Recording Levels and Clipping

[bannybassman]

thanks 64, that's really helpful!
I'll try changing a few settings

[launched]

Wow, that was a good read. I had no idea that bit depth was so affected by the recording level. Very good info to know. That being said, I would imagine that 16 bits is enough to please the human ear, and most of our rigs have 24 bit signal processing.

To me, that means if we stay in the 70-80% input level range, we would somewhat limit/eliminate distortion and be recording at a rate greater than the human ear can process. Is that right? I don't dare push it too far.

[64Guitars]

To me, that means if we stay in the 70-80% input level range, we would somewhat limit/eliminate distortion and be recording at a rate greater than the human ear can process. Is that right? I don't dare push it too far.

Yes, the waveform in Song 3 above is probably at about 80% and that's pretty good. Although, before posting, I would recommend using Audacity's Normalize effect to raise the level so that the peaks hit 1.0. Remember, clipping only occurs when levels exceed 1.0. You'll get no clipping when the peaks merely reach 1.0 but don't exceed it.

[Ferryman]

This is fantastic info and great advice 64G. Many  thanks.

Nigel