The Audacity Channel

What is Sample Rate, Bit Depth, and Bit Rate?

Mike Adams Episode 7

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This question pops up every so often so I thought it would be a good idea to talk about it. Digital waveforms are a recent phenomenon in the history of the world. They began to emerge in the early 1970s as digital music began gaining traction. It became increasingly necessary to convert analog audio into digital audio so computers would know what to do with it. Computers can't do anything with analog audio but once it's converted into digital audio, we can use programs like Audacity to do our magic and make the audio sound amazing. Before the emergence of digital audio, we couldn't see audio. But now, we can see our audio in the form of digital waveforms, as well as hear it. A waveform is a digital representation of the audio we captured during our recording. We captured the digital audio using a sample rate and bit depth. When we export our audio to our podcast or audiobook, bit rate becomes important. So let's talk about it.

Other Places You'll Find Me:

  1. The Audacity Bootcamp online school for podcasters and ACX audiobook narrators. The school consists of the following online courses:
  2. The Learn Audacity YouTube Channel
  3. The Learn Audacity Homepage
  4. The Audacity Channel on YouTube
  5. Facebook

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