Vision and Studio Vision Pro Version 4.1 Manual ... - House of Synth

CHAPTER 11: Acadia: Optimizing for Digital Audio
If we set the Fade Duration to 100 ms by
clicking the “Medium” button, Vision will
automatically smooth the signal within
100 ms of the amplitude change.
Smoothing ramps created by a
Fade duration of 100 ms
Play and Record Offsets
Figure 11.10: Audio Preferences, Play and Record
Offsets
64
66
78
68
The Play and Record Offsets are used to
improve the synchronization of audio and
MIDI.
Figure 11.8: Smoother amplitude changes after
applying Smooth Audio Controllers
Dither Outputs
Figure 11.9: Audio Preferences, Dither Outputs
Once audio has been recorded or
imported into Vision, it is processed and
routed using floating-point calculations,
which is more flexible and precise than
using 16 or 24 bits.
However, when the audio is output, or
“bounced to disk,” it is first converted to
either 16 or 24 bits (depending on your
ASIO driver). In doing so, some amount
of digital quantizing occurs, which can
lead to unwanted digital artifacts in the
audio signal (noticeable as a certain
“grainy” quality when fading a sound out).
When you click Dither Outputs, a very
small amount of random noise is added to
the signal in order to mask the digital
quantizing, resulting in cleaner fades.
The following sections discuss the purpose
of these two controls, their default
values, why you might need to modify
them, and how to do so.
Play Offset
Use the Play Offset to “shift” audio playback
time relative to the sequence’s MIDI
playback time. The shift is expressed as a
number of audio samples, and can be
either positive or negative.
• Positive numbers make Vision start
processing audio playback before its
designated start time. This is desirable
because your computer requires
a certain amount of processing time
to play the audio. By adding a positive
offset equal to the time required to
process the audio, your MIDI and
audio tracks sound synchronized.
• Negative numbers make Vision start
processing audio playback after its
designated start time.
Vision & Studio Vision Pro — Version 4.1 Manual Supplement 89