Chapter 19.

Discovery of Audio Evidence

Common issues with audio evidence involve sound. A sound can be described as a vibration at a
set frequency. A subwoofer is a bass speaker that can produce sounds which cannot be heard by
humans but, instead can be felt by the human body due to the vibrations the extreme frequencies
of the audio creates in the air. Furthermore, the recording device that was used to record an audio
can gravely affect the ability to record and play back a sound at these extreme frequencies.
Audio recording can happen in two formats, analog and digital. Digital recording can record
overall more sound in the form of overall frequency range.

Audio recording devices can come in a range of ways from tape-based to digital audio recorders
that can record on record on compact discs, hard drives, and media cards. If a copy of a digital
format must be made it need to be a comparable digital format which uses lossless compression.
On most digital recorders deleted files can be recovered because the media is treated as a
computer hard drive. This means the files can be recovered if they have not been overwritten. To
recover deleted files, you will need physical access to the device.

If audio evidence is on an audio tape any playback of said audio will cause the tape to
deteriorate. Audio tapes similar to VHS tapes deteriorate when played, rewound, fast-forwarded
or even paused. The original recording should never be worked from instead a duplicate
recording should be made on a second cassette tape or a digital copy. Furthermore, the magnetic
tape in cassette tapes is made from plastic coated with a metal oxide causing some issues. This
tape stretches every time it’s played causing a distortion in the recording over time and can even
affect the pitch of the audio to change.

Audio recordings should be in a format that is easily accessible using normal audio playback
software programs. Audio recordings should not be dependent on a single piece of audio
playback software because it can be in the future affect the ability to play the audio if the
software it’s dependent on fails to play, rewind or fast-forward a recording. This can occur if a
law enforcement agency produces the audio in an encrypted format that cannot be converted into
a standard format which means it can only be played using the supplied player. This forces you
to listen to the entire audio even if a small section is of interest.