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The Audio Fool

Your meta-search moment of the day

As of right now, a search on live.com for the term livewhacking returns exactly one result.

Date: 01/24/2008

A Blissful Installation

I've experienced software installer bliss. Here's the scenario: I went out and downloaded an...

Date: 08/05/2007

The ADD Stove

As you well know, people with peculiar quirks can have special equipment needs. There are plenty of...

Date: 07/27/2007

You can't hear DC

Recently one of my team members found a bug in some old code while doing a code review. Our...

Date: 06/21/2007

The Rules of Code Optimization

Steve Rowe recently talks about who you're really writing for when you write code. The argument he...

Date: 06/14/2007

Youtube on the Loudness War

Larry pointed me to a really cool video that graphically and audibly demonstrates the effect of the...

Date: 05/23/2007

Categories of Legacy Applications

If you've used Vista, you've probably been exposed to the UAC dialog. It's the security dialog that...

Date: 03/20/2007

It's that time of year, it seems. I was down with the flu last week, and I'm trying desperately to...

Date: 03/05/2007

Digital Audio: Aliasing

Sampling a continuous waveform into discrete digital samples results in lost information. Discrete...

Date: 02/15/2007

Aside from the distortion artifacts, one of the biggest problems that results from clipping is a...

Date: 02/07/2007

Louder Sounds Better

Below is an example of the Fletcher-Munson Equal Loudness Curve. It is one of the most recognized...

Date: 02/07/2007

Vista Now Available

After months of waiting it's released. Go out and get yourself a copy already!

Date: 01/30/2007

Audio Fidelity: Clipping

In theory, an audio signal can take on any amplitude. There is no mathematical upper limit for how...

Date: 01/09/2007

Audio Topic index

I write a lot about audio concepts, and about audio fidelity in particular. This is an index into...

Date: 01/05/2007

Of ground axes and long suicide notes

There's been an "analysis" floating around the 'net in the last few days from Auckland University's...

Date: 01/03/2007

She said yes!

I would usually never bring any personal matters onto a professional blog, but in this case, I want...

Date: 12/27/2006

My program is the most important thing on your system, same as all the others.

Raymond had a really good post yesterday about programs that grab your attention inappropriately. I...

Date: 12/20/2006

If it doesn't just work, then it doesn't work.

I'm passionate about usability, even to the point that my co-workers accuse me of whining. I can't...

Date: 12/14/2006

Feature request for the compiler team

I want to preface this by saying that the MS compiler team have worked wonders in improving...

Date: 12/08/2006

The difference between measuring DR and THD+N

I've talked here before about how noise and distortion are very similar concepts with very different...

Date: 12/06/2006

Audio Fidelity: Output Level

Output level is one of the simplest fidelity metrics to understand, but don't take that to mean it's...

Date: 12/05/2006

And for my encore... Sleep.

As you've almost certainly heard by now, we've finished. Windows Vista has shipped, and our mantle...

Date: 11/08/2006

Honesty as a code metric

Of all of the programmers I've worked with over the years, I can name three who really stick out as...

Date: 11/02/2006

Audio Fidelity: Latency

Relativity theorizes that there is no such thing as simultaneity between cause and effect. Effect...

Date: 10/27/2006

If you assume your users are criminals, they will be.

A friend recently purchased for me a copy of a game, let's call it "Society III", that he knew I'd...

Date: 10/26/2006

Always dither before you quantize

Quantization adds noise. Taking a nice continuous signal and expressing it as distinct integers will...

Date: 10/18/2006

Recent lack of posts

Apologies for the lack of posts. We're sooo close to getting Vista out the door, there's been little...

Date: 10/17/2006

Interface Design and the Law of Leaky Abstractions

Programmers are always trying to make things simpler, usually by making them more complex. Interface...

Date: 09/29/2006

Should you use Vista? I do.

I'm completely switched over. Aside from my two linux servers, every machine I run is on Vista, and...

Date: 09/25/2006

Audio Fidelity: Frequency Response

Not all frequencies are created equal. And they're also not generally treated equally by a digital...

Date: 09/20/2006

Audio Fidelity: Crosstalk

For years, recorded audio was just a signal, captured by a microphone, stored as an audio signal,...

Date: 09/01/2006

32 bit audio redux

In my previous post, I don't think I explained very well why a 32-bit signal wouldn't work on the...

Date: 08/23/2006

A Lesson in Dynamic Range (or Why 32 Bits per Sample Should Never Catch On)

Anywhere you go, you will be able to find people who will insist that more is better. Bigger cars,...

Date: 08/22/2006

The Dancing Bunnies problem and the need for application-level security

Raymond today has a discussion up about the folly of trying to set security with a granularity of...

Date: 08/18/2006

Quantization, Sample Rate, and Bits Per Sample

Forgive my digression, but I need to lay some digital signal processing (DSP) groundwork for what I...

Date: 08/17/2006

Audio Fidelity: Distortion

Distortion in audio is very closely related to noise. Both "distortion" and "noise" are used to...

Date: 08/08/2006

Fidelity on channel9

Channel9 has a video up right now with Hakon Strande, one of my team's program managers, talking...

Date: 07/13/2006

Why is everything in audio measured in dB?

Short answer: Because the ear measures things in dB.The decibel is nothing more than a ratio between...

Date: 07/02/2006

Audio Fidelity: Dynamic Range

I want to talk about noise for a minute. We all know what noise is, and that we don't want it in our...

Date: 06/27/2006

What's all this 'fidelity' stuff about anyway?

Nearly everybody has heard the term "high fidelity". Most understand that fidelity is a desirable...

Date: 06/21/2006

L"Hello, World" // Enter the Audio Fool

Perhaps it's some kind of initiation ritual. An obligatory indoctrination task that each new blogger...

Date: 06/21/2006