Routing Tracks Through A Bus -ACID Product Family - MAGIX Community Forums Archive

Subject:Routing Tracks Through A Bus Posted by: LittleStudios Date:5/13/2008 6:57:19 PM So when I route all the drum tracks the Bus A and then route Bus A to the Master Out. Bus A shows that I'm clipping, but the Master Out isn't clipping. Then I render this as a .wav and pop it open in Sound Forge. The rendered .wav looks absolutely fine. No clipping and no signs of clipping. So here's my question. In Acid Pro 6, does it matter if you're clipping in the bud (ie. Bus A) as long as you're not clipping in the Master Out? btw, i was really really clipping Bus A, by 24db.
Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus Reply by: JohnnyRoy Date:5/14/2008 9:52:11 AM Clipping is always bad regardless of where it is introduced into the chain (insert, track, send, bus, or master) and should be avoided. I'm guessing that you had a compressor on the master bus which was attenuating the audio and is why the clipping from bus A did not clip the master bus. Also drums are produce a harsh percussive sound... clipping produces a harsh percussive sound... clipping on drums might not always be audible. ;-) Try it with an acoustic guitar track and it might be more obvious that you have lost audio information. You never want to clip at 0dB FS ever. It is information that is thrown away. I would pull down the gain on bus A. ~jr
Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus Reply by: MarkWWW Date:5/14/2008 12:05:29 PM The reason you don't see the effects of the "clipping" at the Bus stage is that Acid (and Vegas) operate internally in floating point mode which has an enormous amount of headroom. So long as you have reduced the level to something less that 0dBFS before you reach the point where the audio is converted back to fixed point (i.e the soundcard, or a render to a WAV file) you will not actually get any clipping in the output. BUT, and it's a big BUT, if you are seriously running audio through the busses (or anywhere else) at +24dBFS then there is something seriously wrong with your gain structure. You'll get away with this kind of abuse in a floating-point system, but if you try the same thing with either a fixed-point digital system or an analog mixer you will immediately see why you don't want to get into these bad habits. If you haven't met the term "gain structure" before, or aren't familar with normal audio mixing good practice then you might like to have a look at this article which should get you started. Mark
Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus Reply by: LittleStudios Date:5/14/2008 1:27:47 PM i wanted to see what would happen. i purposely cranked the volume up on the Bus. I wanted to have an extremely obvious clip on the Bus before it got to the Master. I then lowered the master volume so the overall mix wasn't clipping (-12db). I know that if i'm clipping on the Master, it would be obvious, and it is. But for some reason i could never notice any clipping when the Bus was cranked way past 0db. i was wondering if it had something to do with Acid Pro, that's all.
Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus Reply by: LittleStudios Date:5/14/2008 1:29:14 PM BTW, i make it common practice to never clip in any part of my signal chain. i was merely experimenting with the software.

Subject:Routing Tracks Through A Bus

Date:5/13/2008 6:57:19 PM

So when I route all the drum tracks the Bus A and then route Bus A to the Master Out. Bus A shows that I'm clipping, but the Master Out isn't clipping.

Then I render this as a .wav and pop it open in Sound Forge. The rendered .wav looks absolutely fine. No clipping and no signs of clipping.

So here's my question. In Acid Pro 6, does it matter if you're clipping in the bud (ie. Bus A) as long as you're not clipping in the Master Out?

btw, i was really really clipping Bus A, by 24db.

Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:5/14/2008 9:52:11 AM

Clipping is always bad regardless of where it is introduced into the chain (insert, track, send, bus, or master) and should be avoided. I'm guessing that you had a compressor on the master bus which was attenuating the audio and is why the clipping from bus A did not clip the master bus. Also drums are produce a harsh percussive sound... clipping produces a harsh percussive sound... clipping on drums might not always be audible. ;-) Try it with an acoustic guitar track and it might be more obvious that you have lost audio information.

You never want to clip at 0dB FS ever. It is information that is thrown away. I would pull down the gain on bus A.

~jr

Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus

Reply by: MarkWWW

Date:5/14/2008 12:05:29 PM

The reason you don't see the effects of the "clipping" at the Bus stage is that Acid (and Vegas) operate internally in floating point mode which has an enormous amount of headroom. So long as you have reduced the level to something less that 0dBFS before you reach the point where the audio is converted back to fixed point (i.e the soundcard, or a render to a WAV file) you will not actually get any clipping in the output.

BUT, and it's a big BUT, if you are seriously running audio through the busses (or anywhere else) at +24dBFS then there is something seriously wrong with your gain structure. You'll get away with this kind of abuse in a floating-point system, but if you try the same thing with either a fixed-point digital system or an analog mixer you will immediately see why you don't want to get into these bad habits. If you haven't met the term "gain structure" before, or aren't familar with normal audio mixing good practice then you might like to have a look at this article which should get you started.

Mark

Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus

Reply by: LittleStudios

Date:5/14/2008 1:27:47 PM

i wanted to see what would happen. i purposely cranked the volume up on the Bus. I wanted to have an extremely obvious clip on the Bus before it got to the Master. I then lowered the master volume so the overall mix wasn't clipping (-12db). I know that if i'm clipping on the Master, it would be obvious, and it is. But for some reason i could never notice any clipping when the Bus was cranked way past 0db.

i was wondering if it had something to do with Acid Pro, that's all.

Subject:RE: Routing Tracks Through A Bus

Reply by: LittleStudios

Date:5/14/2008 1:29:14 PM

BTW, i make it common practice to never clip in any part of my signal chain. i was merely experimenting with the software.