sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

and music production, sonic artifact, or simply artifact, refers to sonic material that is accidental or unwanted, resulting from the editing or manipulation of a sound.

Types

Because there are always technical restrictions in the way a sound can be recorded (in the case of acoustic sounds) or designed (in the case of synthesised or processed sounds), sonic errors often occur. These errors are termed artifacts (or sound/sonic artifacts), and may be pleasing or displeasing. A sonic artifact is sometimes a type of digital artifact, and in some cases is the result of

data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressi ...

(not to be confused with

dynamic range compression Dynamic range compression (DRC) or simply compression is an audio signal processing operation that reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds, thus reducing or ''compressing'' an audio signal's dynamic range. Compression is c ...

, which also may create sonic artifacts). Often an artifact is deliberately produced for creative reasons. For example to introduce a change in

timbre In music, timbre (), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes sounds according to their source, such as choir voices and musical instrument ...

of the original sound or to create a sense of cultural or stylistic context. A well-known example is the overdriving of an electric guitar or electric bass signal to produce a clipped, distorted guitar tone or fuzz bass. Editing processes that deliberately produce artifacts often involve technical experimentation. A good example of the deliberate creation of sonic artifacts is the addition of grainy pops and clicks to a recent recording in order to make it sound like a vintage

vinyl record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English) or a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, ...

Flanging Flanging is an audio signal processing, audio effect produced by mixing two identical audio signal, signals together, one signal delayed by a small and (usually) gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. This produces a ...

and

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

were originally regarded as sonic artifacts; as time passed they became a valued part of pop music production methods. Flanging is added to electric guitar and keyboard parts. Other magnetic tape artifacts include wow, flutter, saturation,

hiss Hiss or Hissing may refer to: * Hiss (electromagnetic), a wave generated in the plasma of the Earth's ionosphere or magnetosphere * Hiss (surname) * ''Hissing'' (manhwa), a Korean manhwa series by Kang EunYoung * Noise (electronics) or electro ...

noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

, and print-through. It is valid to consider the genuine surface noise such as pops and clicks that are audible when a vintage vinyl recording is played back or recorded onto another medium as sonic artifacts, although not all sonic artifacts must contain in their meaning or production a sense of "past", more so a sense of "by-product". Other vinyl record artifacts include turntable rumble, ticks, crackles and groove echos. In the

Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem is an essential principle for digital signal processing linking the frequency range of a signal and the sample rate required to avoid a type of distortion called aliasing. The theorem states that the sample r ...

, inadequate sampling bandwidth creates a sonic artifact known as an '' alias'', and the resulting distortion of the sound is termed ''aliasing''. Examples of aliasing can be heard in early music samplers since they could record audio at bit rates and sampling frequencies below the Nyquist rate, considered desirable by some musicians. Aliasing is a major concern in the analog-to-digital conversion of video and audio signals. In the creation of computer music and

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

in the past decade, particularly in glitch music, software is used to create sonic artifacts of all stripes. They are also the primary focus of the practice of circuit bending: making sounds from products that were unintended by the makers of the circuitry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonic Artifact Sound recording Sound production Signal processing Audio effects Musical techniques Music production

Types

See also

References