Am i reducing the bit depth of my music?

[radfun]

Hey all,

great to be here.

Question: ive got a mix here, all ready to go, its been bounced down half a dozen times and home mastered lol, BUT I REALLY GOT IT THIS TIME!

then it ocurred to me, i have the master fader half way down.

there is no clipping. But it just occured to me, am i reducing the bit depth by doing this???? if so ill have to start the mixdown again.

its worth it tho and i want to get it right.

I am using Steinberg Nuendo if its of any use.

thanks in advance!

John

[elektro80]

I don´t know Nuendo and I guess I should inspect your whole gain chain before I answer this, but here goes..:

If your signal is reasonably hot and you have reduced the gain in order to not clip the signal then I guess everything is OK. I reckon each of the individual tracks are pretty hot and that is why you have had to reduce the gain on the master buss.

[radfun]

thanks for the quick answer,

yes, its hot as hell, and i am quickly learning this isnt so desireable when i try and master it for performance.

but good to hear i am not doing too much damage, i think i got the mix right and would prefer to learn my lesson on the next track, or ill never get anything done.


in sort, overly simple terms though, i am assuming that the master is a modifier on all the other channels and hence will bring them all down, not reduce the bit depth by creating some kinda of gate that all the musical sound is squashed through.

[elektro80]

All modern DAWs have an exellent internal headroom. You don´t have to worry about this one. However, you might have to consider recording each individual track a tad less hot.