Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

A couple of questions about the saturation and peak levels in version 1.5:
I have read the tutorial but I’m not sure I understand (even though you have gone to some extent to make it understandable).
If I have a song that produces 3 or 4 “bars” in the saturation meter a few times, that is OK?

Do I want to show saturation? Is it desirable?

Will I have an overload with 5 or 6 bars?

The readouts shown above the EQ screen display are showing a minus db (-14.67) for the average and a plus (5.67) for the peak. Would this mean I have clips in the recording, even if I can’t hear them on my equipment?
Thanks,
Bax

Besides not understanding saturation - I can't spel

Bax,

Ideally saturation should be avoided though if it is small enough it is generally hard to hear.

What the saturation meter actually shows is the amount of time (per processing buffer of 8192 points) that the data is in saturation (displayed on a log scale). My ears find it hard to hear saturation readings of less than 0.5% for most material. Any displayed segments is an indication of probable overload.

If you have access to a limiter I'd suggest doing all your mastering EQ at a level low enough to avoid saturation and apply the limiting afterwards.

As discussed in a previous thread the reference level used in the spectrum is not based on full scale digital output so a peak of 5.67 dB on the peak spectrum trace does not correspond to +5.67dB on your VU. In future revisions we plan to rationalise the analysis engine so that 0dB on figures will correspond to 0dB sinusoid reference. We didn't attempt this change for the current version as it requires significant change and has some backward compatability issues that need careful consideration.

Regards,


Paavo.