I’ve made a mix and opened the Statistics tab for analyzing it. The DC Offset is 1.90% (left channel) and 1.89% (right channel). Being these figures very high I’ve repeated the analysis of the same file but in WaveLab which shows a much more reasonable DC Offset of 0.0830% (left channel) and 0.0832 (right channel).
To be sure I’ve repeated the whole process several times. The figures in both programs remain changeless.
Well, I cant explain the difference between the two results - the question is do both programs use the same algorithm for calculating the DC offset?
The DC offset might be introduced by the AD-Converters or external gear. Or it is “imported” by using samples that carry a dc offset within themselves.
I suspect that Cubase is calculating the percentage incorrectly. Notice that the amounts in dB are the same for both. For example the left channel shows -61.62dB which does equate to 0.083%.
Apparently this has been the case for a long time. I just generated a test file with nothing but DC offset. The left and right channels are constant at 50% and 25% (-6.02dB and -12.04dB respectively).
Wavelab and Audition both report the correct values. Cubase 4, 9.5, and 10 all show 100% on both channels, but the values in dB are correct.
I also tried an ordinary audio file and found a large discrepancy between Cubase and other programs, but it wasn’t off by the same factor as SteelyDani’s post.
Now that I’m thinking about it, perhaps Cubase is calculating DC as the percentage of the RMS level (square wave) of the file instead of full scale. That would explain why my DC test file showed 100% on both channels. If this is the case, why isn’t that applied that to the decibel values?
I’ll try some more tests with varying AC and DC content.