Kendrix wrote on Thu, 11 January 2007 17:28 |
CHANCE wrote on Thu, 11 January 2007 16:07 | You lost me. How would you lose dynamic range? Recording at lower levels, the relative differences between 0db and your highest level will still be the same yes?
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I think not.- You are effectively reducing the "highest level" by recording at a lower volume. So, dynamic range is reduced.
If you A to D convert into a 24 bits and you turn the input or trim down so that you record say 12db below where you'd be if you peaked at zero then you are reducing the dynamic range of the signal being converted by 12db. In doing so you are using 2 fewer bits than are available.
The point is that the quality of the subsequently reconstructed waveform (after the D to A) does not suffer when you do this. Since virtually any real sound source hs much less than 144db dynamic range you really dont lose anything- however you gain the benefit of digital headroom when summing.
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Not really.
The sound you record will live roughly somewhere below the incoming noise floor (ie background noise, microphone, preamp and so forth) up to the maximum peak of the sound in question.
It will most definitely be able to live between 0 dBFS and, say, -144 dBu.
Now, if you set your A-D converter to only peak at -12 dBu you will still be recording the entire dynamical span of that sound set lower within that 24 bit file.
So practically speaking, if something had, say 80 dB of total dynamic range then you can decide to record it into 0 dBFS and downwards or you could record it into -12 dBu and downwards.
Align the recordings by shifting the mantissa up or down (ie within a 32 bit floating point register) and you'll see it's all there regardless of how hot you printed it.
The difference is that if you slammed the converter there are some penalties to be had regarding the analog front end of the converter, the decimation process in it. And even more so, downstream when you apply plug-ins and a mixing engine.
That just about sums it up.
Regards,
Tomas Danko