Basic properties of sound

Sound is the fundamental building block of music technology and its properties affect everything we do in the studio. Grant Bridgeman goes back to basics.

Sound is defined as ‘the sensations produced in the ear when the surrounding air vibrates’ – and so, in some ways, it exists only if we hear it. But, to be more objective, sound is just energy that is vibrating in a specific frequency range that our ears can respond to and can be present whether we hear it or not. Sound energy travels as a progressive (moving) wave, which has behavioural characteristics that can be understood by looking at its basic properties.

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 34
Filed under Ten Minute Masters

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