Are there guidelines for db max and min w/ digital audio?

naclhead wrote on 1/17/2002, 1:52 PM

I have a Delta 1010 sound card VApro1 (tried VA2 but had a lot of hicups so I went back to VA1), SF5, and AcidPro3. I am somewhat new to digital recording but have been playing with this stuff for about a year now. So I am familiar w/ most of the interfaces and now would like to get down to serious mixing and mastering. It seems to me I lack a sufficeint knowlege of desired levels for digital recording. Is there a document or website or any of you who can point me in the right direction?

Here is a couple of my specific questions:

1) Do I want to get all my input levels as close to zero as possible but never, never, never go past zero (clip)?

2) If that's the case what do I do when I want a quite part. I ask this because I have a song that has a very quiet begining and a really loud chorus and ending. When I burn it to CD the entire song plays way softer than the other songs. Should I use SF to bring up the levels of the quite parts and count on the texture of the music to provide the sense of quiet I'm looking for? And by having my louds and quiets closer in range will that allow me to bring the over all level of my mix louder as I attempt to acheive radio or factory volume from the entire CD?

3) Are there some db guidelines as to not go below a certain db even in a soft part?

Here is the learn as I go method I'm using right now. Sometimes after recording a track in Vegas I'll bring it into SF to add effects or compression or Volume maximize. I don't this this all the time. Should I? Should I do the same proceedure on each track before I try to mix and master? Then when I have my tracks down before I render them (save as in VA1) I play through the song and make sure there's no clips on the master bus. If there is I adjust the volume on the offending track or tracks until I can get through the whoole song with no clips. While doing this I'm not paying a lot fo attention to how low the other signals are. Should I? Then I render the .wav and open in SF and do a volume maximise.

I'm getting some very good quality but I'm sure I could get better with some "standard operating prodeedure" guidelines.

Also when I burn the CD I'm getting clicks at the end of each wave just before the next song starts. I'm just adding the wav files through the HP CD writer soft ware as VA1 doesn't have "create CD" option. Although I just realized that SF5 does. Do you think if I created CD through SF it would eliminate the click between tracks or is there something I missing?

Thanks. Todd

Comments

Rednroll wrote on 1/17/2002, 2:16 PM

I'm going to give you a very simple explanation, to a rather opinionated subject, as a basic guideline when recording in the digital domain that will give you excellent results in both cases.

When setting levels with digital meters, set the level so the meter peaks at -10dB for loud parts. Especially with live instruments and vocals. Just for a little info, when a sound increases in level 6dB it doubles in loudness. With -10dB your instrument can double in loudness and still have 4 dB of headroom to keep you from hitting the distortion level. You are still recording at a nice high level and resolution at -10dB also.

Now on the low end when your instument parts get quiet. The noise floor of most sound cards and other peripherals is around -60dB in level. If your instument level goes as low as -54dB, then remember your sound is still twice as loud as the noise floor. -10dB to -60dB gives you 50dB of dynamic range for your instrument, which should be plenty. In the end when you master the piece then feel free to normalize to 0dB when you're done, but never shoot as close as possible to 0dB when recording, there is no need for this. Especially when you start to mix parts they will eventually add up to the 0dB level when mixed. It doesn't make much since to record individual instruments to 0dB and then have to subtract -10dB on the fader to keep from distorting, when you mix all the parts together.

naclhead wrote on 1/17/2002, 2:29 PM

Thanks for the quick response. That makes a lot of sense. I'm stil used to the analogue world where you want to get as strong a signal on tape as possible knowing you can always turn it down. But if you have to turn it up you'll probably introduce noise.

Am I to understand, then, in the digital world that even if I recorded a signal in at -50db, if I wanted to increase that to 0db I would not introduce noise.

Also, as I have been trying be so close to 0db I have constantly been running into clipping when I mix because of what you described.

Thanks again,
Todd

naclhead wrote on 1/17/2002, 6:40 PM

I just found what looks like a pretty good website on the subject of digital recording. www.digido.com Anyone heard of it?

Todd
NaCL

Cheesehole wrote on 1/18/2002, 2:21 PM

you won't 'introduce' noise by increasing the volume of a digital recording, but whatever noise that's in the recording will obviously get louder.