Sonic artifact

In sound and music production, the term sonic artifact or simply artifact refers to sonic material that is usually accidental or unwanted, resulting from the editing or manipulation of a sound.

Because there are always technical restrictions in the way a sound can be recorded (in the case of acoustic sounds) or designed (in the case of synthesised or processed sounds), sonic errors often occur. These errors are termed artifacts (or sound/sonic artifacts), and may be pleasing or displeasing.

A sonic artifact is sometimes a type of digital artifact, and in some cases is the result of data compression (not to be confused with audio compression, which also may create sonic artifacts). Often an artifact is deliberately produced for creative reasons, for example, in order to introduce a change in timbre of the original sound or to create a sense of cultural or stylistic context.

Editing processes that deliberately seek to produce artifacts often involve technical experimentation. A good example of the deliberate creation of sonic artifacts is the addition of grainy pops and clicks to a recent recording in order to make it sound like a vintage vinyl record. Flanging and distortion were originally regarded as sonic artifacts; as time passed they became a valued part of pop music production methods.

It is also correct to classify the genuine pops and clicks that are audible when a real vintage vinyl recording is played back or recorded onto another medium as sonic artifacts, although it must be noted that not all sonic artifacts must contain in their meaning or production a sense of "past", more so a sense of "by-product".

In the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, inadequate sampling bandwidth creates a sonic artifact known as an "alias", and the resulting distortion of the sound is termed "aliasing". Aliasing is a major concern in the analog-to-digital conversion of video and audio signals.

In the creation of computer and electronic music in the past decade, particularly in glitch music, software has been used to create sonic artifacts of all stripes. They are also the primary focus of the practice of circuit bending - making sounds from products that were unintended by the makers of the circuitry.

See also

* Digital artifact
* Compression
* Glitch (music)
* Compression artifact
* Sampling (information theory)
* Signal (information theory)
* Window function
* Circuit bending
* Sound
* Noise
* Sound reproduction
* Noise music