Friday, June 26, 2015

What You Stand To Gain By Understanding Forensic Audio Analysis

By Freida Michael


Successful crime investigation is done through thorough analysis of many components associate din the crime. With forensic audio analysis, investigators are able to extract and examine recordings form the crime scene that can be helpful in solving the crime. There are many physical evidences that are easily collected like the murder weapon but if available, the non-physical ones like the sound or audio are crucial as well.

Analysis of forensic sound is not as easy as listening to the radio. Sound has many layers and each must be isolated to be analyzed thoroughly. The audio's authenticity is challenged to be certain that it is worthy to be passed as evidence in a court of law. If it is confirmed authentic, the crucial portions in the sound such as ambient sounds and dialogue are enhanced for improved audibility. People talking in the clip must be identified because they are part of the crime scene. Dialogues are transcribed and the persons involved will be identified and tracked down by investigators.

The audio is enhanced to improve the sound and make it clearer. This is to make sure nothing was missed on the initial listen. When a sound is enhanced, it cleans any unwanted noises such as static. Sound analysis requires professional equipment and specific skills. Improved technology allows different was to analyze sound. The old method required huge equipment. Technology has made it so most work is done digitally on computers today.

There are many different techniques used thanks to technology. Digital signal processing involves using math to manipulate an information signal. It messes with time and the frequency of the sound to better understand it. One trick is to reverse engineer a noise to determine where it came from. An analysis must be careful not to destroy important evidence while cleaning recordings. Discrete Fourier transform orders sounds by their frequencies as a way to interpret sounds better.

Light was shed during the Watergate scandal through sound analysis. Back then, they had tons of equipment to splice and clip and clean the sound recordings. Now in the digital world, all of these can be done with a simple computer.

A forensics audio lab handles many sensitive sound recordings throughout the day. The job of the lab is to make sure the recordings can be used in a court of law as evidence. They analyze many recordings connected to crime evidence including emergency calls to 911, voicemails from cell-phones, memory cards recovered from mobile devices and computer recordings.

Sometimes, these forensic technicians must testify in a courtroom. They describe the sound and their analysis of the findings. It is important that they do an accurate and efficient job in analyzing sound from crime scenes. Their work plays an important part in the court of law and solving a crime. Their work is under careful observation in court and they must be able to defend their findings.

Audio forensics is an important part of a crime investigation. Recordings might reveal who is at the scene of the crime and can help establish things such as motives and alibis. As new technology changes, advances in technology will be able to interpret sounds in different ways and do a better job of analyzing sound recordings. It is not an easy job, but it is an important part of trying to solve a crime investigation.




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