Thread: Audacity Meter/Waveform DB Range - Best Settings???

Am having a moment of doubt here, especially as I've recently been re-ripping tunes in WAV and am getting paranoid that I'm not doing it right. However I cannot seem to find a straight answer for the correct Meter/Waveform DB Range setting in Audacity online anywhere.

Now I'm not all that clued up on sound technology and have discovered that the rips I've been doing are set to -36db (shallow range for high amplitude editing). Which was the 'Factory Setting' for the Audacity program, and recommended not to be touched. I have the idea that altering this to higher settings (between -48 to -145) will not really do anything other than boost up the sound level (?) range of waveform (?) and not necessarily affect the recording quality? I'm being a bit shit at describing this, as I'm a total dunce with this kinda stuff, but I'm guessing that the db settings allow you to record very quiet sounds in order to boost them up?

I've set everything else according to the What CD guide, and bumped them up to the highest quality settings, so am not too bothered about that (Default Sample Rate = 96000HZ, Sample Rate Format = 32-Bit Float, Sample Rate Converter = High Quality Sync Interpolation). If anyone can inform me that I'm ripping okay, then that'd be magic!

As your ripping music that uses 16 bit samples/drum machines there is no need to rip anything higher than 16 bit/44.1khz/1411kbps. You should only do a 24 bit/96 khz rip if you are ripping something that has instruments (not sampled ones either) on it.

Originally Posted by stuz74

Now I'm not all that clued up on sound technology and have discovered that the rips I've been doing are set to -36db (shallow range for high amplitude editing). Which was the 'Factory Setting' for the Audacity program, and recommended not to be touched. I have the idea that altering this to higher settings (between -48 to -145) will not really do anything other than boost up the sound level (?) range of waveform (?) and not necessarily affect the recording quality? I'm being a bit shit at describing this, as I'm a total dunce with this kinda stuff, but I'm guessing that the db settings allow you to record very quiet sounds in order to boost them up?

Not sure about this myself but like you said i dont think it matters. I did find this Audacity in Linux Mint - Linux Mint Community whch says set as "-96 db (PCM Range of 16 bit samples)" which makes sense to me as 16 bit is what you should be ripping at, i have changed my settings to this myself but it doesnt seem to have done anything though.

Originally Posted by Phizzal

As your ripping music that uses 16 bit samples/drum machines there is no need to rip anything higher than 16 bit/44.1khz/1411kbps. You should only do a 24 bit/96 khz rip if you are ripping something that has instruments (not sampled ones either) on it.

I'm no expert or a hifi freak but this isn't really true. Even if the production is low quality, fact is that the vinyl is still analog and not 16 bit/44.1khz. Plus, he probably has many tunes that have analog synths that were not samples

As for the audacity settings, you're talking about the "minimum of dB mode display range"? That's just for choosing how the program displays waveforms if you're working in logarithmic mode (you can do this by clicking on the name of the audio track and choosing Waveform(dB)). IMO, the best bet is to just work in standard linear mode with high quality settings, then recording everything loud enough without the waveform clipping.

That being said i probably couldn't hear the difference myself, but quite a few people claim they do (on a good and loud setup)
but if i started ripping my records i'd definitely do it higher quality than 16bits and 44khz.. also not through a mixer but just a RIAA preamp.

Originally Posted by Thumpson

I'm no expert or a hifi freak but this isn't really true. Even if the production is low quality, fact is that the vinyl is still analog and not 16 bit/44.1khz. Plus, he probably has many tunes that have analog synths that were not samples

you might be right, we need a test

spec.jpg

cuts off at 22.1khz so you might aswell rip as 44/16 bit anyway

Thanks very much for the information Phizzal and Thumpson. I've been recording my WAV's to the highest quality going in the hope of pre-empting an unlikely new view that the 16-bit quality rate will become obsolete (as how the 320br MP3 is now being relegated). So if I can cope with the space requirement needed, then what the heck. Cheers also for clearing up the Waveform issue. Was getting worried that I had it set wrong!