Acoustics

write up

The Physics of sound

What is sound?
Sound is an energy waveform that cannot be seen be the naked eye. Sound is an Omnidirectional
energy, Omnidirectional means that sound energy spreads in every direction. Sound can be
made by almost anything, whether the source is a musical instrument, or whether it is a tree
falling in jungle, everything makes a sound depending on whether there is air around the
source, for example, you cannot create sound in space, this is because there is no air around the
source, you cannot make sound unless there is the air to create and pass the sound.

Soundwaves & Waveform

When you drop something in water, you get a ripple
effect in the water which travels in every direction, this
is the same as sound, when you see the ripples in the
water they are the same as soundwave however the
difference is that you cannot see the soundwaves,
whenever you make a sound you are compressing air
molecules to create the sound. Air is made up from
oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide all mixed by molecules, when the molecules are
interrupted by a sound source, this causes the molecules to collide making vibrations.
Compression is where there more molecules colliding in the air when you make a noise so that
means that the frequency of the noise is high, Rarefaction means that there are less air
molecules colliding together, this means that there is a lower frequency than the others.
Soundwave is the visual representation of sound, you can see the waveform on Logic, for
example, if you have an audio track after using a microphone and recording, it shows you the
waveform of the recording.

Frequency, amplitude, Envelope

Frequency & Doppler effect- A frequency is a completed cycle of
Compressions and Rarefactions within one second. Frequency can be
measured in hertz, our frequency spectrum is 20Hz to 20,000Hz
(20KHz). Good human hearing can hear between 20 Hz 20 KHz, each
note on an instrument has a set frequency, whatever the frequency of the
note is, if you go an octave higher the Frequency doubles, if you go an
octave below then the frequency is halved. Adults and Children have
different frequency spectrum, for example Children can hear higher
frequency to adults. Adults hearing has been used a lot longer than younger people, this leads to
some sort of hearing damage so that the inner ear cannot register frequency above roughly 17.5
KHz.

Acoustics write up
The Doppler effect is a change of a soundwave for an
observer moving relative to its source, for example,
when a police car is driven towards you with the
sirens on, the sirens pitch increases as the car gets
closer to you, and when it drives past you the sirens
pitch begins to decrease until you cannot hear the
sirens, this is the Doppler effect.

Amplitude- the amplitude of sound is the maximum frequency range of the Waveform, you can
measure amplitude by looking at a waveform on a graph and looking at the complete height of
the middle of one of the waves.

Envelope- ADSR, this means Attack,
Decay, Sustain and Release. The attack of
the frequency is how long it takes to
reach its maximum peak, the Decay is
how long it takes to drop back down to
the played note, the sustain is how long
the frequency is played for, and the
release is how long until the frequency
has completely faded away.

Speed of sound

The speed of sound can

change depending on what
type of media the sound is
travelling through, for
example...

Air 344 m/s

Petrolium - 1290 m/s
Average speed through the body
1530 m/s
Iron 5850 m/s
Aluminium 6260 m/s

Acoustics write up
Phase
Phase is where there are two of the same
wavelengths, for example, when there are two
wavelengths that are the same, they join
together to double the wavelength creating a
bigger frequency range, in the diagram it
shows you two wavelengths that are identical
joining together to make one big wavelength,
however if one Wavelength is mirrored by the
second wavelength, this means that the two
wavelengths will even each other out to become a neutral Frequency.


Harmonics
There are two types of harmonics, there is the even harmonics and the odd harmonics. Even
harmonics sound pleasant and pleasing to hear, odd harmonics sound unpleasant our hearing,
for instance, when there are two instruments playing the same harmony, the harmonics sound
pleasant together and work well together, however if you have two instruments playing two
different harmonies, then the harmonics of the instruments wouldnt match and make the sound
not pleasing for the listener.

Decibels
Decibels were first used to measure the intensity
of energy of power along telephone lines. The Bel
scale would interpret an intensity level of 1000 to
be 3 Bels, and 1,000,000 was 6 Bels you can
easily calculate this by just counting the zeros. But
this meant there would be only 12 numbers of
loudness. So it was decided 120 levels would be
appropriate, by multiplying Bels by 10, to give us
deci-Bels. dB SPL is a specific type of decibel. SPL
means sound pressure level and is about the
actual intensity caused by sound in air. All
decibels are referenced, and in this case it's to the
quietist audible sound, which could be a mosquito
3 metres away or a person sighing 10 metres away.