
Ogg Vorbis - This is an open-source codec,
meaning (among other things) that no one has to pay licensing
fees when it's used, unlike codecs such as MP3, WMA, or AAC.
Many focus groups claim that music files compressed by the
Ogg Vorbis codec (extension: OGG) sound better than those created
with commercial codecs.
OLED - Short for organic light-emitting diode.
A display device that operates by sandwiching carbon-based
films between two charged electrodes. OLED displays are unlike
LCDs in that they don't require backlighting; instead, they
emit light themselves. OLED displays offer many advantages
over LCDs, including less power consumption and brighter output,
and are increasingly showing up in MP3 players and other portable
devices.
Open Source - Software (usually developed
by a group of volunteers) with no restrictions on other people
using it for free, rewriting parts of the code, or redistributing
it in its original form.
Playlist - A sequential list of songs that
can include CD audio, MP3s, WMAs, or any other kind of audio
file. Playlists can be randomized to create a mix and saved
to hard drives and CD-Rs.
Psychoacoustics - the science of how ears
perceive the loudness, pitch, and quality of sound, which is
used to develop codecs that compress sound data and make our
ears think that nothing is missing, among other things.
Quantize - Even musicians with an amazing
sense of rhythm don't always get the intervals between notes
or beats exactly right. Quantizing MIDI music aligns the music
exactly to the tempo and time signature that you specify.
RedBook CD - A CD filled with uncompressed
audio in the CDA format used by CD burning software in the
audio mode; also, the type of CD you buy in stores.
RIAA - An organization representing many music
labels, from small indies to the majors. Find out more on its
Web site .
Ripper - Software that digitally yanks tunes
from your CDs and turns them into files on your computer (
WAV files in Windows, AIFF files on a Mac).
Sampling Rate - The precision with which a
digital file describes the analog sound it represents. Basically,
a lower rate produces files that sound worse and take up less
drive space than those with a higher rate. CDs have a sampling
rate of 44.1 kHz, and DAT machines have a sampling rate of
48 kHz. MiniDisc player/recorders with a built-in sampling
rate converter can handle both rates.
SDMI - A consortium of music industry companies
that is trying to come up with a way to make online music secure
and salable. Find out more on its Web site .
Secure Audio file - A downloadable music file
that must be paid for in order to be heard and/or cannot be
duplicated without some loss of audio quality.
sideload - When instead of downloading something
from a server, you send it over to the space in your account
on a third-party storage site.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio - A measure of the strength
of the audio signal in comparison to that of the background
noise. Essentially, a low signal-to-noise ratio means that
the device or file has lots of hiss and static, while a high
rating means clear-sounding audio.
Skin - You can change all kinds of graphical
elements of skin-enabled programs such as Winamp or Sonique
by creating skins.
Sound Card - A piece of circuitry you can
add to your computer that allows it to play and record sound.
Sound cards have outputs on the back in a variety of formats
that enables sound to travel to headphones, speakers, stereos,
MiniDisc players, and so on. Typically, sound cards accept
and emit analog signals, but some specialized sound cards handle
digital input and output.
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) - A standard
format used for transferring data between two digital audio
devices over (more commonly) a standard RCA cable or (less
commonly) an optical cable.
Splitter - A cable or adapter with one input
or output on one end and two on the other.
Spoof - To make a computer pretend to be someone
else's computer by identifying itself using the same IP address
as the victim's machine. In this way, it can be possible to
pretend to be that person in many Internet protocols (posting
to Usenet, sending ICQ messages, and so on).
SRS - A type of DSP that can add a three-dimensional
sound effect to your music, as well as intensify the bass,
if you so desire. With most MP3 players that have SRS capabilities,
you can configure the feature to sound right to your ears.
Standard bit rate (SBR) - The standard type
of compression wherein an entire audio file is encoded at the
same bit rate, as opposed to variable bit rate encoding.
Stereo - Two channels of audio. When you listen
to something in stereo, different sounds come out of the left
and right speakers or headphones. Since stereo tracks contain
twice the information of an equivalent mono file, they are
twice the size.
Streaming - The transmission of audio across
the Internet from a server to an audio player client.
TOSLINK - A type of digital connection that
uses optical signals to send a signal flawlessly, without losing
any information. It's used for connecting MiniDisc players
to stereos and certain sound cards.
Transcode - To encode music from one codec
into another codec--for example, from RealAudio to MP3.
Variable Bit Rate (VBR) - A type of compression
wherein certain audio sections are encoded at different bit
rates so that complex sounds are encoded at a higher rate while
simple sounds are encoded at a lower rate, as opposed to standard
bit rate encoding. This means you get the best sound possible
for a certain amount of disk space, but certain players occasionally
have problems decoding VBR audio files.
Visualization - A feature or plug-in in a software
audio player that renders shapes and colors in sync with the
music.
VQF - A compression algorithm developed by
Yamaha that is similar to MP3 yet occupies less hard drive
space. Find out more at VQF.com
VST plug-in - VST plug-ins are a standardized
type of effects plug-in, used in conjunction with digital multitracking
software . The major benefit of using VST plug-ins is that
they can be applied to audio in real time, the way hardware
audio effects can be.
Watermark - Aunique inaudible code, which
is inserted into an audio file in order to identify the first
person who legally purchased the file. If you buy a watermarked
MP3 and then distribute it over the Internet, the RIAA will
be able to tell that you are the person who originally broke
copyright law and distributed the file. Watermarks have yet
to be deployed by the SDMI .
WAV - An uncompressed Windows audio file.
WAV files occupy an incredible amount of disk space, thus the
need for compressed formats, such as MP3.
WMA - The Windows Media Player format, which
(according to independent testing) sounds as good as MP3 at
half the bit rate (and therefore half the file size). |
