How to make an mp3 sound great? Part 2
If you want to know how an mp3 works, this article is for you.
As we pointed out in the previous article, talking about a digital audio file refers to the ability to take 44,100 samples per second and thus be able to draw as precisely as possible the wave, with its curvature, that describes the sound.
or that the sound is produced by the fluctuating pressure that produces a movement in the air. Like the string of a guitar or a piano that vibrates X times per second, depending on the pitch, and these vibrations produce waves in the air similar to those produced in water if an object falls.
Then those waves propagate, reach our ears and produce a wave with a certain curvature.
Digitizing this implies, as we have already said, taking 44100 (or more) samples per second and capturing its position in order to later be able to reproduce that wave as close as possible to the original.
But this implies an enormous flow of information, which must be compressed and, if possible, even discarded, to reduce its size to a point that today, with this technology, is manageable.
This is based on these principles:
– There are certain sounds that the human ear cannot hear.
– There are certain sounds that the human ear hears better than others.
– If there are two sounds playing at the same time, we can hear the one that is higher, and not the lower one.
These principles of human hearing allow us to discard sounds without a considerable loss of quality.
