M-AUDIO Dman 2044 - Manual (Page 26)

DAT tape, CD, or any other data storage media. During digital playback,
no noise is added by the recording medium. This results in a much
greater SNR and greatly increased dynamic range over analog methods.
The end result is cleaner, quieter recordings. The only noise present in
the digital realm is any noise introduced by the A/D and D/A converter
hardware, and this varies according to the quality of the converters and
the board design. Using quality components and card design practices
as in the DMAN 2044, the only way to make a noisy digital recording is
to manually add the noise yourself!
Digital Recording Do’s and Don’ts
Meters are not meant to ever go into the red. Digital recording is very
unforgiving of clipping. Unlike analog systems, where tape saturation
gives a nice smooth compression, digital distortion squares off the wave-
form and the resulting sounds are harsh and raspy, like someone is
breaking a pane of glass in your ear. Make sure that you give yourself
plenty of headroom when recording and mixing. The DMAN 2044 con-
verters give you plenty of dynamic range to work with, so use it!
Know your signal chain. Some programs set the audio levels internally
while others use the Windows level controls. Make sure you know
which is which. If you are not getting the levels you expect, retrace your
signal chain and make sure that you are adjusting levels in the correct
places. Also refer back to the mixer sections of this manual as a hard-
ware reference.
Plan ahead. Think about how you will lay down tracks ahead of time
and decide in what order you are going to record the tracks. Keep a
track list. Use it to make notes when you are recording (where you might
need to punch in and out, etc.). With hard disk recording you don’t have
to worry about the bass track bleeding into the vocal track or whether
the heads have the same response on different tracks, but you still want
to have some plan.
Back up your work. Sure, most editing functions with HDR systems are
non-destructive, but some are not. And if you’ve ever experienced a
computer crash, you already know the definition of “destructive edit-
ing!” If you are doing a lot of editing, (or even if you’re not but don’t
want to take any chances) back up your audio tracks to some sort of
backup media. Audio takes up a lot of disk space, so you might choose a
large format removable drive (Iomega Zip or Jaz, Syquest EZ Flyer for
example), tape drive, or recordable CD-ROM on which to backup your
audio files.
Optimize your disk often. Fragmented audio files can cause audio
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