distortion with gain~
When the slider, or gain~, has values above 128, it starts adding distortion.
I tried to get information on this issue in the manuals and the Internet but I saw nothing.
Can anyone give an angle on this?
Thanks.
It's kinda silly that the reference manual doesn't give more information about the effect of gain~, but the help file does. A setting of 128 yields a gain factor of 1 (0dB). Settings great than that increase the amplitude of the signal passing through, which can potentially cause clipping of the signal at the DAC (and will, if the input signal is at full amplitude already).
I also recommend switching over to live.gain~ since you can see the gain level easily, and it can handle multiple channels. (I treat gain~ as a legacy object.)
What peter said. Live.gain~ is heaps better.
Thank you all.
The functionality of [live.gain~] and its display is very convenient. However, I am experiencing some distorion even at "medium gain" when playing a pure tone with [cycle~] around 2 ~ 5 KHz.
The distortion is greater with [live.gain~] than with [gain~].
Can you guys notice it, too? or is it perhaps my soundcard?
Thanks.
Maybe you would like a limiter for the gain output, although a saturator would be better than hard clipping, I posted a limiter design here:
yes, I have it already limited somehow.
Now I am concerned about the abovementioned distortion at "medium-gain" levels.
Thanks.
No, I dont have this distortion at medium gain.
Live.gain~ is really just multiplying the signal, so it's not going to distort the signal (in the sense of applying a non linear transformation). If the signal is boosted above 0 dB you will, of course, get some clipping at the DAC~. Your speakers may not be thrilled at playing a 0dB sine wave, but that's another story.
Limiting the signal is likely to introduce distortion (whether that distortion is tolerable or desirable is another matter as well).
There are only two possibilities. Your sound card bit depth is too low, or your are resampling at a different frequency.
Oh. distortion peaks at -72db usually occur because the bit depth is 16 bits.
(Along those lines, check the recording bit depth)