Many times we listen to songs and they seem like absolute songs and other times they seem like a waste of time. To some extent it is because of the music that is heard. But today we are going a little further. I dare say that part of the fact that we end up liking it is due to the fact that there are two concepts that have not been taken into account in production lately.
I mean the Dynamic Range.
What is it? Well, it’s just the difference between the highest possible peaks and the noise threshold. Yes, there is always a noise basis, even in the best soundproof studio. And how does that affect what you hear is a great song? Very easy, since this variation in amplitude influences the sound intensity, how the song flows, the difference between strong and weak. The specific nominal amplitude of each equipment must also be taken into account, which is called the dynamic ceiling or Headroom. Normally it stays at 120Db, since it is the limit that integrated circuits allow. What we hear from all this is the SNR, signal noise ratio, that is, the relationship between residual noise and the average signal of the subject.
If we transfer this to our tasks as musicians, it means that no frequency that we are using within our theme should be fixed, which is called average, and that too much compression is bad too, since it can crush the sound, since applying a compressor decrease dynamic differences. This also includes mixing and normalization (which we will talk about later) where some resources can help us to make our theme cover the widest dynamic range in all its frequencies. For example: If the amplitude of the mid frequencies is reduced, approximately the frequencies of 250Hz, it is possible to boost frequencies of 5KHz.
Another resource that sometimes we fail when we are playing a synthesizer, whether analog or digital, or when we are mixing is Bit Depth or Bit Resolution / Quantization.
Bit Depth is the amplitude of variations of a sound wave. Translated into Christian, the number of bits recorded per sample. This affects the previously explained concept, dynamic range, since the greater the bit depth, the greater the possibility of working with wide dynamic ranges, which is called the rule-of-thumb. Since for example, if we work with 8-bit synthesizers, which are so fashionable, we are saying that this synthesizer, the wave that sends the output, only allows to register 256 variations in the amplitude of the wave. Let’s remember that 8 bits = 2 to 8. With this I don’t mean that an 8-bit synthesizer is bad, each one does its job, but there are many cases where pears are asked from the elm, when we all know that you have to go to the pear tree. I would like to emphasize this concept especially for we use analog synthesizers, drum machines, samplers. Since the bit depth within a PCM, the digital representation of an analog sound, recreates the maximum dynamic range, which means that the sound will be more real.
So let us return to the question asked above. How does this affect my theme to sound good? Well the bit depth limits the amount of dynamic range and signal noise ratio. This means that if we cover a higher bit resolution we will be able to interact with more precision within the theme that we are composing and therefore improve the output signal of the set.
Even so, I am sorry to be this party pooper, the bit depth problem comes from the fact that nowadays we use a format that has very low and bad compression, such as MP3 or WMA. Although you export at 24 bits, it does not mean that the MP3 / WMA has a bit depth of 24 bits, since you have mastered them at 24 bits but then it has been compressed and that is where it fails. This also happens even if we copy directly to a CD, since CDs are burned at 16 bits.
