Navigation:  Record Control > Concepts of Digital Audio

Before audio can be edited on computers it must be digitized. The output from most audio equipment such as tape recorders, microphones or record players is analog. Analog means that the audio signal is represented by an alternating electrical voltage. The voltage is analog to the air pressure changes in the air during the performance, hence the term analog signals. The sound card in your computer is needed to convert the constantly changing electrical voltage to a stream of numbers at fixed rate intervals.  This process is done in two steps called sampling and quantization.