Someone knowledgeable about sound please set me straight..

[wHATcOLOR]

i'm sure there are some fundamentals i don't know that have led me to ask this stupid question. so please help me understand if you can.

so i was told somewhere along the way that any file on a computer is comprised of 0s and 1s at its most basic level.

so theoretically it'd be possible to view a .wav of a song, say It's Raining Men, in 0s and 1s. and theoretically those 0s and 1s in that exact order and quantity describe the exact sonic properties of the songs.

if someone were to change a relatively small section of the vast number of 0s and 1s, say 100 characters in a row changed to all 1s, and then play the song, what would happen? what would sound different? what if they changed it to all 0s? what if they inverted the 0s and 1s? what if they just deleted that section? what if they copied it three times, would that section repeat itself 3 times?

[Luke de Spa]

yes that slight section of the song would change to "unskinny bop"

[dean_r_koontz]

what is a computer? what is a 1 and 0?

[Crunchy Black]

what youre really asking about is computers, not sound


and i think the binary sequence you are referring to does not exist in such a way that you can read it out from a computer without some kind of advanced analytical method. if y ou flipped 0s and 1s in certain areas it would crash the computer and in other areas it might just garble a portion of the song.

i really need to take more physics courses

[Travis Meeks]

you're better off leaving well enough alone

[Luke de Spa]

afaik, changing the 1s and 0s wouldn't change how the computer interprets the series of bits. so if the computer interprets every 16 bits as particular sample value and you change some of those bits, it will still interpret it as a digital audio signal (assuming you're affecting the portion of the file's 1s and 0s that comprises its contents rather than its metadata) but as a different sample value

so if you did it just right enough times you could get "unskinny bop"

[DeviousJ]

This might be a bit technical in places but you'll get the idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM

Wav files are basically raw uncompressed audio, made up of a series of numbers that give you the height of the wave at each fraction of a second. It's kinda like a bar chart. The numbers are made up of groups of 1's and 0's, so if you change any of them you'll end up changing the number itself and the height of the wave at certain points. It should still work fine, maybe not if you mess with the start or end where there might be computery information. Things like MP3s have lots of computery information, so if you randomly change parts of one of those the computer will be like 'what the hell does THIS mean' and it will be disgusted.

Oh yeah, putting a huge string of 1's in a wav file might create a massively clipped wave, basically a long period where the signal's constantly outputting at full power, and that could damage things including your speakers

[Crunchy Black]

what about the ones and zeros... you cant actually pull them up in a notepad fiel, ehhh?

[Luke de Spa]

Originally Posted by DeviousJ

This might be a bit technical in places but you'll get the idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM

Wav files are basically raw uncompressed audio, made up of a series of numbers that give you the height of the wave at each fraction of a second. It's kinda like a bar chart. The numbers are made up of groups of 1's and 0's, so if you change any of them you'll end up changing the number itself and the height of the wave at certain points. It should still work fine, maybe not if you mess with the start or end where there might be computery information. Things like MP3s have lots of computery information, so if you randomly change parts of one of those the computer will be like 'what the hell does THIS mean' and it will be disgusted.

Oh yeah, putting a huge string of 1's in a wav file might create a massively clipped wave, basically a long period where the signal's constantly outputting at full power, and that could damage things including your speakers

unskinny BOP BOP BOP BOP

[Warzaw]

Waiting for brendo_69 to come in here and school everyone.

[DeviousJ]

Originally Posted by Luke de Spa

unskinny BOP BOP BOP BOP

That's 123123123123123123123123124123123123123123123123

[brendo_91]

Originally Posted by Warzaw

Waiting for brendo_69 to come in here and school everyone.

its basically been covered...

[Fonzie]

Originally Posted by Luke de Spa

yes that slight section of the song would change to "unskinny bop"

what do you need to do to turn it into "Winds Of Change"?