Ableton Forum

Hi guys. Would like to know all the different methods you guys use for setting all your tracks to an equal volume. What tools or plugs you use etc!

Owen

Hi guys few questions. Having a few problems setting the volumes on my tunes. How do you guys set your volumes in clip view.

What I've been doing is playing the whole track through and adjusting the gain to try hit around -7db rms.

Should I be getting the rms of the whole track or just the ...

look at the compressor's curve, what does it mean?

the x-axis is the input
the y-axis is the output

see how your line only goes up to -6dB? move it to where you want the maximum output to be.

read the 'basics' section here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

and of course ...

no need for the utility plug-in.

read up on compressors.

the way you have it setup the output from the compressor cannot go higher than -6dB. rather than use the Utility plug-in, raise the output of the compressor, make sense?

how would you suggest i get the compressor up to just below 0db? i ...

ok think i've got this, stuck the compressor on the master, followed by utility.

Should i set the gain on utility so that its hitting just below 0db?

Sounding good at the moment. not sure what to set my ratios etc to.

Heres how i've currently got it set up.

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190 ...

Owen252, your tracks are at 0dB with comp/limiting on the 2 right? Well consider this - in the analog realm, -18dBFS (decibels full-scale) is generally considered to be 0VU, meaning -18dB is ZERO. Your mixes are peaking near 18dB above line-level consistently from start to finish which I'd bet is ...

also what RMS do you guys aim for? -6.5 a bit too high?

should i have turned warp mode off when setting gains?

cool.

other people will chime in with better info, but my $0.02...

yeah, it's a common perception that we need compressors and limiters on the master. for my taste it kills the dynamics of the music. I would take ALL that stuff out, practice your set and use your ears to hear what the mix is ...

i have no idea mate! new to ableton so i just guessed it would be best to put it over the master? should i just have the limiter on the master?

also when you double click a tune to bring up the waveform, will reducing the gain reduce the sound quality of that track?

hi guys

im still fairly new to ableton, made a few mixes getting a decent sound but always looking to improve and having a few problems.

I'm using Sonalskis limiter & compressor on my mixes.

What i currently am doing, i have the limiter and the compressor sat on the main channel. Eq eight on ...

well you answered my question mate so i wont bother, cheers

just and so getting to grips with ableton, amazing piece of software.

you think i should get a compressor plugin or just use the ableton one?

dont really want to make a new thread but when making a mix cd do you compress each track indivdually or just compress the channel as a whole?

sussed it now mate! cheers legend!