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Old 09-09-2014, 11:06 PM   #98
yep
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,019
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Sorry, I didn't read the whole thread.

A lot of DAW and soundcard manuals tell you to record as close to 0dB as possible before clipping for best sound quality. Most of them are wrong.

Sound is anlog before it is digital. The same devices that tell you to record as hot as possible often lack the internal current-handling capacity to deal with signal close to 0dB. The analog front-end can clip and distort well before the AD converter registers a digital "over".

Everyone has to suss this out for themselves. If you record a vocal track or a DI bass and the sound is clipped and distorted, then pointing to the unlit "clip" LED is pointless. You can't rely on lights to tell you whether it sounds good, they just help point out technical conditions. If it's clipped and distorted, you can't point to the unlit LED and prove it sounds good.
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