confused about volume in Live

[nopattern]

my question is more out of curiosity than a problem, but may dictate my decision to buy live 9 or not. i've searched the forum but none of the answers were concrete

i am failing to understand where ableton is defining 0dbfs and how the pan law plays into this

working mainly with maschine, cubase and live. often times i program the music in maschine running in standalone and resample my jamming internally in maschine until i have enough content to edit into a track. i bring the maschine recordings into cubase, make into full track, repeat... works great.

live has some appealing features for this type of workflow but i have noticed a few things. One is that the files i'm recording/exporting from maschine and cubase are significantly louder than anything i've exported from live. Even the raw uncompressed recordings from maschine that i simply normalized are louder than stuff i benchmark mixed to my reference in live.

Also, while running maschine as a vst inside Live the mixer indicates that i am clipping the output gain-stage of maschine. when running maschine in standalone mode the EXACT same project does not show clipping!!

almost every night i do about an hour in the car with my phone playing tracks i'm working on. some of the ableton mixes, although quieter i actually liked better. it's hard to explain, a few of the ableton mixes seemed to have this extra depth but much less volume and i can't get it where i need without distorting the limiter. speaking of that i noticed that i am having to push the compressors more in ableton to get even close to my normal average volume where cubase/maschine i'm ever pushing anything to hard and it's still louder

[H20nly]

a couple of things i know, right off the top of my head, that could change the way things [appear to] work in Live vs. OTHERDAW

1. Warping. - do you have autowarp long samples turned on? if so, this could change your audio output slightly
2. Live can be run hot... HOT as long as the Master track does not clip. - i can't remember the number over 0 dbfs your tracks can go to in Live, but it is something ridiculous like +60. just keep the Master straight and the sky is damn near the limit.




*disclaimer - my post is not saying or implying that either of these 2 examples are or are not part of what you are hearing/not hearing, but i do mean to say that there are numerous variables to account for and these are 2 of them.

[Quez]

I'm not sure this is what you mean but in my experience, too high frequencies variations in some songs leads to lower overall volume.

[Tone Deft]

I'm not sure this is what you mean but in my experience, too high frequencies variations in some songs leads to lower overall volume.

you've had some very strange experiences.

[Quez]

Yes indeed.

Basically I mean often having to use EQ to help balance it all in the mix.

[nopattern]

my question was about volume, i'm happy with the balance and tone of the files i export.

read the issue about running a kit in maschine standalone vs inside live. my kit shows clipping in live while standalone in maschine there is no clipping period, exact same kit/settings. i want to know the reason for this

[TYLRbass]

2. Live can be run hot... HOT as long as the Master track does not clip. - i can't remember the number over 0 dbfs your tracks can go to in Live, but it is something ridiculous like +60. just keep the Master straight and the sky is damn near the limit.

You have to be careful about this when using 3rd party plugins. AFAIK this works fine for native Live devices but with plugins you might be clipping going into or coming out of the plugin so watch out for that. EDIT: Ironically sometimes this is the desired effect - dat distortion

[H20nly]

2. Live can be run hot... HOT as long as the Master track does not clip. - i can't remember the number over 0 dbfs your tracks can go to in Live, but it is something ridiculous like +60. just keep the Master straight and the sky is damn near the limit.

You have to be careful about this when using 3rd party plugins. AFAIK this works fine for native Live devices but with plugins you might be clipping going into or coming out of the plugin so watch out for that. EDIT: Ironically sometimes this is the desired effect - dat distortion

i don't run very many plugs, mostly just reverbs and strings, but that bit-o-info is worth keeping in mind...

thanks.

[evon]

I'm not sure this is what you mean but in my experience, too high frequencies variations in some songs leads to lower overall volume.

you've had some very strange experiences.

Yes, that is true, too much energy in the Bass frequencies will result in overall volume reduction. These bigger wavelengths cause the Compressor/Limiter to react earlier, especially the ones on the Master Track and which will cause a reduction in overall gain.

Try working without compressors or even limiters until you gather all your material in Live and pay attention to your gain staging. In other words, I wouldn't worry about overall volume until mix-down. At those early stages, Volume management should be concerned mainly with getting the gain staging correct.

[ikeaboy]

Just a thought, as I don't own Maschine. From what your describing your rendered live tracks have more dynamic range (how I'd interpret your description of depth) and are quieter on your phone that your Maschine exports. Also Maschine reports clipping in Live but not in standalone for the same projects. Sounds to me like Maschine is limiting or compressing the output when in standalone giving more volume but a denser shallow sound. How does Maschine report the standalone output volume to you? is there an automatic limiting checkbox ticked somewhere?

[keydaking]

I understand what you mean, cause i experience it all the time. Live records and renders so loud. I just recently purchased mixbus, and a file clipping in live is middle of the meter in Mixbus. I encounter this problem all the time recording vocals. I spend most of my time editing. Im not sure why this happens, given the quality of DAW that ableton is.

[evon]

There are so many variables that can cause this. How the files are rendered that are used in Live ie Bit Depth, Sample Rate, Normalization. I am not the expert on this, but I am certain that each instance if examined can be explained. Live is very transparent, and what you put in is what you get.

Somehow, I have a feeling that the answer lies in the use of the available dynamic range and how this is affected by the way the files are prepared when moving them between the DAWS.