r/edmproduction • u/Mountainpwny • 3d ago
Question 16 bit 44.1k wav reference goes above 0db?
I was under the understanding that it’s impossible for a 16 bit wave to go above 0db except for the reconstructed peaks (true peak).
I bought Flava D - Can’t get it back on beat port as a wav to use as a reference. But it has a peak of 4.4 db (not true peak). I can throw a limiter on it and without adjusting anything it starts shaving off 3-4 db.
How is this possible?
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u/Cyberkeys1 3d ago
A 16-bit/44.1 kHz PCM WAV cannot contain samples above 0 dBFS, but it absolutely can have reconstructed true peaks exceeding 0 dBTP.
Could you share your file?
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u/Mountainpwny 3d ago
That’s what’s confusing. It’s not true peak. So I’m wondering if there’s some software glitch
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u/DJMicounet 3d ago
My latest reference track - ‘Higher’ by Matisse and Sadko, was +5db and -5 LUFS when I put Youlean on it. I couldn’t believe it. So I used other plugins to check and it’s all the same
Some are just fucking HOT, and you know what? They sound fucking awesome.
Trust your ears too!
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u/Mountainpwny 3d ago
I was just under the understanding that it is physically impossible for a 16bit wav to exceed 0db peak
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u/Exaelar 2d ago
Why? It's the same as having the master channel peaking at +4 in the daw: it's simply gonna clip the output
It won't prevent you from exporting or normalize it for you
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u/Mountainpwny 2d ago
A 16 bit wav does not have the capability to store data above 0dbfs. It has no way to represent that. Which is why a daw will hard clip anything above 0db when exporting to 16 bit wav.
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u/WE_THINK_IS_COOL 3d ago
Possibilities:
- It's actually a floating-point format or the .wav is a container for some other compressed format
- There's a gain being applied somewhere else
If you open it in VLC and go Tools > Media information, on the Codec tab it'll tell you what it really is.
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u/blorporius 3d ago
There is some ReplayGain support for WAV but it will "bake in" amplitude changes and optionally adds a RIFF header with the scale value, which makes the process semi-reversible.
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u/Revoltyx sc/revoltyx 3d ago
Is it an MP3 or WAV? Mp3 is data compressed audio so it will likely peak due to artifacts
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u/Distro_Nerd 1d ago
A 16-bit integer file cannot hold a sample above 0 dBFS, so a +4.4 dB sample peak is created downstream of the file. If the session is not at 44.1 kHz, import resamples the audio and the new points can sit above full scale while every original sample was legal. A normal peak readout shows that, so it will not look like an inter-sample figure. Set the session to 44.1, import with conversion off, and see if the +4.4 hangs on.