Overs on a D1624

  • Thread starter Thread starter rockinjc
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rockinjc

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Can anyone tell me what is happening when I get the orange over light coming on. I know it is an indication of hitting the roof but is it fatal to the track?. I was tracking some congas last night and thought I had set the level well (no compression) when my percussionist got a little over zealous near the end of the song. A couple blips on the screen for overs occurred.

On playback it sounds fine. I don’t have a computer with Hammerfall or a sound card to look at it. I suppose could load the track to back up on my burner. I could back the track off to CDR and look at it elsewhere.

The real question here is do you keep tracks with a couple quick overs on them if they sound OK?

TIA
John
 
Overs on digital recording

The proof is in the sound. They always warn you that overs are a catastrophe in digital but it doesn't always seem that way to me. Sometimes the distortion artifacts are horrendous, and of couse you should avoid it if possible. BUT- I have had times when it didn't seem to harm things, especially on drums. Vocals and cymbals and acoustic guitars are another story usually. But if it sounds fine, then it is fine.
 
Yup. The sound's the thing: if I can hear the crunch, I pitch it; and if not, I keep it.

The "over" indicator says that you had at least one sample that was full scale. If it was just one sample, and maybe it was just a a little over full scale so that you didn't lose much, you'll never hear it. If, on the other hand, it's 20 samples in a row that were over, you have a big flat-topped peak that you will *definitely* hear.

The indicator can't tell you how bad the over was- just that it happened. However, if you're recording at 24-bit resolution, I'd recommend that you back your levels down 6db or so- try to peak between -12 and -6, and that'll leave you some headroom for the inevitable peaks that come along.

You really don't need to crowd 0dBFS nearly has hard on a 24-bit machine as you did on a 16-bit machine to still get better-than-16-bit signal/noise and resolution. Dropping the levels while tracking is a great way to have a more relaxed and enjoyable time while doing it...
 
Thanks guys, yeah the overs on this seem a bit nicer than on my DAT.... Crunch!

jc
 
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