Music Industry Debate: Digital Vs Analog

   
     Dear Mr. Producer,
       Digital vs analog is a huge debate. Me being the next rising musician DJ Fo Shizzle it's important for me to know which one is best platform for my sick beats. You see when we talk analog vs digital this is the format in which music or any other type of wave can be transmitted. When you have sound it is a sound wave. With analog it is a copy or an analogy of what the wave is doing. Digital is ranges of numbers that interpret the wave of in this case sound. Now as a highly professional music producer I know that digital is the way to go when producing music.

      Digital doesn't lose quality over time. As stated in the article Analogue Vs Digital: Advantages and Disadvantages; " One of the biggest cons with analogue is that every time a copy of the audio is made from the original tape, the quality in sound deteriorates a little. This also applies each time the track is played." With digital since digital is a series of numbers you can copy a song millions of times and it will stay the exact same That is why the song lets say Single Ladies sounds the same on every mp3 player (digital) while it will sound different on two different cassette tapes (analog).

   Digital music is easier to store than analog. As pointed out in the Article What is Analog Reading is says; "It's easier to store information in digital form and it generally takes up less room. You'll need several shelves to store 400 vinyl, analog LP records, but with an MP3 player you can put the same amount of music in your pocket! " (Paragraph 8) When it comes to music you usually want to hear your favorite song instantly without much trouble. Think of every time you wanted to hear that one song you needed to go through 400 vinyls to find it instead of a few clicks on something like I Tunes. People tend to be more receptive to listening to your music when it is not as much of a hassle for them to be able to listen.

Digital takes out imperfections and the hassle you deal with when it comes to analog. As the video Analog or Digital? states; "The hype on digital was the perfect solution on all audio problems. No hissing tape or fragile vinyl to contend with and will last forever" (50-57). Digital makes the process of listening to music easier and makes it so you can focus on the song more than the distraction of something like a hissing tape or the worry of breaking the fragile vinyl. Digital provides less worry with means more enjoyment of the music.

Counter Argument:
Analog has its benefits too as my producer suggests so let's talk about some main points in the argument towards using analog. As stated in the article Analog,Digital, What's the difference?;" Digital takes a few “snapshots” of the number line, while analog takes the whole line into account." Analog makes it so what is in the original sound wave is more represented as a whole and doesn't cut out pieces.  People also enjoy things that sound natural which is why as pointed out in the article Recording Analog Vs Digital; "Analogue recordings can be more accurate and natural sounding due to changes in air pressure being captured exactly as recorded." Analog makes it so you are able to capture the raw sound waves more efficiently making it having the sound that its being performed for the first time in front of you.

Rebuttal:
That is all fine and dandy yet hear me out. Digital as I was saying in Paragraph 4, even though analog may have more of the sound and is a better analogy of the wave the forms in which we store this analog music is very inefficient and can even take away from the music all together. With digital you don't have to concerned about your vinyl being cracked or your tape hissing while you listen to your song. Digital also makes songs more accessible for people. As Paragraph 2 talked about digital music can be copied infinite amounts of times and never lose quality. People can have your song right in their pocket on their phone or mp3 player rather than a on a shelf or in a box. With this evidence you have to admit that analog while it has its benefits is just not very accessible to the masses and really has flaws because of the platform it is recorded on (vinyls for example).

So Mr. Producer I hope you take this into deep consideration. I hope I opened your eyes to how digital would be the best platform for my music. It is accessible, doesn't lose quality, and doesn't have issues of damage like analog devices. Digital yes not have the ability to copy the wave perfectly but it does the job that is most important that analog lacks in. It makes it so millions of people can have the same song and enjoy it as quickly as they think of it. With this new information I hope for the sake of my songs and other songs that are produced through your company that you will convert to digital music!

Sincerely, 

DJ Fo Shizzle

Signals Using Waves

https://www.vector-eps.com/wp-content/gallery/audio-waves-and-signals-vectors/audio-waves-and-signals-design1.jpg

Summary:
Waves come in many forms. We have things like sound waves which is a mechanical wave. Then you have something like microwaves used in your phones or light waves that are electromagnetic waves. Now that you know some examples of waves let's talk about why they are even useful. Waves first off is a mean of communication. First off the easy one when we speak we release sound waves which people interpret as us speaking. Yet that's not the only way we can use waves to our advantage. Digitalizing waves which is when you use the form of the wave and put it within ranges of numbers makes it so what you just said can be transmitted all across the world. Digital looks blocky because it is not an analogy like analog waves are. Analog waves copy the wave while digital put what it is hearing from the waves in categories of numbers to be able to relay the message.

Using Models:
In class we used a model of a slinky being the wave a person being the receiver of whatever message was being relayed a transmitter relaying the message, and an image generator writing down what the message is. These pieces were to show what is like to relay a message using analog and digital waves.  First we had digtal where there was two options one stroke was 1 and two strokes was 0. The receiver would be blind and would have to say what they felt. We gained mostly 100% accuracy with this system showing that digital is easy to read. Then we did analog where we would have the receiver not blind and looking at the wave. The would have to guess what number the transmitter was trying to relay between 20-60 in increments of 10. This was very difficult to reach 100% accuracy showing that analog has more of a range is harder to interpret.

Patterns:
Waves may seem complicated and you must be wondering how can anyone ever get any information from them. Well you just need to think of a wave especially when its digital as a pattern. In digital the pattern is a certain pattern of 1's and 0's creating the wave that you originally produced. For analog its much larger ranges and an analogy of the pattern. You could say that analog is like tracing an image while digital is making a sketch of the image. Analog is trying to replicate the original wave or pattern while digital is trying to get a general idea and put it in a more simple form.

Digital Vs Analog

https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_tutorials/2/1/5/analog_vs_digital.png

Summary: Analog Vs Digital. Which side are you on? Well before you make your choice let me explain a little more in depth what each is. An analog signal is a analogy of the wave its interpreting. For example when a analog technology tracks sound waves it gives a good analogy of what the sound wave is interpreting making them look smooth like you can see up above. Then you have digital. Digital is a when you have certain number ranges and they transfer the original wave for example sound and use the ranges they have in numbers to get a good representation of what they wave represents. This is bad however because waves are smoothed and curved meaning when you do these ranges you miss out on some information. Yet digital is good in the sense that is is transferable for example you can send music to someone across the country because its just a bunch of numbers.

S&EP: Conducting Investigation:
You may hear all this stuff and digital vs analog but the best way to really see if you truly do miss out on some of the quality and sound when it comes to sound waves it by doing an investigation. We had a student record himself playing a song with his flute. We listened to the quality and sound of that. They we listened to the same student on the same instrument with the same song play the same thing and just but that investigation we determined as a class that when its recorded sound loses its quality and fullness. Digital gets rid of some of the sound that you will hear when it is done live.

XCC: Energy and Matter:
There is a lot to know about sound and most you must be asked the question what medium does sound travel through best; liquid,gas,or solid. If you guessed gas you are correct and ill tell you why. You see sound is a vibration of molecules which means when the closer the molecules are the more efficiently they can pass the energy that the vibration produces between them. So that is why a solid which had its molecules more dense and connected is able to carry sound so well because the molecules can transfer the vibration from one to another very efficiently and quickly while with things like liquids and gases the molecules are more spread out making the vibrations harder to pass.

Waves Mastery Quest Regrade Blog Post

Question 4:
  
The actual answer is the second container because unlike the other two containers the molecules are compact and close to each other. Looking at it now you can see the first container represents water because its not really connected or bound to each other and more so fall around each other and the last container is a gas because they are spread far apart. In water since the molecules are not bound to each other like in a solid they don't carry a vibration as well as a solid aka the second container would and same with the air because it is very far spread out making the vibration of the molecule harder to carry. So therefore a the second container carries sound the most efficiently.

Question 5:
Amplitude is the measure of how much_________the wave is carrying
The actual answer is frequency because it amplitude will only pay attention to how high or low the wave is. Frequency is how high or low the pitch is. This will be shown with how high or low the wave is so amplitude measures that distance from the middle line meaning that unlike what I had answered which was energy which is not the case at all because even though there is energy in waves that doesn't mean amplitude measures that energy.

Question 6:
Cell Phones use______ waves.
Cell Phones use microwaves. You see cell phones use receive microwaves from the nearby phone mast. Then your phone send back microwaves. The short burst of waves or the microwaves can carry a ton of information extremely quickly. Think of texting you basically get  texts back instantaneously after they are sent and when do your texts send slower? Thats went you are furthest from a phone mast. A reason why you would use microwaves instead of something like gamma ray is because microwaves don't have enough energy to break chemical bonds meaning it cannot be harmful to things like your skin.
Sources:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423871/cell-phones-microwaves-and-the-human-health-threat/
https://www.peep.ac.uk/content/1310.0.html

Question 13:
_____ carry the greatest amount of energy.
Gamma rays carry the most amount of energy because they are the the highest on the electromagnetic spectrum. Gamma rays are also radioactive or have radiation making them much more powerful then something like a microwave. It is so powerful that it can break your skin and damage your cells. The higher the energy the more damage it causes to chemical bonds. So that is how you know they carry the most energy.

Question 25:
In a transverse wave,particles move?

As you can see a transverse wave moves back and forth for example this transversal wave in the photo is going to the right and once it hits a surface it will reflect and go to the left proving that transverse goes back and forth.

Question 26:
The action of a wave bouncing off a surface is called______?
It is called a reflection which makes sense because think of an echo which is a reflection of your voice. When your voice echoes back it doesn't alter but instead repeat what you had originally said. What I had originally chosen was diffraction which is a word to actually describe how light spreads out after crossing a narrow space or an edge. We know this is clearly wrong becasue we are referring to sound waves not light.

Question 29:
A ________ is the  distance between a point on one wave and the identical  point   of the next wave.
I had originally had answered frequency but frequency is not about the distance but more so how many waves pass in a certain about of time. Wavelength is measured from either trough to trough or crest to crest which is the bottom of the wave (trough) and the top of the wave (crest). When it says an identical point it means the nexts wave top or nexts waves bottom making it so wavelength is the answer to this question.

Sound

https://www.school-for-champions.com/science/images/sound_transverse.gif

Summary:
Everyone (expect for the deaf) have heard sound. It comes in the form of music, dogs barking, us talking, and many other examples. Well let me explain what sound is all about. First of all sound is just a vibration of molecules. Thats why its possible for a high pitch to shatter glass

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The reason that trick works is because the vibrations of the sound wave are so intense they break the glass into pieces. A sound wave is the wave like pattern sound makes. Let me teach you a bit about what sound waves look like and how to read them first. If you see really high waves especially high in the sense of amplitude which as you can see from the image if the height from the middle line to the top of the wave then you have a loud sound on your hands. If the amplitude is shorter than its a softer sound. As for high and low pitches( pitches are how high or low a note is) you will see that high notes have more waves per second which is called a high frequency. Frequency is how many complete waves there are in a second. As for low notes there are less waves per second. Refer to the picture below for more clarification.

http://www.jeron.je/anglia/learn/sec/science/light/waves23.gif

S&EP: Conducting Investigations: 

We conducted many investigations to be able to properly conclude that indeed sound is a vibration of molecules. The first experiment we had a tuning fork. We would strike the tuning fork with a pencil and after you hit it you can lightly touch one of the prongs and feel the vibration of the metal. Another example we had a pingpong ball that hung from the table. We struck the tuning fork with the pencil and then we put the tuning fork next to the ping pong ball. The ping pong ball would then hit the tuning fork and continually bounce off the fork due to the vibrations. Then last but not least we would strike the tuning fork with a pencil and place it in a tub full of water. Once the fork made contact with the water the water splashed around due to the vibrations. Therefore in conclusion sound is a vibration of molecules.

XCC:Cause and Effect:

The vibration that is sound doesn't just stop at vibration, I mean how would you hear it. That's why sound has a power that cause and effect reveals. For example the echo. Have you ever yelled into a cave "Hello" and you heard your voice call back to you. That echo is produced by your voice or more so your voices vibrations hitting a surface like a wall and bouncing back at you. That's why an echo has a delay because it has to take the time to hit something and then com back to you. So the cause of an echo is your voice and the effect is of course the echo!