Analog vs. Digital

You may have heard of analog and digital, and what makes both of them special or more favored than the other. Some people may say that analog is better and more accurate, whereas others may argue that digital can be easier to use and can hold more data. 

Analog pretty much means an analogy of something, or representation. An analog clock is not time itself, but it represents time, or is an analogy of it. A ruler is not the measurement, but a representation of measurement. Analog recordings are the waves on the device. Analog technology is a representation of something, just like an analog clock. 

Digital data is stored as numbers, or digits. A digital clock shows the numbers rather than the moving clock hands of the analog clock. Digital recordings take the sound and convert it into digits to be stored. All digital data is stored as digits. 

Some people think that analog data is much more accurate than digital data. Why? Well, let's go back to the clock example. On the analog clock, you can physically see the second, minute and hour hands moving around in circles as an analogy of time. On a a digital clock, all you see is the numbers changing every so often. This is why people tend to think that analog is more accurate: you can see everything changing and can make a more accurate assumption of the time. Besides, if you've ever listened to an audiobook or podcast on a digital device, the words might not be so clear. They could be saying, 'the dog jumped over the stick', but you could hear, 'the dog was very sick' and make a wrong assumption of the story. People tend to think that analog is much more accurate than digital, although both of them have their pros and cons. 

S&EP: Models

This week, I used models to compare analog and digital graphs. I noticed that, when plotting on a digital graph, the lines were much less accurate than on the analog graph. It could be possible to make the digital graph as accurate, but it would be difficult. Instead of plotting every one or 0.5 on the graph, we would need to plot every single decimal point and be very precise with the numbers to make them the same accuracy. Overall, this model helped me see the reason in the argument that analog is generally more accurate, although there are some things that digital is better at that analog. While comparing the digital graphs I made to the analog graph given, I noticed that I would need to be incredibly precise if I were to make the digital graphs as accurate as the analog one. 

Analog graph

Digital graph1.comparison

Digital graph2.comparison

XCC: Scale, Proportion and Quantity

When I was making my digital graphs based off of the analog graph, I noticed that the scale of the digital graph was different than the analog graph. The analog graph had a curved line, and the digital graph had a kind of straight, clunky type of line. I noticed that to have a curved line like the analog graph did, the points on the digital graph would have to be much more close together than every one or 0.5 on the graph. There would need to be much more often intervals than there are on either of the graphs in order for the line to be as accurate or even close to the accuracy on the analog graph. 

Musical Instrument Project Blog 3/22

Flouti(t)aur

This week, we completed our musical instrument project. We needed to build a working instrument, record its sound and audacity, and make a video recording of us playing the instrument. Above is the image and link to the document holding all of our work. Our instrument is called a Floutitaur and is a hybrid between a flute and a guitar. While working on this project, we recorded our notes and audacity, which are the four images in the middle. We played different notes at different pitches and volumes, and we compared them to see how frequency, wavelength and amplitude were affected by pitch and volume. When the pitch is higher, the frequency increases and the wavelength decreases. When the pitch is lower, the frequency decreases and the wavelength increases. The amplitude increases with volume and vice versa. This was all clear while comparing the audacity images above. 

Backward-looking: What problems did you encounter while you were working on this piece? How did you solve them?

Some problems that we encountered while working on this piece were tuning our instruments. We had trouble getting the guitar to sound like we wanted it to, and the flute wasn't making very much noise at all. We solved this by placing two pencils between the rubber bands and the guitar body and rotating them to tune the strands to the proper pitch. We wrapped the flute in tape, covering the holes, and placed a piece of baking paper on the bottom to make a sound similar to that of a kazoo. With these minor fixes, we were successful. 

Inward-looking: What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished product?

What was satisfying about the final product was that it actually made music. I wasn't sure that it was going to sound good, but it made noise and it was in tune, and that was very satisfying for me. I liked playing the song as well because I enjoyed playing music on the instrument that I had helped create myself.

Outward-looking: Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

Other people had different ideas for their instruments, and their building process was different. They also chose different songs for their performance, but the audacity was the same basic idea where we played the note and compared them with the other notes. Our process of building, then doing the audacity and then playing was the same, but the material we used and our priorities in the building process were different. 

Forward-looking: What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I had a chance to do this over again, I would build my instrument faster and get on to the audacity sooner. We spent a while building because our plan wasn't very good, and we were rushed in all of the other tasks. If I could do this again, I would make sure that we had a solid plan before we started anything.