A/D convertors

  • Thread starter Thread starter kikling
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kikling

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What are these? Can someone help me out? I heard all about these but I still don't know what they do. If someone could explain in to me in easy, no technical words I would really appreciate it. Thanks
-Jack
 
Analog to Digital convertors.... D/A is the other way, Digital to Analog. Goes in as one, comes out as the other.

Say you are recording with any digital device (computer, digital multitrack, etc), and you plug in a mic. Something has to convert the analog signal in that mic to a digital format (bits) for the recording device to understand, the A/D convertors do this. When you want to go from the digital device back out to an analog speaker (which most people have), then the D/A convertors come into play so that the speaker can understand what to do.

FWIW, Dragon has a cool glossary on the main page with some straight forward definitions for stuff like this. http://www.homerecording.com/glossary.html
 
An A/D converter converts an analog (electrical) signal into a digital signal (0's and 1's). In the case of audio, a line level signal is usally around couple of hundred millivolts (correct me if I'm wrong anyone). A computer doesn't know how to read this information being sent to it, as it doesn't undertsand the "language", because computers can only understand the digital "language". So to make the computer be able to understand what it's being it sent, the analog signal has to be converted into a digital signal - this way the computer can understand what it is being sent. Think of an A/D converter as a translator - your computer doesn't understand the "foreign language" it's being sent - so through an A/D converter - "the translator", it is able to make sense of the information being sent to it.

Hope this helps
 
There are others a lot more qualified then me to describe this but I'll take a stab. The A in A/D stands for analogue. As in the kind of signal put out by something like a guitar to an amp or a microphone or any amplified electrical device in this case that produces sound. The D stands for digital, and what happens is the analogue signal is turned into ones and zeroes, by the A/D converter, something computers can understand. Thats pretty much it but there is a wide range as to how well these converters do their job.

Layth
 
So where to I get these a/d convertors. are they expences. I do home recording with Cool Edit and i just plug my mic into the sound card. Is that the same thing as an a/d. I guess Im transfering a analoug signal (my mic) into a digital one (recording on the computer.) Thanks Alot
 
Dither is our friend. Dither good.
 
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