digital overdrive? Do or donot?

[Frank'nfurter]

Hi all

My question, is everybody of you looking for the right level ( never going over 0dB ) in the whole signalpathes you use in Cubase, Logik, Protools or what ever you use for recording. Or do you ignore the "over indicators" when they appear sometimes. For example: My C4 comp sometimes shows the overs in the output but without any hearable distortion or clippings.

 

[ThomasT]

I always look at the levels and try to stay below 0dBfs. When it happens (an unexpected loud snare hit or scream) and it is not hearable its ok.
The principle of the digital overindicators is that they light when some samples after each other reach 0dBfs. Indeed, they can not really indicate an over because in the digital stage no signal can be really over 0dBfs. Even clipping is not over, it's only clipped.
All what the indicators do are a educated guess.
So look at the waveform if you want to know if there was really clipping.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Yeah that's a good question... I've been reading somewhere that, since all the calculations are made 32 bits float, and since we recorded 24 bits, clipping is "theorically" impossible... Hope this is true... ;-)

 

[ThomasT]

Like you said: theoretically.

A clipping in one channel should be prevented by lowering the master fader.

It depends how you record.
Logic, Cubase and so on calculate with 32 float internally. So there is one "clipping point" when the signal is converted again into 24bit.
If you insert external FX, the signal must stay below 0dBfs. The DAC and ADC cannot handle 32bit floating point and scale them down (what would be practical).
Protools calculates inside with 24bit integer. Means the calculation on the DSP are made with 32bit fixed point(?)[1], but there are a lot of 32bit<->24bit conversions. That's the reason many say protools sounds a little bit worse.
My creamwarestuff is 32bit fixed point[1]. The channel signals routed from cubase are 24bit. So with my setup I must be careful that no signals clipps.

[1] The DSPs are 32bit fixed points, some plugins calculate with 64bit fixed points.

 

[Frank'nfurter]

someone here has said: as long as my PT,Cubase or whatever works without no clippings, I ignore the overs!!


Andy? Are you the guy who said this?

 

[SickBoy]

someone here has said: as long as my PT,Cubase or whatever works without no clippings, I ignore the overs!!

Andy? Are you the guy who said this?

I think the man did say that...
You don't need to worry that much about overs inside the Cubase or whatever mixer, Brett is right, the internal calcs are done with higher bitrate, to prevent clipping. But be carefull with your ins and outs, in other words Cubase can't help you with your signal being clipped either on input or on output (watch for the overs on Master fader when downmixing!).

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

I think common sense dictates that you shouldn't run levels too high.

 

[egan.]

I think common sense dictates that you shouldn't run levels too high.

I'll go along with this. You may techincally have the headroom, but why push it? I think it's just smarter to use good gain structure reagardless of whether a particular system will handle it. If nothing else it's worth noting that some pluggins react differently when you push them to clipping (the waves ren comp comes to mind).