noise or clipping or quantisation?

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kristian

kristian

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ok so ive become the listener since ive hooked up my monitors a couple days a go, or a week ago cant remember. but ive been listening to somthigns and i will hear a little bit of noise on fadeouts, or when a solo comes in the middle of song i sweaer im hearing a little bit of clipping during the whoe thing, and even a coupel times the little meters on siren will go+0dB and turn red. also on those fade outs is that a result of dithering/quantasation/noise or something? i swear its only on guitars as well. its this midrange thing. the only other possibility i can think of is it could be shoddy workmanship on my cables. i made them on my own, and they seemed to look good. i dunno. anybody have a similar experience.
 
I've had that happen before, and with mine I think I just recorded it a bit to loud. Even though it wasn't peaking, sometimes when I record bass or really powerful distorted guitar will do that, so I just turn it down and it stops. If you say that sometimes your meters will reach +0db? Then that's probably it, if you are recording digitally you ALWAYS want to stay below +0db. You may just have to re-record that part at a lower level, I don't think there is really any way to fix it.

-tkr
 
this is with released cds, albeit independent label releases. but still, i dont think they would let that slip, clipping on their cds.
 
can you clarify something?
Are you hearing some noise / clipping on stuff you are recording / mixing? Or on CD's you are playing on your system?
 
other people's cds im listening to. i heard it today again. it seems to be centered on guitars, must be their frequency, but it is usually a noise on a fade out, or when they burst in really loud for a crazy solo. 99.99% of the time it sounds great, but sometimes i think i hear noise. thats what i can describe it as. NOISE. fzzzzzzzzzzzz.
 
Sound card?

I'm assuming htat you're using a computer and a sound card to listen to your CDs. Many computer sound cards do not handle modern CD mastering techniques well. I have a soundcard at work that I can not turn up the volume past 70% for a CD without getting serious clipping and distortion. This is due to a) the soundcard being poorly designed, and b) CDs today being very loud. Not only are CDs compressed to hell and limited to within an inch of their lives to make them as radio-friendly as possible, but engineers often record CDs all the way up to 0dB (full scale) now, which means the audio peaks, and you get a red clip light.

Many soundcards and even some commercial CD players do not handle full scale (0dB) digital signals very well. To fix this problem, turn down the volume in your computer's volume settings.

To fix the other problem, well, I think we're just stuck with it. But a good idea when mastering music is to HARD limit all material destined for CD to -0.1dB, or even -0.01dB, if you have a limiter that allows that flexibility. This ensures compatibility with everything out there... mostly.
 
Thanks for that one charger. I had my studio hat on, if you would have that problem in a recording set-up, there is something seriously wrong.

A word of warning on the limiting though. I would be very carefull in applying a hard limit on anything, as it does / will effect sound quality.
Same goes for compression, there is only one stereo compressor available with which you can compress / limit at a significant ratio without detrimentally effecting sound.

Thank god for high definition audio, at least now we'll have some dynamic range back!
 
ok lemme sort things out. This is a commercial cd going through my delta 1010 to my Event 20/20bas. i think im good on that setup, my converters can deal. Im just thinking i might be hearing things i havent been listening for before, maybe my hearing is becoming sharper.

On a second note. 24 bits, ive never known what headroom really meant. wow, there is NO point in compressing a stereo mix in Vegas at 24 bit. its absolutely rediculous to. I dont know how to explain it, but its just THERE.
 
CD?

what CD is it? and how is the audio getting into your soundcard?

I have heard distortion on a number of recent recordings, especially heavier stuff... for a good example, see "Hybrid Theory" by Linkin Park. That album is mastered at probably +2dB, just super smashed bits up there.
 
you are right, I've heard a number of CD's lately which are too hot.
I can't think this will have been done in mastering, no mastering engineer would clip out on stuff.
What I think is that some copying plants are starting to check levels as well - just because their software allows them to do so.
Last year I received similar complaints on a CD I mixed and mastered, which really surprised me, so I listened to my master very carefully, which was perfect, so I knew it was the copying plant.
They had to arrange for returns, scrap (which we made them do under supervision, so they didn't "disappear" back into the marketplace) and re-print 125.000 CD's, at their expense. Unfortunately most people don't check.

Sometimes things are very difficult to master as well. It seems everyone has gotten compression / limiting happy. They squeeze the shit out of everything, loosing dynamics and sound quality for an extra 1/2 a dB of level. People seem to forget that not level, but dynamics have the best "in your face" qualities.
 
i wish i could post a comparison of 16 vs. 24 bit mp3s but i dont have a decent encoder, but im looking. I recorded on a reel to reel lately, and i mixed down straight into an SB Crap! and then to bring levels up i limited at -6dB and brough thte level up to -0.1 This didnt make it look chunky, just normal, and you really couldnt tell the difference, it made it sound better if anything. then i bought a delta 1010 and i dumped all the analog tracks into 24/48 and remixed. the head room was insane, i didnt realise how mch 16 bits SUCK. however, after mixing, then dithering to 16/44, i didnt use a single ounce of compression or limiting on the final stereo tracks, BUT they are way louder (if volume is what people are looking for) then the 16 bit files limited and volume brought up. but also there were huge gains in the overall feel, and high frequency response. the SB just cannot deal with high frequencies, even jsut its line in.
 
You are right. The need to boost volume in most cases due to bad tracking / mixing in the first place.

16 bit has always sounded totally disgusting to my ears, I have always hated hearing something I recorded being brought down to 16 / 44.1, as the sampling rate simply is much to low for quality audio. At 24 / 48 and 24 / 96 you finally have a sound quality comparable to analogue, under 2 provisions:
1) sync clock accuracy - which is a big problem with the majority, if not all DAW's, up to and including Pro Tools.
2) converter quality. Unfortunately it is possible to make a converter that looks wonderful on paper, with good specs, and it sounds like crap. On top of that.... who checks their specs? Like their dynamic range claims? I've tested quite a few of them, one brand exceeded their claims on paper, one was reasonably accurate, all the others were way down on their claims!

The Delta 1010 has a claimed A-weighted dynamic range of 108dB on the D/A and 109dB on the D/A - but in some of their press releases and promotional litterature they claim 117dB for the D/A and 110 for the A/D. Now it so happens that the first one is A-weighted, but then............ if you take other, non- A-weighted measurements you'd still never get to the 117 and 110 dB. Ask them about it, and they all lie.
(note - I'm not saying the delta 1010 isn't good)

The fact is that it is possible to make digital sound better that analogue has ever done, if you increase the dynamic range of converters, and make converters correctly, not so you can put cheap shit in one and sell it for a lot of money. One chip set, like they are currently all using (with very few exceptions) will never do it.
I have been using A/D's with a dynamic range of 157dB, and recording at 24/48, with some processing done in a 24/96 sidechain. Now that does sound good. Definately no need for compression, unless you want it as an effect. definately no use for limiting, unless again, you like the effect - or if you did screw up.

Finally, yes. I think you are starting to use your ears, most people don't or can't.
 
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