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
More posts eventually!
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
Clipping in popular music
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