32bit mixing... What happens when pushed???

F

Fishybob

New member
Theoretically.

If you recorded a band (individually) at 32/96. And were mixing down... What happens to the individual tracks when they are pushed way up?

Meaning the master fader needs to below halfway just to stop it clipping.


Does it act like tape and compress slightly?? Or is this just using up the headroom.


I ask because I just opened up a very old mix that I did with loads of automation. But all the faders are WAY high. It would take ages to lower them individually and rebalance things... Would it make any difference anyway?
 
There is no tape compression. If you clip the master buss, it will give you digital distortion. If you turn it down, you will be fine.

I really don't know what happens when you clip an individual track, it's never happened to me.
 
Well, this is just it. The individual channel signals are HUGE but aren't clipping. It's only the master buss that was in danger of hitting the red.

It was turned down to about 30% originally without clipping, I just wasn't sure if the individual tracks risked unpleasent artifacts.



... It doesn't sound bad... a bit squashed maybe (hence my question about compression). It might have just been my hearing after a very long session.

I'll give it a listen later, now I've rested.
 
questionj about what you are doing:

you say you got loud volumes on all the seperate channels,
when all those come together in the main output bus, you get clipping,

but if i'm correct, lowering the master fader doesn't really solve this problem, cause the clipping occurs before the fader, no?
so if you want to make sure that the main outs are 100% clipfree you should make sure that no channels are TOO loud,then when u make a mixdown you got a nice mix, but not loud enough, so you can 'premaster' it by running it trough a limiter and stuff...

just my thoughts, if i'm mistaken, correct me :rolleyes:
 
If an individual channel is in the red, it's clipping, even if you turn the master fader down so that the mix is not clipping, you still get digital distortion. Even if you do something like boost with and EQ plugin until the signal is clipping, and then turning down the fader in that channel (not in the plugin itself) will cause clipping.

If none of the channels are clipping, but the master is, and you turn down the fader, you're fine. That's basicly what the master fader is for.
 
Thanks for the replies.

None of the individual channels are clipping, the master fader isn't clipping. After a very long mix session trying to help the sound of the vocals it just sounded a bit squashed.


Been working on it tonight and it's actually pretty cool as it is. I guess the 32bit extra headroom really makes a difference.

This isn't something I want to jave to deal with again but for this project it worked ok.



Thanks again for the input.
 
just cause i'm curious:
how big are the projects you're working on?
are it complete 24 track rock songs,
or simple 4 tracl hiphopsongs,
how much GIGAbyte does one song take on your harddisc?
and can your pc easily handle the 32 bit?
do you feel a difference in "speed of the cpu" (or how should i describe it) between 24 and 32 bit?


i always record at 48khz-24 bit and next week i'm buying another harddrive...
burning my projects on dvd even has become difficult because of the size of the songs...
 
I built this PC 2 years ago and thought it was the daddy and instantly started working at 32/96. These projects, when mixing, tend to cause major CPU issues. My FX list doesn't help (waves platinum, IR-1...). I recently opened an old file at 16/44.1 and the fx could be piled on without an issue. In the future I'll back down to 24bit.

I don't want to go back to 16/44.1 because I record all parts myself and have to be cautious of level peaks so end up recording quite low levels and the noise floor thing helps alot!

24 bit is PLENTY!

My projects are usually between 8 - 15 tracks and vary upto 20 minutes (Mainly rockish, but also do large scale compositions for small ensambles!)
 
BTW, even if all the tracks are 24 bit, the mixing is being done at 32 bit. You don't gain any headroom storing the tracks at 32 bit because your AD converters are only 24 bit.
 
altitude909 said:
What audio card do you have that records at 32/96? I have never heard of 32/96 DACs
Click to expand...
There isn't one, the software just stores it as a 32bit file.
 
Yeah, thats what I thought. So whats the point working with 32bit files? Is that just a forward compatable thing or do ppl actually work with 32 bit audio files
 
The only reason to do it is so that the computer doesn't have to convert from 24 bit to 32 bit on the fly. I'm sure that you loose any benefit by making your hard drive run harder.
 
Like I said. This was from a very early session on a brand new beast of a pc. I never thought It'd struggle... and I kind of wanted to test it!


It did ok. Not that I'll bother in the future!

24bit is FINE! ;)
 
Fishybob said:
In the future I'll back down to 24bit.
Click to expand...
Actually, dropping the sample rate would be far more beneficial to lowering the CPU utilization. In fact 32bit is easier to deal with on the processor than 24bit (as it then has to fill the remaining 8 bits with 0s anyway).
 
What is the real benifit of using 96 over 48...?


With this PC I just turned everything up to the max to test it with little thought as to what improved!
 
Increasing the bandwith is a more accurate sound since it improves the dynamic range of the signal so it should sound better (in theory anyway, some things like a piano, should sound a little better but only to really trained ears). I stick to 24/48 which is fine for what I do.
 
Sample rate has nothing to do with dynamic range. It has to do with how the converter handle super high frequencies.
 
Um, thats what I said, BANDWIDTH not sample rate. A higher bandwidth does not only apply to very high frequencies, it plays a very important role in audio transients (changes in frequency) since digitization at lower bandwidth can miss complex harmonics our "analog" ears take for granted (hence 24/192)
 
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