Message 4/13
Date: 21-Jul-05 @ 01:49 PM -
RE: Make your DAW sound better easily
The noise floor of your place is irrelevant. Remember a 24-bit converter can accurately recreate over 120 dB of dynamic range (theoretcially, it covers even more range, but let's err on the conservative side). Now let's say you hook up a mic in your place and get it to a proper level for vocals, say, and look at the meter in your DAW when you're recording a "silent room". I'll bet it hovers around -60dB or so on a good day, given the noise in your place as well as the self noise of the mic and preamp itself.
So your noise floor is already 60 dB louder than the noise floor of a 24-bit recorder. So trying to get a hotter level by upping the gain on your preamp, or sticking a compressor with gain makeup before the A/D, you're also increasing your acoustic and analog noise floor. You gain no dynamic range and no resolution because rez only matters on useable dynamic range. Making your noisefloor louder is pointless.
Yes, I would turn down softsynths. It's freightening how many presets blatantly clip their own engines these days.