The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #89566 Message #1690568
Posted By: Bernard
11-Mar-06 - 08:43 AM
Thread Name: Tech: Setting a wav file to be 15dB?
Subject: RE: Tech: Setting a wav file to be 15dB?
In audio recording terms, 0dBU is taken as the reference point, and equals 0.775v RMS.
+15dB would be horribly distorted due to 'clipping' with most audio equipment, so this instruction probably means -15dB.
By my reckoning, -15dBU is around 0.14v RMS or 0.39v peak-to-peak. Approximately, of course...!!
For comparison, 0dBV is 1v, and is often the standard used in live mixing desks.
'Clipping' occurs when a signal is too strong for the input, and so called because of the appearance of a 'clipped' sine wave trace on an oscilloscope.
A sine wave should have smoothly curved peaks and troughs, but a clipped sine wave literally has the peaks and troughs chopped off at the point where the input device is overloaded. This is why the sound is distorted.
This website shows clearly what the problem is... although the author is using it to demonstrate how to get an 'interesting' sound!