Question

I have used several audio programs such as SDL mixer, audacity, etc. but I want to see what’s inside these little audio toys. How does audio data get processed and such. I’ve also seen some sample codes of an MP3 player in C++ that it uses void* for audio data.

But all these do not help me understand in general about how audio work in computer. So could somebody explain to me (or introduce me some books) on how do computers store and process digital audio data? (for instance, if you store a triangle waveform into a .wav file, how does this waveform get stored as bit pattern?)

Answer 1

How Waveforms are represented

There is a more detailed explanation of how audio is represented in the Audacity manual:

…the height of each vertical line is represented as a signed number.

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More about Digital Audio

• The Audacity wiki has some information about how algorithms in Audacity work. If there is a specific audio effect in Audacity that you want to know more about, that isn’t already covered, you can leave a question there.
• If you are looking at source code, the echo effect is a good place to start.
• For much much more about digital audio, click the Wikipedia buttons for links that interest you on this page. The ones at the foot of that page are particularly useful for digging deeper into the different audio file formats that are out there.

You may notice that all these links come from the Audacity project. That’s not a coincidence.