My peaks going into the red aren't distorting

I still don't see the point of driving something that hard.

I do agree that if a performance is good, but an extra-happy snare drum hit the red once or twice, it's not the end of the world and not worth scrapping the take. But there really is no reason for non-percussive instruments to be tracked anywhere near clipping.
 
Farview and Southside are spot on.... Hopefully I will never learn the answer to the "digital clipping" debate because my tracks will never go there. I am always far less worried by whether or not I am going to clip my converters but far more worried that I may overdrive a preamp past where I want it to and start losing depthe detail and clarity. By worrying about that instead, the digital clip never happens.
 
When tracking, it is of course a good idea to give yourself a net of safety below 0dbfs. But if you take your mix back out of the box to go through your analog chain or whatever, sometimes it is fun to play "clip the convertors." Sometimes it sounds better than mashing it with a limiter...which of course is only needed when you are required to make it louder. Although, I've heard it makes for not-so-nice mp3's, but I haven't experienced that. If you think mainstream high-dollar mastering engineers are above digital clipping, you would be wrong. Not that I condone the practice... ;)
 
Reggie said:
If you think mainstream high-dollar mastering engineers are above digital clipping, you would be wrong. ;)
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There is a big difference between clipping an m-audio converter and a Lavery. There is also a big difference between clipping the mix and clipping the individual tracks and then the mix.
 
reyvee61 said:
In many cases going into the red does not hurt on individual tracks or even on the masters, if you have a clipping indicator at the end of the meters, you do need to watch for that depending on the headroom available, sampling rate and what not.

At any rate, when all else fails....trust the ears! :)
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Except even if the effect isn't audible on individual tracks, it may well be audible when combined with other clipped tracks. And any fruther processing can and often does exacerbate the situation.

No need to run it that hot - in a 24 bit world you can keep your peak signal at -24dBFS and still have 24dB more dynamic range than a redbook CD...
 
flatfinger said:
:p ;)


Square Waves are popular these days, Robert D :D

What can you do!!! , The younguns think you need to get that beneficial warm , slightly compressed sound that comes from saturation of the HARDDRIVE!!!
Click to expand...

I used to love tape saturation, gonna have to get a taste of HD sat! ;)
 
bblackwood said:
No need to run it that hot - in a 24 bit world you can keep your peak signal at -24dBFS and still have 24dB more dynamic range than a redbook CD...
Click to expand...

I may be off here, but isn't this only going by what is theoretical? I mean, the actual convertor circuitry has a noise floor, despite the theoretical dynamic range possible with a 24 bit convertor. Feeding a -48db signal through a real 24-bit convertor may only give you a dynamic range of 62db (I think my Multiface has a dynamic range of -110; others go to like -120).
So I tend to like the current prevailing wisdom of using 0dbVU as a level reference, which may be around -18 in some cases, and trying to keep peaks averaging around that point.
 
bblackwood said:
No need to run it that hot - in a 24 bit world you can keep your peak signal at -24dBFS and still have 24dB more dynamic range than a redbook CD...
Click to expand...

The problem is that the real reason a person should not track too hot really has nothing to do with the converters, but more to do with proper use of the analog front end before the converters. This is were the real problems is happening. Second, 24bit does not give us 24 db more than 16 bit on the peak end of things, it gives us that extra headroom at the BOTTOM end. If a converter is calibrated to 0dbVU = -18dbFS, then it will read the same level regardless of whether or not you are doing it at 16 bit or 24 bit. It is important top rmember that headroom often refers to a usable dynamic range and not a peak value. More headroom does not blindly mean more volume. In the digital realm it often means more usable volume range, or at least meaningfully usable.
 
Reggie said:
I may be off here, but isn't this only going by what is theoretical? I mean, the actual convertor circuitry has a noise floor, despite the theoretical dynamic range possible with a 24 bit convertor. Feeding a -48db signal through a real 24-bit convertor may only give you a dynamic range of 62db (I think my Multiface has a dynamic range of -110; others go to like -120).
So I tend to like the current prevailing wisdom of using 0dbVU as a level reference, which may be around -18 in some cases, and trying to keep peaks averaging around that point.
Click to expand...
I think he was just using that as an example of how dumb it is to worry about getting as close to zero as possible. I don't think he was advocating recording that low.
 
Reggie said:
I may be off here, but isn't this only going by what is theoretical? I mean, the actual convertor circuitry has a noise floor, despite the theoretical dynamic range possible with a 24 bit convertor. Feeding a -48db signal through a real 24-bit convertor may only give you a dynamic range of 62db (I think my Multiface has a dynamic range of -110; others go to like -120).
So I tend to like the current prevailing wisdom of using 0dbVU as a level reference, which may be around -18 in some cases, and trying to keep peaks averaging around that point.
Click to expand...
I think he was just using that as an example of how dumb it is to worry about getting as close to zero as possible. I don't think he was advocating recording that low.
 
Reggie said:
I may be off here, but isn't this only going by what is theoretical?
Click to expand...
Well, consider the fact that a converter with a dynamic range of 120dB gets you 20 bit performance - everything below that is noise. IOW, recording with peaks at -6dBfs is way more than adequate as you still have a dynamic range (referenced to the self noise floor in the converter) of 114dB.

It's a good thing to remember that longer wordlengths don't increase head-room as much as increase foot-room...
 
Farview said:
I do agree that if a performance is good, but an extra-happy snare drum hit the red once or twice, it's not the end of the world and not worth scrapping the take.
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That's why I asked.

As far as the "louder the better" argument, the volume knob on my stereo works great for making the track louder.
 
Even after intentional clipping using lavry converters, the end user's consumer level player with digital low pass filter is going to have problems reproducing the inter-sample peaks!! It's the reconstruction into analog or the application of a band limited, percepual based codec that's going to add NON-Harmonic GARBAGE to the sound. The problem is it's added to the rest of the sound and unless totally heinous, hard to discriminate.

listen to the samples (mp3's) that have it seperated.

http://www.tcelectronic.com/media/Programmed_for_Distortion.zip

Proffessional grade recordings should'nt have distortion(no not talking estethic , marshall stack type)

I don't want distortion in the music I listen to!!!

Why is this so difficult to grasp????? :confused:
 
bblackwood said:
Well, consider the fact that a converter with a dynamic range of 120dB gets you 20 bit performance - everything below that is noise. IOW, recording with peaks at -6dBfs is way more than adequate as you still have a dynamic range (referenced to the self noise floor in the converter) of 114dB.

It's a good thing to remember that longer wordlengths don't increase head-room as much as increase foot-room...
Click to expand...
Okeydokey; guess we're in agreement then! :cool:

Proffessional grade recordings should'nt have distortion(no not talking estethic , marshall stack type)

I don't want distortion in the music I listen to!!!

Why is this so difficult to grasp?????
Click to expand...
NEED RECORD TO SELL NEED RECORD TO SOUND "HOT" NEED TO MAKE RECORD LOUDER THAN OTHERS IN DUDE'S CD CHANGER IN ORDER TO STAND OUT SOUNDS GOOD CAN YOU JUST MAKE IT LOUDER? NEED MORE VOLUME LOUDER PLEASE I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO JUST MAKE IT LOUDER LOUDER LOUDER LOUDER!!!
 
Farview said:
I think he was just using that as an example of how dumb it is to worry about getting as close to zero as possible. I don't think he was advocating recording that low.
Click to expand...

I don't think so either. The converter is only one piece of gear in the audio chain. There will be other equipment that will not have such good specs, and will be sources of noise and various imperfections.

What it does do is take the converter out of the equation as far as something you need to worry about or make compensations for. If you are using any analog gear at all, you will have plenty of other opportunities to deal with optimizing your noise floor.
 
Farview said:
I think he was just using that as an example of how dumb it is to worry about getting as close to zero as possible. I don't think he was advocating recording that low.
Click to expand...
My point exactly.
 
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