.aif file
A .aiff or .aif file is an audio sound file found on a computer that stores audio data with very high quality. Unlike other
file formats, such as .mp3, an .aiff file is not compressed and takes up a larger amount of disk space. The sound files
used in the Interactions Etudes (such as Piano Interactions #1) are stored as high-quality .aiff files.
Recordings of the Interactions Etudes that are posted on this site are available as .aiff files as well as .mp3 files.
These files are available on the music page.
(see also .mp3 file)
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audio interface
An audio interface is a piece of electronics that usually sits outside of a computer and allows the user to send audio
signals, often many channels at a time, into and out of the computer. When a computer music piece requires more than just
two channels of audio (normally called stereo), a multi-channel audio interface can be used to send or receive
more channels of audio signals. Most computers are built with a stereo sound-card which acts as a two channel audio interface.
(see also: stereo)
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MIDI
MIDI is a language that is used to allow digital musical instruments to communicate both with each other
as well as wil computer systems. MIDI stands for the Musical Instrument Digital Interface and it was devised
in the early 1980s as a standard communication language that could be used by all makers of digital instruments
(such as digital keyboards and synthesizers) to allow their products to speak to one another. MIDI has become
a very easy to use and powerfull method of sending information from one piece of equipment to another, and allows
computers to quickly and easily communicate with and control these pieces of equipment.
In the Interactions Etudes MIDI is primarily used as a method for communicating triggers from the live
performer to the computer system (such as the footpedal triggers found in Piano Interactions #1 and #2.
(see also footpedal controllers)
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MIDI interface
A MIDI interface is an piece of electronic hardware that connects devices that use the MIDI information standard to transmit
information. Devices that use MIDI include instruments such as digital keyboards, wind-controllers, as well as other devices such as
automatic mixing-boards and lighting equipment. MIDI interfaces also can connect to a computer system to allow the computer to
control or be controlled by one of these MIDI devices. In the Interactions Etudes (such as Piano Interactions #1 and #2)
a MIDI interface is used to connect the MIDI footpedal to the computer system.
(see also footpedal controllers)
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mixing-board
A mixing-board is a piece of electronic hardware that allows audio signals from many different devices
to be connected and modified in different ways. Signals can be routed through a mixing-board from a microphone or computer
and then sent out to either a speaker system, a recording device, or even both. Usually mixing-boards have a number of dials
or sliders which will change the volumes of signals, control whether they are output from the right or left channels, or alter
the amount of high or low frequencies that are heard from the signal.
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.mp3 sound file
Mp3 files are a format of computer digital audio file that can deliver a relatively high-quality sound
with a relatively small file size. For the Interactions project, we are allowing users to download audio
versions of the Interactions Etudes either as smaller, slightly-lower quality .mp3 files, or in higher quality,
substantially larger .aif files. If you have a piece of software on your computer
(Apple or PC) that can play audio files (iTunes, Quicktime, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player)
then youÊ can download and listen to the Interactions Etudes on your computer.
In order to make an Mp3 file a larger, higher-quality audio file is compressed, using techniques that reduce
the size of the file while retaining most of the information necessary for our ears to hear the sound clearly.
The more the sound is compressed, the more information must be removed, and the lower the quality gets. Mp3
quality (and therefore size) is measured in "Kbps" or Kilobits-per-second. That is the amount of data used to
store and playback one second's worth of audio. For instance, an entire cd compressed at a rate of 128 Kbps
will only take up about 56 MB (megabytes) of data on your computer. The size of that cd (approximately 74
minutes worth of audio) was previously about 684 MB of data. If the rate of compression is increased, to 160
Kbps, the resultant cd audio will have a size of about 72 MB.
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.pdf file
A .pdf file is a document format that can be viewed on most computer systems without having the appearance of the file
or the formatting of the information within the file change at all. The musical scores for each etude in the Digital
Music Interactions project are downloadable from the web-site as .pdf documents. These scores can then be either viewed
on a computer screen or printed out for practice or performance.
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XLR connector
An XLR connector is a form of microphone connector that is used to connect a microphone to a device such as a mixing
board or recording device. This connector has three prongs within a metal or plastic wrapping. The XLR connector is the
standard high-quality microphone connector used for professional and semi-professional uses. XLR connectors cannot generally
be used to connect microphones directly into computer systems and must usually first be connected to an external audio device.
(see also microphones)
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