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Unity Gain
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DJ_Chorman
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
45
Posts :
85
Posted : Dec 18, 2005 01:34
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Ok So to understand mixing, I have found a fabulous ebook that explains it for the beginner....
www.samplecraze.com seems great! explains everything from possitioning of monitors to the rest....and its all based on cubase,,, anyways,
I am reading about the unity gain, where the signal strength going in to the system and leaving should be the same.
Questions:
1) Does this include while it is going through the sequencer, etc. and if so, how do you control signal strength digitally? Or do you need only control it when converting back to analog and outputting?
2)The units on the mixer and on the whole systems vary
The mixer has VU, my understanding that it is the average of readings of how large the electrical signal will be and how it the waves of sound will sound to the human ear.
But there are many other units!!
+dBU, -dBU what do these mean!??!?
dbFS what does this mean!?!?!
apparently 0 dBFS is the maximum peaking is crutial and 0 is max whyyyy?!??!
Please help guys I am lost with these units. What I do know is that each system uses different units, and thats why you have to understand them all, and that UV on mixers is not acccurate representation of the signal cause its not instant, but the average... I also know that +4dBU and -10dBV are the professional and semi-professional standards, respectively, but don't know what that means, and why is semi-professional negative???
Thanks to those that read through this... |
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Terrafractyl
Terrafractyl
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
85
Posted : Dec 18, 2005 08:05
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I've just been studing this at uni so here's a few things...
There are many scales of dB. dBSPL, dBU, dBV, dBm are all just different ways of measuring the same thing(analog signal), their different because they have a different scale of reference. i.e dBm is in watts and dbV and dBu are measured in volts, dBSPL is measured in scale of air pressure level.
dBFS is the scale for a digital signal, and is dependant on the bit rate. The bit rate is like the 'resolution' between silence and clipping. In digital land everything is represented by 1's and 0's, and the bit rate determines the number of amplitude levels available to the system so there is definite limit to the volume that can be recorded.
Which means that 0dBFS is the maximum amplitude that can be recorded, and anything beyond this will become an ugly distorted square wave. 
With an analog signal the signal can get to say, 10dBu without clipping due to the difference reference point of the scales. clipping will only distort the signal gradually and sometimes in a 'good' way.
So basically in a digital system NEVER clip and you will be ok, but when the signal is an analog clipping the signal 'can' sound good.
I hope this helps you out a bit and somebody
please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this
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