Question

Difference between analog and digital sound recording

Answer 1

Analog sound
Sound itself is a continuous wave; it is an analog signal. This means that one cannot detect the precise moment the pitch changes. Capturing this continuous wave in its entirety requires an analog recording system; what the microphone receives is exactly what's written onto the vinyl disk or cassette. Analog is believed to be the true representation of the sound at the moment it was recorded. 

Digital sound
Digital sound is not a recording of the actual sound, but rather a combination of binary code, the utmost simplest machine language of zeros and ones, representing the sound's intensity and pitch at precise intervals with relative accuracy. The binary code is arranged in a specific pattern informing the computer how to recreate the sound itself. It is not a single wave the way analog sound is, but rather a composite of multiple segments representing consecutive moments of intensity and pitch. Where an analog recording is similar to the fluency of film, a digital recording is stop motion photography.