When signals are combined in such a way that they can later be separated, they are said to be multiplexed together. A multiplexing device is called a multiplexer, abbreviated mux. One use of a mux is, in digital recording, a device that converts parallel data to serial format for output onto a MIDI network. Or, in an A/D, each sample is a binary number of bits equal to the bit depth of the word, e.g., a 16-bit sample for CD. All 16 bits cannot be stored to tape simultaneously, so a mux is used to sequence the bits for recording. A demultiplexer reassembles the sequenced data into complete word-samples again.