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Sound needs to be converted into binary for computers to be able to process it. To do this, sound is captured - usually by a microphone - and then converted into a digital signal.

An analogue to digital converter will sample a sound wave at regular time intervals. For example, a sound wave like this can be sampled at each time sample point:

The samples can then be converted to binary. They will be recorded to the nearest whole number.

If the time samples are then plotted back onto the same graph, it can be seen that the sound wave now looks different. This is because sampling does not take into account what the sound wave is doing in between each time sample.

This means that the sound loses quality as data has been lost between the time samples. The way to increase the quality and store the sound at a quality closer to the original, is to have more time samples that are closer together. This way, more detail about the sound can be collected, so when it’s converted to digital and back to analogue again it does not lose as much quality.

The frequency at which samples are taken is called the sample rate, and is measured in Hertz (Hz). 1 Hz is one sample per second. Most CD-quality audio is sampled at 44 100 or 48 000 Hz.