MusicRadar

You don't have to use a sampler to sample: you're effectively doing it every time you record a piece of digital audio. And when you're dealing with digital audio, there are some well-known pitfalls that you should avoid falling into and tricks that will help you to handle it better.

Here, we've picked out eight particularly common issues that anyone who works with audio on a computer will have to deal with.

Plumb the depths

The bit-rate of a digital audio file refers to how many bits of information are used to represent each sample. A higher bit-rate means greater audio fidelity. So when recording audio at 16-bit, the only way to get a full quality recording is to record as close to the point where the wave clips (0dB) as possible, making full use of the dynamic range of the system - a recording that peaks at -6dB is effectively only 15-bit.

Obviously, this isn't always easy, so many modern soundcards enable you to record at higher bit-depths, such as 24-bit, which results in a much higher resolution recording without having to risk clipping the signal.

Zero tolerance

When cutting, pasting and deleting sections of digital audio, abruptly starting or cutting off a wave midway can result in an unnatural dropout, which often produces a click sound upon playback. To avoid this and other unnatural wave shapes when editing digital audio, it's useful to pay attention to their zero-crossings. This is the point where the wave has no amplitude - in a graphical wave editor, it's usually the middle point, marked by the horizontal axis.

Many wave editors enable you to toggle automatically finding zero crossings when selecting sections of audio, so it's wise to use these functions. Otherwise, you'll need to zoom in and make sure you cut precisely at these points.

Smoothing things out

Sometimes when making an edit, the zero crossing won't be where you need it. For example, lengthy low frequency waves can make cutting out a sound cleanly on zero crossings quite awkward. However, in these situations, you can actually create your own zero crossing by using the Fade In and Fade Out functions of your sample editor or DAW. So, make your edits without being concerned about where the cuts occur on the wave, then zoom in and highlight any awkward joins and use the Fade In or Fade Out function to create a smoother gradient and avoid clicks.

In the loop

To turn a short sample into a continuous tone, you'll need to find a point where you can make it loop seamlessly. The best point to loop a simple lead or bass tone is usually on a single-wave cycle. However, you'll soon discover that any imperfections in the join result in unwanted buzzing sounds. To avoid this and improve your chances of being able to loop a tone smoothly, it's once again a good idea to look for zero-crossings at which to set Loop Start and Loop End points.

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