Driving Live's meters into the red

[contakt321]

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.

/thread

[spektralisk]

Technical explanation is simple. Live internally handle all signals as 32bit floating point which guarantee far greater dynamic range. That's why you have so much headroom for each track. The problem is when signal leaves digital domain and enter analog, because audio is converted to integer (much smaller number range) representation which cannot handle some of (loud) signals that can be represented without problem in 32bit floating point. So whatever track is connected to audio interface out (e.g. master) will get its audio converted to say 24 or 16 bit integer. This conversion will just trim loud signals that exceed maximum range of integer and this will be audible as distortion. So as far as you attenuate master you can exceed 0db on tracks that are just used internally in sequencer but this is really bad practice - one of reasons was mentioned by Tarekith. It's best to keep all levels below 0db on every track and you will be fine.

[dopepoo]

Thanks all for the responses and information. Lots to digest there - it's much appreciated!

Jake

[swishniak]

also keep in mind all the tracks are going through the main master.

i often send several tracks very hot through various effects on the main master. as long as whatever comes out of your master channel isnt totally clipped (and sounds good), youre fine.

i know its probably not how they teach it in school, but you can achieve some interesting sounds when hitting filters/compressors/limiters with a "hot" level.

[DangerousDave]

^^^True, I read an article in computer music mag (i know, i know) about how sometimes driving compressors hot can get desired results for certain music types, but i still feel safer usually leaving everything FAR away form the red

[Tone Deft]

as long as whatever comes out of your master channel isnt totally clipped (and sounds good), youre fine.

I like the 'don't worry about it' approach. one thing to keep in mind is rendering. it might play fine with some clipping in the Master but the rendering algorithms might not be so kind. it's funny how we say to never push it into the red, it's not like it all goes to hell every time it touches red.

$0.02...

[swishniak]

as long as whatever comes out of your master channel isnt totally clipped (and sounds good), youre fine.

I like the 'don't worry about it' approach. one thing to keep in mind is rendering. it might play fine with some clipping in the Master but the rendering algorithms might not be so kind. it's funny how we say to never push it into the red, it's not like it all goes to hell every time it touches red.

$0.02...

has anyone here ever recorded to tape?

[0fps]

Actually from Live 8, bit analysis has been increased in all ? points at 64 bits.

[Tone Deft]

as long as whatever comes out of your master channel isnt totally clipped (and sounds good), youre fine.

I like the 'don't worry about it' approach. one thing to keep in mind is rendering. it might play fine with some clipping in the Master but the rendering algorithms might not be so kind. it's funny how we say to never push it into the red, it's not like it all goes to hell every time it touches red.

$0.02...

has anyone here ever recorded to tape?

you sound like 3phase.

[swishniak]

has anyone here ever recorded to tape?

you sound like 3phase.[/quote]

no need to get nasty now. besides he shouldnt be the only whiny, grumpy, jaded, complaining, self-hating, belligerent, .. on this board.

[Tone Deft]

that's what we're here for! I'll do the Pacific Time zone, you handle Europe and Asia.

why can't Live just make songs for me? it's way too much work as it is now, it's needs a total re-write. they've lost this loyal customer unless I can get 83% off the vocoder...

[H20nly]

^ ... yeah and Live's Turbo Tax pluggin didn't get my taxes just the way i like em... so i need 75% off of the Orchestral Instrument Collection or else i'll start a disgruntled thread with a real long diatribe threatening Ableton with my potential to have the capacity to leave eventually n stuff as the first post

you're driving me into the red Ableton!

[Nx1]

just because you can drive it into the red doesnt mean you should... You should get in a habit of leaving at least 4db of headroom on your master channel.

[Gaetano CAPUANO]

I would like to learn how to dial in some of the compressors to raise my perceived loudness with out increasing the gain or clipping. It seems like my stuff evaporates in the mix. Maybe even a preset that would work?

[cotdagoo]

to quote comedian chris rock - "you can drive a car with your feet if you want to... don't mean it's a good fuckin' idea"