Audio

REPRESNTATION
 Audio

• speechh signals
i l as usedd iin a variety
i t off
interpersonal applications including telephony
and video telephony

• music-quality audio as used in applications

suchh as C
CD-on- demand
d d andd broadcast
b d
television.
• audio can be produced synthesizer, the audio is
created in a digital form and hence can be readily
stored within the computer memory.

• A microphone, however, generates a time-varying

analog signal and in order to store such signals in the
memory of a computer, and to transmit them over a
digital network, they must first be converted into a
digital form using an audio signal encoder.

• Also, since loudspeakers operate using an analog

signal, on output of all digitized audio signals the
stream of digitized values must be converted back
again into its analog form using an audio signal
decoder.
•We will explain the digitization of
both speech and music produced
by a microphone.

•We shall then discuss the format of

synthesized audio.
• The bandwidth of a typical speech signal is from 50 Hz through
to 10kHz and that of a music signal from 15Hz through to
20kHz.
20kHz

• Hence the sampling

p g rate used for the signals
g must be in excess of
their Nyquist rate which is 20ksps (2 x 10kHz) for speech and
40ksps (2 x 20kHz) for music.

• The number of bits per sample must be chosen so that the

quantization noise generated by the sampling process is at an
acceptable
t bl llevell relative
l ti tot the
th minimum
i i signal
i l level.
l l In
I the
th case
of speech12 bits per sample and for music 16 bits.

• In addition, since in most applications involving music

stereophonic (stereo) sound is utilized (and hence two such
signals must be digitized) this results in a bit rate double that of
a monaural (mono) signal.
Example 2.4
 PCM speech
• Most interpersonal applications involving speech is (PSTN).

• The bandwidth of a speech circuit in this network was

limited to 200 Hz through to 3.4kHz. Sampling rate of 8 kHz
was required to avoid aliasing.
aliasing

• In order to minimize the resultingg bit rate,,

• 7 bits per sample were selected for use in NA and Japan
• 8 bits per sample in Europe
• Bit rates of 56 kbps and 64kbps respectively.
• More modern systems have moved to using 8 bits per sample
in each case, giving a much improved performance over
early 7 bit systems.
PCM Principles:
P i i l Signal
Si l Encoding
E di and
d Decoding
D di Schematic
S h i
• To reduce the effect of q
quantization noise the
quantization intervals are made non-linear
(unequal) with narrower intervals used for
smaller
ll amplitude
li d signals
i l thanh for
f larger
l signals.
i l

• This is achieved by means of the compressor

circuit.

• At the destination,
destination the reverse operation is
performed by the expander circuit.

• The overall operation is known as Companding.

 PCM Principles: Companding
• International Standard:
– ITU-T Recommendation G.711
• Companding employs a non-linear or un-equal set of
quantization
i i steps
– Linear quantization produces quantization noise that is
i d
independent
d t off signal
i l level
l l
– Ear is more sensitive to noise on quiet signals than on
– Finer
Fi quantization
ti ti att lower
l levels
l l provides
id an increased
i d
signal quality, especially 8-Bit PCM
PCM Principles: Compressor
Characteristic
PCM Principles: Expander Characteristic
• In practice,
practice for historical reasons,
reasons there are
two different compression- expansion
characteristics
h i i ini use:

• μ-1aw, which is used in North America and

J
Japan, and
d
• A-law which is used in Europe
p and some
other countries.
 2.5.2 CD-quality audio

• The discs used in CD players and CD-ROMs

g
are digital storage
g devices for stereophonic
p
music and more general multimedia
information streams.
streams

• There is a standard associated with these

devices which is known as the CD
CD- digital
audio (CD-DA) standard.
 CD Quality Audio
CD-Quality
• Music Bandwidth = 15Hz-20KHz
– Minimum sampling
p g rate = 40ksps p
– Actual sampling rate = 44.1ksps
– 16bis/sample
– Total Bit rate = 44.1 x 103 x 16 = 705.5 Kbps
– Stereo means that the total bit rate is 1.411 Mbps
• Much greater than the 64kbps of a PCM
telephone channel.
Example 2.5
25
 Synthesized audio
• synthesized audio is often used in multimedia
applications
• The amount of memory required is less than that
required
q to store the equivalent
q digitized
g waveform
version.
• In addition, it is much easier to edit synthesized audio
and to mix several passages together.
• The main components that make up an audio
synthesizer are shown in Figure 2.18.
Audio/Sound Synthesizer Schematic
• The secondary storage interface allows the sequence of
messages to a particular piece of audio to be saved on
secondary storage
storage.

• p g
programs to allow the user to edit a ppreviouslyy entered
passage and, if required, to mix several stored passages
together.

• (piano)
(p ) keyboard,
y , there is a range
g of other ppossible inputs
p
from instruments such as an electric guitar, all of which
generate messages similar to those produced by the keyboard.

• in order to discriminate between the inputs from the different

possible sources, a standard known as the Music Instrument
Digital Interface (MIDI) is used.
sed As the name implies,
implies this
does not just define the format of the standardized set of
messages used by a synthesizer, but also the type of
connectors,
t cables,
bl andd electrical
l t i l signals
i l that
th t are usedd to
t
connect any type of device to the synthesizer.