Why does a computer store sound?

Answer 1

Simply as a sequence of bits. Bit is a contraction of binary digit,which value can be either zero (false, 0) or one (true, 1).

I recommend to search for Digital signal, or Digital audio

This image pretty shows it:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/A-D-A_Flow.svg

Source: Wikipedia.org

Answer 2

The computer stores the sound it is playing on it's RAM card(s).

Basic Theory

A computer uses a card called an audio digitiser to convert sound from pressure waves into numeric values representing the frequency and amplitude of the sampled sound. This process is called Analogue to Digital conversion (ADC). This data is then stored in binary in the computers memory system, either in dynamic ram or for longer term storage on nonvolatile devices such as hard drives, flash memory etc.

Bit Depth

The maximum value which can be attributed to the amplitude (loudness) of the audio signal is called the "Bit Depth" and the default setting on modern sound cards is usually 16 bits, although this can be varied. This gives a value from 0-65535 in binary.

Sample Frequency

The maximum value which the sound can be recorded at is called the sample rate and on modern computers (and CD's) is usually 44,000 Hz (48,000 Hz unfiltered). The sample rate has a direct effect on the frequency response of the recording. The lower the sample rate the less high frequency response from the recording will be heard. When playing the recording back from the stored digital version the reverse Digital to Analog Conversion (DAC) is performed.

Corrections

Playback of sound from a digital source can incur distortions caused by low frequency sampling. There are various methods that can be used to smooth out these distortions but the standard CD player uses a Delta Sigma filter. This mathematical calculation is performed in real time during playback and attempts to predict the most likely waveform about to be produced from the data and smooths out any glitches in the wave form that may occur. This reduces the clock noise which the digital process can superimpose on the sound.

Audio Compression

When storing the digital information on devices like hard drives the resulting data can be very repetitive. Therefore multiple compression techniques have been developed to reduce the storage requirements of the sound data. Some of these you will be familiar with such as MP3, AAC et cetera. It is worth remembering that these psycho-acoustic compressions processes usually loose or corrupt the original data. This is necessary to reduce the size of the file and are described as "lossey" compression technologies.

Answer 3

The sound (which is an analogue wave) is captured by a microphone and the microphone signal is digitised into a number stream by a chip set called an ADC (an Analog to Digital Converter). The numbers are then stored in a computer file.

Answer 4

It is stored in its own file format in the RAM Drive.

Answer 5

Like all other data, AUDIO is stored in Files with extensions such as MP3, CDA, WMA, WAV, MID, MIDI etc.

Answer 6

Like all files in Bits in Bytes and in machine language (101010101001100000111)

Answer 7

Sound is usually stored as MP3 files on the hard-drive. Consisting of 1's and 0's (binary code) - the computer 'decodes' it before sending the sound to the speakers.

Answer 8

Sounf is stored normally same as everything