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.  An increase of 10 dB is 10 times greater in power and 3.16 times greater in volts.  An increase of 20 dB is 100 times greater in power and 10 times greater in volts.  An increase of 30 dB is 1000 times greater in power and 100 times greater in volts.  Sound Sculptor II deals with dB as volts.

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 original 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.

overdubbing:  To listen to previously recorded tracks while recording new tracks.

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.

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.