Driving Live's meters into the red

[dopepoo]

Hi all,

This is potentially a very newbie query! I guess it really touches on mixing / mastering more than anything, which I have little technical knowledge of.

Here's a quote from the manual:

"Because of the enormous headroom of Live’s 32-bit floating point audio engine, Live’s meters can be driven far into the red without causing the signals to clip. The only time that signals over 0 dB will be problematic is when routing to or from physical inputs and outputs, like those of your sound card, or when saving audio....."

I wanted to get some other opinions on this quote, if possible.

Firstly, is it likely this information regarding driving into the red is referring to individual channels in Live, the master channel, or both?

Secondly, I have heard it is generally bad practice to allow meters to clip (in any environment), yet this information almost promotes it. Does anyone have any comments regarding 'best practices' here? As a Live user do you typically have faders going into the red?

Finally, I recently mixed a track such that it never went higher than -0.2 on the master channel (in fact, I used a limiter to make up the gain). I read somewhere that getting a mix to -0.2 overall was a good place to be. However, when I rendered the mix (without normalising) to a .wav file, the resulting file was quite low in gain in comparison to other reference mixes, and did not have a very big waveform upon examining it in an audio editor. This confused me because I was under the impression that a track peaking at -0.2 would be optimal. Could anyone cast any light on this matter?

I understand this is probably very fundamental, but my lack of technical knowledge in these areas can be frustrating so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I really want to optimise my mixing / mastering process.

Thanks!

Jake

[jtdj]

First of all, never allow any of your tracks to into the red. Personally would leave -10db to -6db of headroom on the master channel, this will give you plently of space when it comes to mastering.

[Cezband]

Good questions, and good stuff for someone new to consider.

Regarding the quote, I wouldn't read too much in to it - it's Live trying to show off how awesome it's engine is, but the fact of the matter is clipping is always bad (at least in a software context). jtdj has got it spot on - don't clip, anywhere, and in the long run your tracks will sound better.

Regarding the rest of your post, it sounds like you need to learn a little more about percieved loudness. It took me a while to grasp the idea too but there are some really good tutorials that explain it if you search on google. What it essentially means is that due to things like compression, there are ways to make things louder without increasing the gain (and thus clipping).

Essentially, the reason why your tracks sound quieter than the tracks you compare it to is because your stuff has not been mastered. Mastering deals primarily with using what's left of your headroom (that's why a lot of people leave around 6db of headroom on the finished mix) to boost the levels of your music using sophisticated compression techniques. When you're writing and producing a track, never worry about it being too quiet because the actual perceived volume is sorted out in the mastering stage: instead, just turn up your speakers and make sure that mix itself sounds good.

Obviously, you don't want to send every track you make to a mastering engineer because it costs a bunch of money, so if you're just looking at improving volume levels to do some comparisons or to show your friends, you can apply some limiting onto the master channel to do a quick-and-dirty mastering job. Keep in mind that this will never sound as good as a pro masterer doing it because they've got the equipment, the room treatment, and the experience. You could use Live's compressor with a brick wall setting but personally I don't think it's good for this sort of thing. I get a lot of use out of this: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html. It's free and very simple, and modelled on the reasonably well-respected Waves W1 limiter.

Hope that helps.

[Tone Deft]

Live's tracks have ~63dB of headroom. never drive the Master channel into the red.

[simpli.cissimus]

First of all, never allow any of your tracks to into the red. Personally would leave -10db to -6db of headroom on the master channel, this will give you plently of space when it comes to mastering.

...can't be better explained !!!

[Tone Deft]

First of all, never allow any of your tracks to into the red. Personally would leave -10db to -6db of headroom on the master channel, this will give you plently of space when it comes to mastering.

...can't be better explained !!!

but he's wrong.

[dysanfel]

And once you know the rules, discard them. If the music your making requires driving the sound into the red then do it! Use your ears.

[Tone Deft]

And once you know the rules, discard them. If the music your making requires driving the sound into the red then do it! Use your ears.

/cringe

[jtdj]

First of all, never allow any of your tracks to into the red. Personally would leave -10db to -6db of headroom on the master channel, this will give you plently of space when it comes to mastering.

...can't be better explained !!!

but he's wrong.

explain?

[H20nly]

^ he already did:

Live's tracks have ~63dB of headroom. never drive the Master channel into the red.

you can make all your tracks as loud as you want as long as the master doesn't go into the red.

its still true that you should be comfortably below zero dB on the master for the sake of the mastering engineer though... if you plan on using someone else. at least a -3 dB peak preferably around -6 dB

[3phase]

ableton has no internal gainstructure..that leads to an inferior sound quality and many problems when interfacing with the outside world. like direct out routings to digital desks for example..

you better learn to have your levels under control because no other daw is so forgiving as live when you drive evrything too hot..
..
on the other hand you cant really work with live when using headroom and it appears to me that it also degenerates the soudnquality more than on other daws running low levels.. but i am nit sure about that.. maybe cubase just sounds better regardless of the leveling..

[mdk]

the fact of the matter is clipping is always bad (at least in a software context). jtdj has got it spot on - don't clip, anywhere, and in the long run your tracks will sound better

right, clipping is bad, but driving any track except the master into the red doesn't mean its clipping. as Tone says you have about 63db of headroom on each individual channel before you start clipping, BUT pushing channels into the red does make it harder to keep the master from clipping. so save yourself the effort and try to keep your channels in the green.

remember you can select multiple channels at the same time so you can pull all the faders together.

[kanuck]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5361152922#
it's explained here.

I think the point is if you accidently let your individual track level clip. It won't clip the whole track unless it's clipping the master. So still a good idea not to do it.

btw, that video says it'll be removed on April 29th so better watch it before then.. or find a different one.

[Tarekith]

Keep in mind that while you can drive the track meters into the red, you could inadvertently be clipping any plug ins on those channels in the process (depending on how the plug ins handle hot signals). Best to just be smart about your gain staging and don't let things get to that point anyway.

[timek]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5361152922#
it's explained here.

Thanks Kanuck, great video !