aliasing:  When frequencies higher than half the sample rate are incorrectly converted to lower frequencies causing noise.

AIFF:  Audio Interchange File Format.  

amplitude:  The loudness of a sound.  

attenuate:  To lesson the amplitude or specific frequencies of a sound. 

clipping:  When the amplitude of a sound is so loud that outer edges of the sound are chopped off.  A little clipping is OK, but a lot of clipping will add noise.

compression:  To compress a sound to save memory.  A ratio of 3:1 compresses the sound by 37.5% and adds a small amount of noise.  A ratio of 6:1 compresses the sound by 75% and adds a larger amount of noise.  Once a sound is compressed, uncompressing it does not put the sound back to its original state because some of the sound data was lost.

cycle:  Where a portion of the sound starts at zero, goes to positive, then to negative, then to zero.  Same as period.

decibel (db):  A unit for measuring the relative loudness of a sound.

filter slope:  The amount of attenuation of the frequencies past the filter cutoff point expressed in negative decibels per octave.  For example a slope of -6 db per octave would mean frequencies above the cutoff point would drop 6 db every octave.

frequency:  The number of cycles per second.  Middle C is 261.6256 hertz.

FSSD:  A SoundEdit file.  

hertz (Hz):  Used to specify frequency in cycles per second.  1 kHz  = 1000 Hz.

invert:  Upside down.  If two identical sounds are mixed together, and one is inverted, they would cancel each other out (silence).

Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO):  When a waveform is used to modulate a sound's amplitude or pitch for tremolo and vibrato effects.

MACE:  Macintosh Audio Compression and Expansion.

millisecond:  1/1000 of a second.

modulation:  To use a waveform to control the amplitude or pitch of a sound.

normalize:  To set the amplitude of the sound to the maximum without any clipping or to it's orignal amplitude.

Nyquist's Theorem:  A sound can only have frequencies that are less than  half the sample rate, any frequencies higher than half the sample rate will cause noise.

period:  Where a portion of the sound starts at zero, goes to positive, then to negative, then to zero.  Same as cycle.

phase:  The starting point of a period specified in degrees (0 to 360).  Any phase value other than zero is considered out of phase.  If the period was 180° (degrees) out of phase it would be inverted.

pitch:  See frequency.

ping pong:  When mixing, to have the amplitude bounce back and forth between sounds.  With stereo sounds, to have the amplitude bounce back and forth between left and right channels.

sample:  One segment of a digital sound.  A digital sound is made up of many samples strung together.  One sample of uncompressed 8 bit sound is equal to one byte.

sample rate:  The samples per second that the sound was recorded at.  The maximum frequency for a sound is half the sample rate, so if you are recording at 22 kHz,  highest frequency that can be recorded is 11 kHz.

Sd2f:  A Sound Designer II sound file.

sfil:  A System 7 sound file.

tremolo:  To modulate the amplitude of a sound.

vibrato:  To modulate the pitch of a sound.

waveform:  A drawing of a sound.  Sound Sculptor also refers to waveforms as a one period sound.  See "Waveforms Folder" for more information.