Sound Design Quiz 2

Front 1

What are the four parts of a sound envelope called?

Back 1

Attack, decay, sustain, release.

Front 2

Describe overtones

Back 2

Harmonics in instrumental sounds. Frequencies greater than the fundamental frequency.

Front 3

Describe harmonics

Back 3

(general) An overtone accompanying a fundamental tone at fixed interval vibration.

Front 4

Describe timbre

Back 4

Descriptor of instrument overtones. Quality of a musical sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity.

Front 5

Describe formats

Back 5

Harmonics in voices. Bands of frequency that determine the phonetic quality of a vowel.

Front 6

What's a plug in?

Back 6

A downloadable tool, add-on, for a program

Front 7

What is actually happening when a sound is equalized?

Back 7

Frequencies are balanced by altering amplitudes.

Front 8

What are common uses for EQ in our mixes?

Back 8

Front 9

What is a shelf in an EQ?

Back 9

Shelving EQ boosts frequencies above/below a specified cut off point.

Front 10

What is the difference between a graphic and parametric eq interface?

Back 10

Graphic is more fixed, parametric is more precise.

Front 11

What exactly does a low-cut filter do? High-cut filter?

Back 11

Removes low frequencies. Removes high frequencies.

Front 12

Back 12

Front 13

Back 13

Front 14

Describe early reflections

Back 14

The echos of a signal that arrive at a mic 30ms after direct sound

Front 15

Describe reverb time

Back 15

The amount of time required for the sound to fade away

Front 16

Describe damping

Back 16

A decrease in the amplitude of an oscillation as a result of energy being drained from the system to overcome frictional forces

Front 17

Describe delay/pre-delay

Back 17

Amount of time between original and dry sound with early reflections and reverb

Front 18

Describe bandwidth

Back 18

The range of frequencies within a given band

Front 19

Describe dry-wet balance

Back 19

The proportion between original (dry) and effected (wet)

Front 20

Describe hall, room, and plate reverb types

Back 20

Hall: big lobg room, slow early reflections

Room: short reverb, prominent early reflections

Plate: shortish to fairly long reverb, "pew" sound (metallic)

Front 21

Describe echo

Back 21

Reflections of sound waves off a hard surface

Front 22

What physical characteristics of a room affect reverb time

Back 22

Angle of walls, materials walls/surrounding objects are made of

Front 23

How would you describe the reflections/reverb for a small room? Large room? Hard surfaces? Soft?

Back 23

Small rooms can cause acoustical distortions. Large rooms have increased reverb times. More reverb with hard surfaces. Less with soft.

Front 24

Why might you want to EQ the reverb?

Back 24

If the reverb is too strong, to lower the frequency

Front 25

Does reverb change the original sound?

Back 25

No it adds effects to the original

Front 26

What's an early reflection

Back 26

The sounds that arrive at The Listener after being reflected

Front 27

How should Reverb time be set for a small room

Back 27

It should be set low since there's less space for it to travel

Front 28

Which size rooms need a bigger pre delay, large or small?

Back 28

Large because the Reverb doesn't start until the first delay or Echo makes it back to our ears

Front 29

What does a dampen parameter do

Back 29

Reduces the high frequencies in the Reverb especially in the sustain and release parts of the Reverb envelope

Front 30

When using Reverb in audacity why does the author suggest putting a 100% wet Reverb on its own track how do you do that

Back 30

On it's on track to level can always be readjusted. In other words you can readjust Reverb later. First duplicate the track you want to add Reverb to, then add the Reverb to the duplicated track at 100% wet

Front 31

How many decibels difference is there in the level of a whisper compared to the level of a normal conversation

Back 31

20db

Front 32

Why do we use decibels to measure loudness

Back 32

It matches our hearing well and is a simpler scale

Front 33

Does increasing level from say 10 decibels to 13 decibels seem the same amount of boost as increasing the level from 50 decibels to 53 decibels

Back 33

No the higher the decibel the less noticeable increments of change are

Front 34

What's the smallest decibel change in loudness that a person can generally detect

Back 34

1 db

Front 35

How many decibel decrease would make a sound seem like it's coming from twice as far away. Twice as close?

Back 35

-6 db. +6db

Front 36

What's the Haas effect?

Back 36

When one sound is followed by another with a delay of 40 milliseconds or less the two are perceived as a single sound.

Front 37

When is the complete removal of noise counterproductive

Back 37

When it distorts the rest of the audio

Front 38

How does auditions Auto heal work?

Back 38

It removes whatever you draw it on the sound frequency chart

Front 39

What's a noise print?

Back 39

A technique to reduce unwanted noises from a file

Front 40

Why would you want to record a few minutes of no dialogue while recording dialogue in the field?

Back 40

In case of noise you can get a sample

Front 41

What does normalization mean?

Back 41

Application of a constant amount of gain to bring the amplitude to a Target level

Front 42

What does an audio compressor do?

Back 42

Lessens the dynamic range between the loudest and quietest parts of an audio signal

Front 43

What's a threshold? What is a ratio?

Back 43

A compressor reduces amplitude if it exceeds set threshold. Same but a ratio is used to determine the limit

Front 44

Why must we use the decibel scale?

Back 44

It's a simple Scale based on the natural world

Front 45

What is sampling?

Back 45

The reduction of a continuous signal to a discrete time signal

Front 46

What's a preamp do?

Back 46

Converts a weak electronic signal to a strong one.

Front 47

What are the three stages of sound in a space?

Back 47

Direct sound from source, first reflections, reverberation

Front 48

What options would make a particular sound seem loud to a listener?

Back 48

More frequency overtone elements, 800 to 2000 Hertz boost, other sounds are lowered

Front 49

What options do you have to fix sound masking in a mix?

Back 49

Use pink noise

Front 50

Gates are only really effective on what kinds of noise problems?

Back 50

Long tracks with steady but not too loud noise

Front 51

Masking Works only when the frequency range of unwanted noise matches what?

Back 51

The mask

Front 52

What typical problems come up when using noise fingerprints or prints to guide digital noise reduction software?

Back 52

It might Encompass unwanted frequencies

Front 53

A narrow filter can be used to cut unwanted hum frequencies. Why is an narrow filter best?

Back 53

They least affect the wanted sound

Front 54

Why is amp Buzz not a simple EQ problem?

Back 54

Too many harmonics

Front 55

What are the basic pieces of advice given at the end of the article?

Back 55

Some noises require multiple passes or a combination, don't go too extreme with reduction

Front 56

What does a spectral frequency display show?

Back 56

A graph of frequencies

Front 57

What change in decibels represents half as loud?

Back 57

-10 db

Front 58

What is an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio?

Back 58

70 db

Front 59

What does audacity Tempo change do?

Back 59

Speed up or slow down audio

Front 60

What are common sampling rates?

Back 60

44.1 khz or 48khz

Front 61

Does video have a special sampling rate?

Back 61

Yes 48khz

Front 62

What is resolution and what are the common options?

Back 62

Higher than 44.1 khz sample rates

Front 63

What is meant by a/D and D/a converters?

Back 63

Analog to digital and vice versa

Front 64

What are typical options for using a microphone to record on a computer?

Back 64

USB plug-in

Front 65

What happens when a signal level is set too high as you record?

Back 65

Clipping

Front 66

How can you see if the level is too high?

Back 66

Peaks

Front 67

What does each of these do: preamp, analog to digital converter, audio interface, mixer, USB mic?

Back 67

Front 68

What's the difference between Peak and RMS recording level meters?

Back 68

Peak is the highest voltage the waveform will reach, RMS is the effective value of the total waveform

Front 69

What is important about using zero Crossings when editing waveforms?

Back 69

It's useful when you use it so that the cut happens right when the waveform crosses the zero point which prevents pops and clicks