delta 66- sonar 2.2

[cabbage]

hi,

Im a newbie and im wondering what my soundcard settings should be?
currently they are

Output- +4dbu
In1 - +4
In2 - +4

Latency- 384 samples

sample rate- 44,100

Is this bad? I got the soundcard off a mate without the instructions
cheers,
C.

 

[punkin]

What are you going to plug into it?

The input/and output level setting are so you can match the devices you plan to connect to. Also hit the M-Audio website http://www.m-audio.com/images/global/manuals/Delta66_Manual

This should be link for the actual manual...btw...they also have pretty good knowledge database section there too.

Hope this helps.

 

[cabbage]

im plugging it into the M-audio omni i/o, i also have behringer truths
i had a look through the manual but i dont understand it?
What should i have my sound card set at for playback-
+4db
Consumer
-10db

??

 

[Paul881]

hi,

Im a newbie and im wondering what my soundcard settings should be?
currently they are

Output- +4dbu
In1 - +4
In2 - +4

Latency- 384 samples

sample rate- 44,100

Is this bad? I got the soundcard off a mate without the instructions
cheers,
C.

Thats exactly the same as my setup and same settings too Just make sure your audio settings in sonar is set to 24 bit driver bit depth. Although it will use more storage space on your disk, the quality of your recodings will be better than 16 bit - even though CD quality exporting dithers it down to 16 bit anyway

 

[cabbage]

cheers mate,

mine was set to 16 bit. ive already recorded songs at 16bit, im guessing that it will not be as simple as changing it to 24bit? re-record to get that quality?
cheers,
C.

 

[Paul881]

cheers mate,

mine was set to 16 bit. ive already recorded songs at 16bit, im guessing that it will not be as simple as changing it to 24bit? re-record to get that quality?
cheers,
C.

You are quite right, you cannot convert 16 bit recordings into 24 bit. Your options are to re-record or complete your project in 16 bit.

 

[cabbage]

thanks paul,

also, does that mean that if i were recording more tracks on the same song, i couldnt record them at 24bit? what problems could that cause?
cheers,
C.

 

[dachay2tnr]

thanks paul,

also, does that mean that if i were recording more tracks on the same song, i couldnt record them at 24bit? what problems could that cause?
cheers,
C.

No. You can record your new tracks at 24 bits. It shouldn't cause any problems whatsoever - except it will require more storage space.

However, remember that you will eventually need to reduce everything back to 16 bits in order to record to a CD. Make sure you do this as the very last step before burning to CD, and you should use dithering when you do this.

 

[cabbage]

thanks again,

ive had a look on the site about 'dithering' but im finding it confusing.
i have cakewalk sonar 2.2 and i havent seenanything about dithering on the software, it just converts to 16 bit. is dithering a seperate process? anbd also, will i only need to dither if i mix 24bit tracks with 16 bit?
cheers,
C.

 

[dachay2tnr]

thanks again,

ive had a look on the site about 'dithering' but im finding it confusing.
i have cakewalk sonar 2.2 and i havent seenanything about dithering on the software, it just converts to 16 bit. is dithering a seperate process? anbd also, will i only need to dither if i mix 24bit tracks with 16 bit?
cheers,
C.

You will need to dither anytime you reduce the bit rate of a file (e.g., when you reduce from 24 bits to 16 bits to burn to a CD). You do not need to dither each individual track - rather you just need to dither the exported wave file.

Essentially dithering is a process that adds shaped noise to a sound file in order to reduce unwanted artifacts associated with simple truncation. Sonar has a dithering option. In Sonar 4.0 you will find it under the Options > Audio > Advanced menu. There are several choices available. I believe Sonar 2.0 also had a dithering option - located in the same place, but without the choices. You either enabled dithering or disabled it. However, the dithering algorithm offered in 2.0 was reputed to be not the best. Apparently there has been improvement in this in version 4.0.

There are also plugins that can dither as well - such as the Waves L1 or L2.

As a side note, if you are going to send your music out for professional mastering - you probably don't want to dither (or even reduce the bit rate of the file). Just send the ME the 24-bit file. He will take care of the rest.

 

[cabbage]

cheers again mate,
C.