Accoustics

During acoustics, we were told about the different properties of sound and how they affect what it sounds like, some of these include amplitude, wavelength and frequency.

Amplitude is the distance in a sine wave, this is usually between the centre lines, and the peak and trough of the sine wave, this represents the difference in how intense the pressure of the sound is.
Wavelength is simply the distance it takes for a sine wave to repeat a cycle (from centre point, to peak, to centre point to trough then back to centre point)
Frequency is how often this cycle happens within a given time frame, a low frequency results in bass tones and has a very wide and long sine wave, High frequencies give a much higher pitched tone and have thin and multiple sine waves.

The ear

One of the outcomes taught us about the mechanics of the ear and how it perceives sound, and the inner workings and visuals of the ear. We learned about the physical traits of the outer, middle and inner ear.

The outer ear being used primarily to collect sound and transfer it into the middle ear, via the ear canal, which then transfers it to the eardrum.
The Middle ear changes the sound into fluid through the Ossicles and transmits the sound into the fluid of the Cochlea.

The inner ear consists of 2 parts, the Cochlea and the Vestibule. The Cochlea takes the pressure caused by the fluid and turns it into an electrical signal for the brain to decipher into audio.

Part of the course taught us about how the properties of a room, and different materials, can affect the reverb of a room. For example:-

A room which has perpendicular walls are going to have a large reverb since the sound will simply bounce off of the walls and come back and overlap one another, making the room very messy and noisy.
A room which has odd shaped walls, that don’t point perpendicular to one another, disperses the sound.
Materials such as carpet and concrete also help to remove frequencies, these materials deal with a specific range and help to remove, or tone down, the reverb.