least significant bit
most significant bit
and it is convergent for values of z that are larger than e
Similarly to what we saw for continuous-variable functions, the Fourier trans-
form for discrete-variable functions can be obtained as a specialization of the
Z transform where the values of the complex variable are restricted to the unit
Y () = Y
or, in detail,
Y () =
In this book, we use the symbol for the radian frequency in the case of discrete-
variable functions, leaving for the continuous-variable functions.
In order to fully understand the behavior of several hardware and software tools
for sound processing, it is important to know something about the internal
representation of numbers within computer systems. Numbers are represented
as strings of binary digits (0 and 1), but the specific meaning of the string
depends on the conventions used. The first convention is that of unsigned integer
numbers, whose value is computed, in the case of 16 bits, by the following
is the i-th binary digit starting from the right. The binary digits are
called bits, the rightmost digit is called least significant bit (LSB), and the
leftmost digit is called the most significant bit (MSB). For instance, we have
= 17190 ,
where the subscript 2 indicates the binary representation, being the usual deci-
mal representation indicated with no subscript.
The leftmost bit is often interpreted as a sign bit: if it is set to one it means
that the sign is minus and the absolute value is given by the bits that follow.
However, this is not the representation that is used for the signed integers. For
these numbers the two's complement representation is used, where the leftmost
bit is still a sign bit, but the absolute value of a negative number is recovered
by bitwise complementation of the following bits, interpretation of the result as
a positive integer, and addition of one. For instance, with four bits we have
+ 1) = -(5 + 1) = -6 .
The two's complement representation has the following advantages:
(x) is the real part of the complex number x