24 Bit Audio

Take a look at this article on the myths and truths of 16 vs 24 bit audio:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded

So yes, I am justified in running my console in 24 bit. 24 bit or higher is important when mixing because if the audio comes in only up to a quarter of the usable dynamic range, you still have 22 bits of range to work with. In addition, when summing, it’s important to have greater latitude (but that’s mostly within the effects processors themselves). If you tried to do the same stuff with CDs, you could end up with less than 16 bits of range especially if you begin applying effects. Using additional bits in mixing allows you to ensure that you maintain an even level of quality in the final product despite variations in source levels and processing. But all ye enjoy ye CDs.

Particularly interesting is the point about dither. When you put the dither in the frequencies that humans don’t hear as well (15-20k), the randomization of the quantization errors still achieves the same effect but it’s less noticeable.

Definitely worth sharing to the audio nerds though. Of course, sampling rate is not covered here and that’s a different discussion 😉

The Shannon-Nyquist theorem guarantees complete reproduction of the input signal given a sampling rate at greater than twice the maximum frequency. This is true for a discrete signal, however that doesn’t account for quantization and in the digital world would require infinite precision of the ADC. Obviously that’s not possible. Hence the dither.

Why you should care about The Beatles’ mono mixes

My mono box set with cute little insert describing this mono tom foolery
My mono box set with cute little insert describing this mono tom foolery

Well the precondition to your reading this article is that you think that the Beatles are pretty cool. Why are they cool? Well, that’s a different article. This one is going to focus on the availability of their music and a little bit of a timeline here.

The year is 1963 and a bunch of yahoos named Paul, John, George, and Ringo are sitting in this studio with another man named George Martin and they’re recording some of the crap they like to sing. Continue reading Why you should care about The Beatles’ mono mixes

Fastest Ways to Break Linux: chown of death

Have you ever wondered how to break Linux real fast? Here is a great example:

I mounted an external drive where you usually do (actually just /mnt … I was lazy). Also, I had previously used that EXT4 volume with my ParagonEXTFS driver on OSX (which, by the way, is terrible). To rectify the permissions, I wanted to do a recursive chown because naturally, everything on the drive should be owned by me. Continue reading Fastest Ways to Break Linux: chown of death

Research on the DSC 1832 Series Alarm System

3/11 – Updated the smoke detector wiring per HSC tech support.

The DIY alarm system is not a new idea, and there are plenty of wireless “ready to go” systems where you just plunk the old thing down and it’s ready to go.

But that’s no fun. Meet the DSC 1832 PowerSeries alarm panel:

A simple kit for the 1832 from the homesecuritystore.com website
A simple kit for the 1832 from the homesecuritystore.com website

Continue reading Research on the DSC 1832 Series Alarm System