[sc-users] End to end amplitude control and system headroom?

[Philip Galanter <list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

When I recently changed a synth to use sampled sound via PlayBuf  
rather than oscillators I noticed a significant drop in overall  
loudness.  There are a lot of reasons why that might happen but it  
leads me to a couple general questions regarding Supercollider.

First, I didn't see Buffer.read documented in terms of which audio  
file formats are supported.  Right now I'm using mono 24-bit 44,100  
samples/sec .aif files.  Any worries there?  It seems to work but the  
loudness thing has me wondering.

Also, what is the bit depth (floating point?) and sample rate of the  
server itself?  Should I try to match sample files to that?

Finally, if I have samples that use the full available range, and then  
use a factor of 1.0 where there is any kind of amplitude scaling,  
should I expect that the sound ultimately coming out of the DAC at the  
end will also be full range without clipping?  Or does the system  
reserve some headroom in a way I should be aware of?

Thanks (again) for help with these beginner-like questions.  There is  
a lot of SC documentation out there, but finding the right page isn't  
always so easy.

Phil

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