Worksheet 1 Digitising sound
Sound manipulation in Audacity
Name:................................................................................................................. Class: ..........................
Task 1 – Sample rate
In this task you will be investigating the effects of changing the sample rate and bit depth on
the quality of sound.
1. Load Audacity.
2. Plug in a microphone and headphones to your computer. If you don’t have a microphone ask
your teacher for an alternative file to use which they will have access to.
3. The Audacity screen looks like this:
Start recording Change devices used for Microphone and
recording and headphones headphones levels
Stop recording
Current sample rate in Sound waves on a track
Hz and bit depth
4. Think of something to say into the microphone. It could be a short nursery rhyme, line from a
poem or a song, or something else entirely.
5. Now record yourself speaking by pressing the red record button.
6. Listen to the recording and check you can hear yourself. If it is too quiet change the microphone
volume at the top right of the screen. If you hear nothing on the recording, check that the cables
are plugged into the correct socket. Then check that the correct device is detected (see the
screenshot in part 3 above).
7. At the bottom of the screen, check that the Project Rate (Hz) is 44100. This is the sample rate
that will be saved and is the same as 44.1 kHz. This is the same sample rate used on CD quality
sound and services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music.
8. Now save your file as a WAV file by going to File > Export Audio.
Check the format is WAV.
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Worksheet 1 Digitising sound
Sound manipulation in Audacity
This saves all the samples but doesn’t use any compression.
9. Click Export.
10. Go into the folder where you save your files and note the file size.
11. Note the size in the table below.
12. Now make changes to the project rate (sample rate) at the bottom of the screen to complete the
table below. Each time, save as a new file.
Filename Sample rate File size
44100 Hz
22050 Hz
11025 Hz
13. Describe the relationship between the sample rate and the file size.
14. Listen to each of the three files you have made.
Describe how the sound quality changes as the sample rate changes.
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Worksheet 1 Digitising sound
Sound manipulation in Audacity
Task 2 – Viewing individual samples
1. The track shows the sound waves for the audio.
2. Zoom in to the sound track to see the sound waves in more detail.
Use the zoom tool:
Left-click the track to zoom in. Right-click the track to zoom out.
Alternatively, hold down the CTRL key whilst scrolling in or out on the mouse.
3. Now zoom in so that you see each individual sample in the file.
4. Select the Draw Tool .
This tool allows you to alter individual samples.
Now move one of the samples so that it goes to the top of the track.
5. Zoom out and you will be able to see the one altered sample:
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Worksheet 1 Digitising sound
Sound manipulation in Audacity
6. Now listen to the track. Describe what you hear.
Sometimes sound tracks may have errors in them. This could be from a scratched CD or a
poor quality vinyl record. Other errors, known as clipping, may occur when sound is recorded.
Editing the samples allows these to be removed.
Extension Task 3 – Generating sounds
1. Start a new Audacity file by going to File > New.
2. Go to Generate > Tone.
3. Enter the frequency as 440 Hz and the amplitude as 0.8. Then click OK.
4. Zoom into the track and you will see the sound wave that was generated.
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Worksheet 1 Digitising sound
Sound manipulation in Audacity
5. The tone generated was 440 Hz, which is the middle A in music.
Now generate tones with the following frequency and amplitude. Make notes in the table
about how the tone changes.
Tone frequency Tone amplitude Describe the tone
440 Hz 0.8 It is the middle A in music.
220 Hz 0.8
880 Hz 0.8
440 Hz 0.1
6. Now go to Generate > Chirp to generate a tone that starts at one frequency and ends at
another. Notice that you can change both the frequence and amplitude at both the start and
the end of the clip. Also notice that the duration can be changed.
7. Experiment with different frequencies, amplitudes and other features to see how they alter the
generated sound. Click Preview to see how the sound is altered. Click OK when you are
happy with the result.