What Levels Do You Keep Ur Drums, Bass and Samples ?

Zukan wrote: If you're working in 24 bit then you don't need to worry about the noise floor and therefore can leave acres of headroom. A 16 bit system works completely differently.

Does that mean in a 16 bit system you would want less headroom? As in you would have specific sounds be louder in order for them to not mingle with the noise as much?

also thanks to you and damien for dropping knowledge

Basically, in a 16 bit system we used to record 'hot' because anything quiet that was then boosted would raise the noise floor with it and on a 16 bit system, trust me, you can hear the noise floor.

If your project is in 16 bit try to get the best level you can going in (recording). Use unity as your recording level. Once recorded leave another few dB of headroom for any gain boosting processes (compression, eq etc).

But if you have the facility then work in 24 bit. We all do as par for the course now. Solves so many problems and affords great dynamic range.

damien907 wrote:and a fun fact: the reason why dvd's are so much quieter and louder than cd's relates directly to the bit depth they were recorded at.

No.

In theory, a DVD-Video might have more dynamic range than a CD, but that really depends on what format the audio is on the DVD, and what bit depths were used when creating the sounds.

DVD-Videos can have audio in a number of different formats, sample rates, bit depths, etc.

The audio on a DVD-Video might well be 16 bit.

The difference in dynamic range between a movie on DVD-Video and a music CD is more a result of compression and limiting during mixing and mastering of the CD, to make the CD sound as loud as other commercially available CDs.

damien907 wrote:24 bit audio has 144db of dynamic range, while 16 bit audio (cds) can only re create 96 db of dynamic range.

You can't get 144db out of 24 bit digital audio anyway, you only can resolve something like 20 bits, the rest is lost in the thermal noise floor of the analogue electronics.

i dont know if im understanding you fully

from wikipedia:

24-bit digital audio has a theoretical maximum SNR of 144 dB, compared to 96 dB for 16-bit; however, as of 2007 digital audio converter technology is limited to a SNR of about 124 dB (21-bit)[12] because of real-world limitations in integrated circuit design

^^^is that real world limitation thing what your talking about? i was always taught that dvd's have more dynamic range because of the bit depth in their mixes. the signal to noise ratio is way higher in 24 bit audio than it is in 16 bit audio. what im trying to get at is, because of this, for all practicality, a dvd will usually always have more dynamic range than a cd by design because its 24 bits...wont it?

damien907 wrote:from wikipedia:

24-bit digital audio has a theoretical maximum SNR of 144 dB, compared to 96 dB for 16-bit; however, as of 2007 digital audio converter technology is limited to a SNR of about 124 dB (21-bit)[12] because of real-world limitations in integrated circuit design

^^^is that real world limitation thing what your talking about?

Yes, you don't get the full 144dB/24 bits of dynamic range.

damien907 wrote:i was always taught that dvd's have more dynamic range because of the bit depth in their mixes. the signal to noise ratio is way higher in 24 bit audio than it is in 16 bit audio. what im trying to get at is, because of this, for all practicality, a dvd will usually always have more dynamic range than a cd by design because its 24 bits...wont it?

The audio component of a DVD-Video can be generated from 16 bit, 20 bit, or 24 bit sources, it is not exclusively 24 bit.

If the audio on a DVD-Video is made from 20 or 24 bit sources, then it can theoretically have more dynamic range in the signal stored on the CD.

Generally though, if you are comparing differences in dynamic range between the audio on a DVD-Video, possibly a movie, and the audio on a commercially released music CD, then you will most likely be hearing differences in the mixing and mastering of the audio based on the context of that audio (movie vs music), rather than differences in the dynamic range of the format (DVD-Video vs CD).

At least in relation to movies on DVD-Video, the audio is generally mixed and mastered leaving a lot of dynamic range, from the quietest sound/whisper, to the loudest explosion, there often needs to be, or it results in, a large dynamic range.

With a commercially released music CD, it is generally mixed and mastered using compression, limiting, and brick-wall limiting, in an attempt to be as 'loud' as all the other commercially released music CDs, which results in a greatly reduced dynamic range compared to what is possible on the format.

ah yeah, thats what i was trying to get at. thanks for laying it down like that though. makes it easy to follow. sometimes i have a hard time explaining those kinds of things, as they just kind of float around in my brain, but if someone asks specifics, i have a hard time hashing it out to them.