Digital Drive

Need advice on waveform amplitude

63.116.24.69

I just got a wave file transferred over the Internet from a friend via MediaPro (MediaFire). When opened in a wave editor, the amplitude levels of the waveform look extremely low compared to the wave files I normally work with. I see the same thing in Cool Edit Pro, GoldWave, and Sound Forge.

However, when played back and amplified, the recording sounds fine. So can I simply boost the amplitude? Surely, there must be a point at which the amplitude of a waveform is simply too low to maintain high fidelity. But if I boost it, will I enounter clipping?

In other words, I want to understand what happens when you raise or lower the amplitude of a wave file. For example, if you take a wave file, change the amplitude, change it back again, and then save it to disk, do you end up with the same bits or an approximation?

I've wondered about the same thing when recording a wave from an analog input signal. How high should I set the levels? Assuming that the red lights accurately indicate clipping, I have to set them quite low to avoid it completely. Do I lose anything by doing that? Some people carry it to extremes and I have to wonder whether a tiny amount of clipping results in a better overall recording.

Barry

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