Metering scale

[dustbg]

Hello,
I'm very confused which metering scale is used in AL9?
Is it VU or digital? If it is digital why it has +6? Tne maximum in digital is 0.



In manual is written:

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 to a file.

But I can't understand which metering scale is used.

[Tarekith]

It's dB Full Scale, so digital.

[dustbg]

Then what does it mean +6???

Digital scale is up to 0.

[Tarekith]

In a 32bit floating point system like most DAWs use, you can actually represent numbers above 0. 0dBFS only becomes a limit when you use flixed point math.

[re:dream]

So it's like values below zero Kelvin.

But with sound, not temperature.

[invol]

Also, don't confuse the metering scale with the volume fader's labeling. Tarekith is correct about 32 bit audio, but additionally, the +6 means you can add that much gain to the incoming signal, above unity gain, which is also labelled as 0. Don't confuse 0 dBFS , measured by the peak meters in Live, and the volume setting of 0 which means no change in dB to the incoming signal.

[fishmonkey]

what 0 dBFS means is simply a convention based upon digital to analogue conversion. most devices that convert digital signals to analogue signals for playback will clip at a voltage level somewhere around 0 dBFS.

when processing audio inside the digital realm where you are just dealing with numbers there is no reason why you can't go above 0 dBFS, as Live does.

[mots]

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 to a file.

but keep in mind that some effect behave differently at different levels. some distort at high levels. therefore keeping some sort of gain structure is always a good idea ! of course you dont need to follow the rules a closely as in the analogue world but it never hurts http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr98/a ... cture.html

[3dot...]

full scale

0 dBfs usually +12/+18 dBVU IF i'm not mistaken...

Those other measuring scales you put up are loudness measurement standards for broadcast
http://www.tcelectronic.com/loudness/br ... standards/