Hi forum,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6zJGbaQFM_JcHRrTENDaUpnV2M/view?usp=sharing

(WARNING KEEP SPEAKERS LOW)

I made this sound with a pd patch and a recorded sample from a guitar player. Basically the idea is to have some ethereal ambiance that swells into an epic cloud of sound that will serve as an intro into one of our songs.

The problem is that the soundfile clips like crazy in any audio editor program, and some (like REAPER) automatically "Automute" their output when trying to play this file.

To record this sample, I used [writesf~]. I sent the message [open -bytes 4 $1( to [writesf~] (where "$1" is the save location), to make sure I was recording in 32 bit float format, to ensure the max amount of headroom possible. My patch contains an instance of [freeverb~] with the feedback set to 1.1 (which allows the sound to feedback onto itself).

When recording this patch, I simply monitored the output through [dac~]. I let the sound get crazy loud, but I was always listening for the sound of digital clipping. As soon as I heard the first bit of clipping, I muted the track and stopped recording.

I am running OS X, and when I play the sound back through FInder's Preview function, the sound files sounds exactly the way I recorded it. However, in my audio programs, the sound clips like a barber cutting hair.

I have double checked to make sure that the bit depth in my DAW's (I have tested in Audacity, REAPER, and GarageBand) are at least 32 bit float, I guess I am confused because even though the waveform of this file appears to be a solid white bar by the end of it, it sounds really good to me without any of that nasty cliipping sound. I would love to use it if possible.

If anyone has any advice on how to best capture this kind of sound, please let me know!

@whale-av Yeah good suggestion but pd is at 44.1 as well as everything else. Haha all my "pro" program are free (well, the demo version of REAPER is pretty much the actual version) but they all have the ability to support 32 bit float precision. BTW Finder is just a file browser on Mac that gives you previews of your documents (screenshots of documents, a stripped down audio player for music files etc.)

@rjp9 I just had a look at the file, and at a certain point distortion is inevitable..... there are some big numbers there!
When I download, I get this:

but that is not the problem...... this is!:

That is what overload distortion looks like (from 47 seconds).
Maybe you can look at your numers with "magic glass" as you are writing the file, and then let us all know what the "max" pd level could be when writing such a file?
HOWEVER.... I do not understand how "preview" can play that without any distortion.
Maybe it is time for me to boot into OSX for the first time in years!
Good luck to you though,
David.

@whale-av Yeah that's what I get when loading into any of my DAWs. I guess there probably is a ton of "distortion", but when I recorded the file, or when I play it back through finder, I didn't hear any of that crappy digital clipping sound that I hear now. It just sounds glorious and "I feel like I'm ascending into heaven" epic. I knew posting here was probably a longshot, and the problem is probably just me recording way too hot.

Could someone try running this natively in pd and tell me how it sounds? I prepared a simple patch to play the file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6zJGbaQFM_JQTRhSUIzemZXRmM/view?usp=sharing

Sorry in advance for the huge file size

@rjp9 Yes, that deserves some research... here it is with the volume reduced by 30db, and distortion free from 47-57 seconds. So the osx "quick look" manages to normalise the track and play it correctly, and at 32bit depth the information is not lost.

All of my "pro" players have a problem.... Header? Wrapper?
No............. because you have generated the file within the os you can recover the information...... http://reaperblog.net/2015/02/video-24-and-32-bit-recording-formats-explained/
David.

Hi, the issue is the automatic volume attenuation performed by OSX. This is why I always put a [clip~ -1 1] in an abstraction with dac~, in order to hear what will actually clip.

here are some reference threads (knowledge of this is elusive but the devs @ Supercollider know of it):
http://new-supercollider-mailing-lists-forums-use-these.2681727.n2.nabble.com/maximum-mac-output-volume-vs-maximum-DiskOut-volume-td6251885.html

http://new-supercollider-mailing-lists-forums-use-these.2681727.n2.nabble.com/Saturation-td3188723.html quote:

1. Newer audio drivers on OSX put some automatic
   level compression on the outputs, which prevent
   distortion - so you won't know you are too loud!
   recordings of the same sounds with dsikout can be
   badly distorted, because
   that signal is not 'protected'.

2 to make sure you hear things the same as Diskout, you can put distortion
on the server's main output within SC, something like this:

@seb-harmonik.ar Wow I had no idea. Good call because this was driving me up a wall. Thanks for posting those links!

Sorry I don't know [Freeverb~] very well and therefore cannot judge wether I'm off topic by far, but once I played a few minutes with other patches that seem to do similar things, and may be worth the curiosity. I didn't notice any uncontrolled increase in sound intensity.
You'll find them at http://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/8546/modifying-reverb-patch-to-achieve-infinite-reverberation

Nau