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What is headroom?

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 9:14 am
by yuyu
Hi guys,
I often hear about the term of "headroom" and quite confuse with it. What is headroom exactly? How much is the best standard of headroom? And what is the effect if we are not coreect in application? Thx vey much.................. :lol:

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 6:39 pm
by HarBal
Headroom is the space between the typical maximum value of your music signal and the level at which clipping occurs and is most often expressed in dB. So for instance, with a DAW the maximum reproducable level is 0dB and your metering shows that you track peaks at -4dB means that your track has 0 - (-4) = 4dB headroom. If you are then going to apply EQ to your track I'd recommend cutting the level by 2 dB to give 6dB headroom. This will generally guarantee that HarBal will not clip your file, irrespective of the EQ you apply.

Regards,


Paavo.

Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:48 am
by yuyu
Thanks Paavo,
I recenty use Nuendo3 for mixing, and usually the master bus shows -0.5 to 0.0 dB for the maximum peak (fader's position is 0). Does it affect on the result of my mixing when it is applied with HarBal?
With the maximum peaks of -0.5-0.0dB, do I need to adjust master fader down to -6dB?

Thx very much............... :)

Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:28 pm
by HarBal
Yes, that's exactly it. Keep the peak levels down to -6dB for the tracks you feed into HarBal and then you can make up that gain post HarBal when you apply limiting. That way you avoid any clipping distortion.

Paavo.