3 ms·

Especially as digital signal chains are potentially more lossy: compression, transcoding, resampling. It's very often completely opaque too.

leduyquang753 4y ago
No the producers don't just recompress and resample between every track of the mixer, that would be foolish both quality and performance-wise. The source materials are, if even needed, decoded only once and inside the production software it's always raw sample data.
- grumpyprole 4y ago
  I am speaking generally, it is difficult to be in full control of the signal chain as it is often up to the software and operating systems. Even as someone who just plays music, getting a "bit perfect" feed for my DAC is highly non-trivial.
  - Flankk 4y ago
    A DAC is a sampler that sends digital audio to your computer. ASIO bypasses the operating system audio driver. The signal chain is that simple. I'm not sure what you mean.
    - grumpyprole 4y ago
      > A DAC is a sampler that sends digital audio to your computer No, DAC means digital-to-analogue convertor. It comes after the computer. Sampling before a computer is done by an ADC. > The signal chain is that simple. No, the software signal chain is not simple.
      - Flankk 4y ago
        I know the difference, I'm an engineer. I assumed you were talking about recording since quite obviously you can get a bit-perfect signal from the digital side. It's maybe not so obvious going the other way. There is a persistent myth that digital audio is inferior in some way. The signal chain is not doing any processing. Quantization noise is not audible and can be removed using oversampling. On the other hand analog recording introduces flutter, distortion, and noise that cannot be easily removed.
      - ratww 4y ago
        Parent poster clearly means ADC. The rest of the post is absolutely true. > No, the software signal chain is not simple. While the software itself might be complex, the grandparent is right: digital audio data coming out of the ADC doesn’t get transformed in the way you suggested above. There’s no secret compression, transcoding or resampling going on without the knowledge of engineers, as it would add noise and interfere with production techniques. Even things like dithering have to be added separately.
        grumpyprole 4y ago
        Again, I was speaking generally about digital audio, the average consumer has no idea what happens when using audio playback software, USB DACs, AirPlay, Chromecast etc. Even a few of the downloads I have purchased have been resampled (more fraud than secret in that case).
        ratww 4y ago
        Alright. That's totally fair and true, but that's not within the context of this thread, the first post specifically said "music production wise" and this is what all the corrections refer to. Consumer audio, even (or especially!) when things are 10x more expensive than pro products, is definitely a bit of a garbage fire.
  - ratww 4y ago
    Gonna agree with the other replies. That’s definitely not the case for music production. We even use special drivers on some OSs, bypassing the slow paths, and we’re very particular about gain structuring, signal path and everything around our ADCs/DACs, so there’s not much mystery for us there. We’re in control and it’s as perfect as it gets.
    - grumpyprole 4y ago
      > We’re in control and it’s as perfect as it gets. Do you perform bit-perfect tests to be sure? The people who write the software are surely the ones in control.
      - ratww 4y ago
        Yes. We use null-cancellation very often as a production/engineering tool, not only as a “test”, so it has to be, otherwise our tricks won’t work.
damagednoob 4y ago
I was listening to interview with Brian May and he recounted a story of how they lost fidelity when using analogue tape due to a faulty machine [1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/mgkvU5eCaYo&t=32m13s https://youtu.be/mgkvU5eCaYo&t=32m13s
- grumpyprole 4y ago
  I don't disagree that digital can be much better than analogue, or that analogue does not have problems.

leduyquang753 4y ago

No the producers don't just recompress and resample between every track of the mixer, that would be foolish both quality and performance-wise. The source materials are, if even needed, decoded only once and inside the production software it's always raw sample data.

grumpyprole 4y ago
I am speaking generally, it is difficult to be in full control of the signal chain as it is often up to the software and operating systems. Even as someone who just plays music, getting a "bit perfect" feed for my DAC is highly non-trivial.
- Flankk 4y ago
  A DAC is a sampler that sends digital audio to your computer. ASIO bypasses the operating system audio driver. The signal chain is that simple. I'm not sure what you mean.
  - grumpyprole 4y ago
    > A DAC is a sampler that sends digital audio to your computer No, DAC means digital-to-analogue convertor. It comes after the computer. Sampling before a computer is done by an ADC. > The signal chain is that simple. No, the software signal chain is not simple.
    - Flankk 4y ago
      I know the difference, I'm an engineer. I assumed you were talking about recording since quite obviously you can get a bit-perfect signal from the digital side. It's maybe not so obvious going the other way. There is a persistent myth that digital audio is inferior in some way. The signal chain is not doing any processing. Quantization noise is not audible and can be removed using oversampling. On the other hand analog recording introduces flutter, distortion, and noise that cannot be easily removed.
    - ratww 4y ago
      Parent poster clearly means ADC. The rest of the post is absolutely true. > No, the software signal chain is not simple. While the software itself might be complex, the grandparent is right: digital audio data coming out of the ADC doesn’t get transformed in the way you suggested above. There’s no secret compression, transcoding or resampling going on without the knowledge of engineers, as it would add noise and interfere with production techniques. Even things like dithering have to be added separately.
      - grumpyprole 4y ago
        Again, I was speaking generally about digital audio, the average consumer has no idea what happens when using audio playback software, USB DACs, AirPlay, Chromecast etc. Even a few of the downloads I have purchased have been resampled (more fraud than secret in that case).
        ratww 4y ago
        Alright. That's totally fair and true, but that's not within the context of this thread, the first post specifically said "music production wise" and this is what all the corrections refer to. Consumer audio, even (or especially!) when things are 10x more expensive than pro products, is definitely a bit of a garbage fire.
- ratww 4y ago
  Gonna agree with the other replies. That’s definitely not the case for music production. We even use special drivers on some OSs, bypassing the slow paths, and we’re very particular about gain structuring, signal path and everything around our ADCs/DACs, so there’s not much mystery for us there. We’re in control and it’s as perfect as it gets.
  - grumpyprole 4y ago
    > We’re in control and it’s as perfect as it gets. Do you perform bit-perfect tests to be sure? The people who write the software are surely the ones in control.
    - ratww 4y ago
      Yes. We use null-cancellation very often as a production/engineering tool, not only as a “test”, so it has to be, otherwise our tricks won’t work.

damagednoob 4y ago

I was listening to interview with Brian May and he recounted a story of how they lost fidelity when using analogue tape due to a faulty machine [1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/mgkvU5eCaYo&t=32m13s https://youtu.be/mgkvU5eCaYo&t=32m13s

grumpyprole 4y ago
I don't disagree that digital can be much better than analogue, or that analogue does not have problems.