Live Recording Gear Lingo...Reality Check

[Cucco]

And, FWIW, the combo inputs can handle line level just fine going in TRS without hitting 0dbfs unless the input signal is very, very hot, in the +24dbfs range, which, while possible (the world is full of idiot engineers) very unlikely.

See...now it's you throwing around the possibility of going over -0dBFS (+24dBfs - sic).

Besides, the line input on the Korg is rated well below +24dBU meaning that it's quite possible to overload its digital inputs regardless of what preamp used or what idiot engineer is pushing faders.

[amarule]

My mistake, a typo on my part, that should read +24dbu, not dbfs. I have corrected.

However I never said one could not go over 0dbfs, and it's possible in any scenario, however it is definitely not desired, as it is a sound that is anything but musical. In addition, driving an analog console that hard, especially on subgroups, would so severely overload the mix buss summing that the end result would also be anything but musical.

IOW, while it is possible to drive the line inputs of the Korg into digital clipping (AKA overshooting 0dbfs) it is very unlikely, however it is likely that if proper gain staging is not observed there could be occasional peaks that overshoot. The desired nominal input level to the Korg should fall in the -20 to -10dbfs range, targeting the Korg's 0dbu reference.

[JeffBarnett]

I'm closing this. Move this offline, please.

[Cucco]

Yeah, I figured it was a typo - just busting your balls since you busted mine on something equally trivial.

Technically, it is impossible to overshoot -0dBFS as this, in absolute terms is every bit position filled with a '1'.

However, in floating point math, you can overshoot the allocated bits and then convert back down later. So, what appears to be "clipping" or all '1s' in 24 bit may actually have some headroom left in 32 float. Of course, if you do nothing to the signal and simply put it back into a fixed 24 bit, you're going to find a LOT of clipping going on.

Re: driving the analog console too hard - yes. Absolutely. However, I recall a time when we shot for 0dBU on the meters giving us a good 24dB of headroom. You could load a console down like that and it wouldn't even break a sweat. Nowadays, people push the meters to +24dBU on all channels and wonder why their mixes collapse. Hmmmm....I wonder.