Bit Depth or the Shortest Post Ever

Hi All,
Most everyone who might stumble across this blog is familiar with sample frequency (fs) and how it relates to documenting sounds of interest (cliff notes version: sample frequency should be at least twice the target frequency of your study critter's calls/vocalizations).

But what does bit depth refer to? If you've stumbled across the Matlab commands waveread() or adudioread() you would (or should) know that there are multiple outputs including "nbits". N bits most simply means the bit depth of the audio file. What? Is that not helpful? Fine, let me 'splain.

Bit depth refers to the resolution of the amplitude of the sound. So if you need to carefully monitor fluctuations in amplitude levels, you will need a higher bit depth. Thankfully, this doesn't tend to be an issue for most bioacoustic studies. So, unless otherwise noted, just stick with the system defaults and you'll be all set. Hope that helps and let me know if you are doing something that requires high amplitude resolution. I'm super keen to learn about it!

Write, back to the thesis...

Happy recording to you!