what is the difference between analog and digital recording?

Question

im not talking about the difference in sound, i m talking about the actual means of recording analog vs digital..

Answer 1

Analog uses a direct signal of some sort, eg. mechanical position or voltage in a circuit, to represent the signal being measured or recorded.



Any mechanical or electrical noise existing the equipment adds to the signal and becomes part of it - dust or scratches on a vinyl LP, electrical or tape "hiss" on a recording etc.



In digital equipment, the varying voltage is digitised for storage and processing;



imagine drawing the analog sound voltage waveform on a piece of graph paper, then at regular close intervals noting the exact height of the line above or below zero.



If you re-draw that sequence of points at the same intervals and same heights as you noted down and "join the dots", you re-create the original analog waveform.





That's the essence of digital recording or storage - it's the string of numeric values that is stored & they can be handled just like any other data file - no matter how many times you copy it and whatever the media, as long as the file is not corrupted it will always convert back perfectly to the original analog signal.





You can also do signal processing on it by purely digital (mathematical) means, such as tone filtering or mixing / blending multiple different signals, changing the speed or frequency and many other things, without introducing any noise or distortion that would happen through multiple stages of analog processing.



As long as the sample rate is set high enough (eg. sample points close enough together) and the numeric accuracy of the point "heights" is high enough to get all the waveform without missing any details, the eventual reproduction as analog will be just the same as when it was captured.

Answer 2

In the end, an analog signal is a continuous pattern of voltage differences on a carrier, a digital signal is a bunch of discrete numerical data points that need to be translated back into an analog voltage pattern to be used to drive the electrical motors that speakers actually are. Speakers are driven by electrical differences, not numbers. Computer circuitry is used to restore digital data to an electrical wave pattern to be reproduced, Until that happens, its a big stream of computer type signals, eh,like the berack you hear over a phone connection when a computer is on one end of it. Like the difference between a telegraph dit dit dah before the operator interprets it back into words, and what goes over your telephone. (not really, but the analogy stands) Obviously digital signals are created or translated by specific computer hard and software interactions. Analog recordings can be produced by small current variations as occur say, in a microphone's diaphragm as it's coil jumps around in its magnet producing electrical variations generated by air pressure on it from the "sound" in the air. Meh, its an electrical analog. Digital files are translated numerical representations, usually of some analog source, such as a mike, or recording, or other input. Such files are easier to perform a large number of operations on in a computer, and of course can be stored as a computer file.

Answer 3

Analog uses physical media with an analogy of the sound - thus the word "analog." This analog might be the squiggly pattern on a record groove, (the original sound recording media) a pattern of magnetized rust particles on recording tape or a squiggly line on movie film next to the video frames.



Digital converts the sound to ones and zeros on recording and converts them back to sound on playback. It's kind of like the transporter from Star Trek.