Sound Design Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield Sound Design facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. Which will allow sound to travel the quickest? → Wood
2. What is the audible frequency range typically ascribed to healthy young adult humans? → 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz
3. In the context of room acoustics, what does RT60 measure? → The time for sound to decay by 60 dB after a source stops
4. What does 'LUFS' stand for and what does it measure? → Loudness Units relative to Full Scale; measures integrated perceived loudness
5. When a digital audio workstation processes audio at 32-bit floating point internally, the main advantage over 24-bit integer is: → Ability to exceed 0 dBFS temporarily without clipping distortion
6. At approximately what temperature does the speed of sound in air equal 343 meters per second? → 20°C
7. What is 'wild sound' in field recording terminology? → Sound recorded without reference to picture
8. What is the term for the distance between two consecutive points on a wave that are in phase, such as crest to crest? → Wavelength
9. Which type of boundary condition exists at the closed end of an acoustic pipe? → Node (displacement node / pressure antinode)
10. Which acoustic term describes the gradual decay of sound energy in an enclosed space after the source stops? → Reverberation
11. Which psychoacoustic effect causes the perceived loudness of a pure tone to increase when a narrow band of noise is added nearby in frequency? → Spectral spreading
12. In the context of waves, what does 'superposition' mean? → The resultant displacement is the sum of individual wave displacements
13. What is the primary perceptual correlate of a sound wave's amplitude? → Loudness
14. What is the 'missing fundamental' phenomenon in psychoacoustics? → When the brain perceives a fundamental pitch that is not physically present in the signal
15. What is the purpose of dithering in digital audio? → To add low-level noise that randomizes quantization errors and reduces audible distortion
16. What is the process of adding sound to a film or television production called? → Sound Design
17. In a room, the 'critical distance' refers to the point where: → Direct sound and reverberant field have equal intensity
18. Which of the following could result from completely harmful interference? → Node
19. What is 'bit crushing' as an audio effect? → Reducing the bit depth of a signal to create lo-fi quantization distortion and noise
20. A diffuser in acoustic treatment works by: → Scattering reflections in many directions to reduce flutter echo
21. When two sound waves of slightly different frequencies combine, the resulting periodic variation in loudness is called: → Beating
22. What is 'sidechain compression' used for in sound design and mixing? → Using one signal (the sidechain input) to trigger compression on a different signal
23. Which acoustic treatment material is most effective at absorbing low-frequency sound energy? → Bass traps
24. What is acoustic impedance? → The resistance a medium offers to the transmission of sound waves
25. Which microphone polar pattern captures sound equally from all directions? → Omnidirectional
26. Sample rate conversion (SRC) is needed when: → Transferring audio between systems operating at different sample rates
27. What synthesis method uses mathematical operators called 'operators' arranged in algorithms, famously implemented in the Yamaha DX7? → FM synthesis
28. What is a 'hydrophone' used for in sound design? → Recording underwater sounds
29. Which waveform contains only odd-numbered harmonics, giving it a hollow, woody timbre? → Square wave
30. Which file format stores audio data without any compression, preserving the exact original samples? → WAV (PCM)