How to prevent clipping and distortion on Master Output?

sinewave · Post by **sinewave** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:12 pm

Hiya

I am fairly new to live though have been producing music for the last few years and understand the logic of limiting to prevent going above 0dB on the master fader of Live 5. What I can't work out is if I have already exported each individual wav file with the Waves L3 Maximiser so that the clips do not go above -0.1dB, why is it that when the fader of each audio track when set to 0dB, that I see that the level is clipping above?

This also affects my master output and causes some sort of distortion and means that I have to bring down the master fader by about 3 dB otherwise it clips. Is the built in Compressor II Limiter preset designed to stop the output clipping beyond 0dB and if so why is it when I use it on the master I still see the master level going above the 0dB mark on the mixer?

Please help

cheers

macdeath · Post by **macdeath** » Sun May 07, 2006 3:53 pm

on the master bus...

lower the levels of all other channels

sinewave · Post by **sinewave** » Sun May 07, 2006 4:18 pm

Hiya..thanks but I was hoping there was something like a limiter preset on Live that would do that for me?

spookydirt · Post by **spookydirt** » Sun May 07, 2006 4:29 pm

i don't know why it does this.

why not just stick a brickwall limiter on the output?

the George Yohng W1 is pretty good, and free, and kind to your CPU)

--andy

Pepehouse · Post by **Pepehouse** » Mon May 08, 2006 2:19 am

Forget Live preset, use a limiter.

Chris J · Post by **Chris J** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:49 pm

sinewave wrote:Hiya

I am fairly new to live though have been producing music for the last few years and understand the logic of limiting to prevent going above 0dB on the master fader of Live 5. What I can't work out is if I have already exported each individual wav file with the Waves L3 Maximiser so that the clips do not go above -0.1dB, why is it that when the fader of each audio track when set to 0dB, that I see that the level is clipping above?

This also affects my master output and causes some sort of distortion and means that I have to bring down the master fader by about 3 dB otherwise it clips. Is the built in Compressor II Limiter preset designed to stop the output clipping beyond 0dB and if so why is it when I use it on the master I still see the master level going above the 0dB mark on the mixer?

Please help

cheers

yes that's one of the things that totally contradicts Robert henke's view on the algorithms used in all DAWS that are according to him all the same.
There's certainly something weird in the way Live handles the levels.

I've reported that many times: the same audio track in Cubase or Live doesn't produce the same level, and clips in live.
in Live if you want to make a track while leaving your master output at zero (like it should be) then all your levels have to be turned down minus 15, making your margin for mixing ridiculously small.

sinewave · Post by **sinewave** » Mon May 08, 2006 7:38 pm

Yeah Chris..it doesn't make sense that a track that is maximised to read -0.1dB in Cubase and is analysed also with Wavelab to have peaks at -01.db to then clip in the Audio track and therefore clip the master output which is set at 0dB.

I am trying to prepare a live set with psychedelic trance music that I have produced and it is frustrating even when I have tried the Waves L3 maximiser on the Master output and set that to -1dB that the Master output still goes red and over the 0 mark?

Anyone else have these issues? Surely if you put a limiter on the Master Bus it should prevent anything going over a set value...am I going crazy????

Chris J · Post by **Chris J** » Mon May 08, 2006 7:45 pm

have you tried to find how low you have to go on the master fader in order not to clip ?

Pepehouse · Post by **Pepehouse** » Mon May 08, 2006 10:40 pm

sinewave wrote:Yeah Chris..it doesn't make sense that a track that is maximised to read -0.1dB in Cubase and is analysed also with Wavelab to have peaks at -01.db to then clip in the Audio track and therefore clip the master output which is set at 0dB.

I am trying to prepare a live set with psychedelic trance music that I have produced and it is frustrating even when I have tried the Waves L3 maximiser on the Master output and set that to -1dB that the Master output still goes red and over the 0 mark?

Anyone else have these issues? Surely if you put a limiter on the Master Bus it should prevent anything going over a set value...am I going crazy????

That's so weird man, when I set the L3 in Live nothing goes over 0dBs it works perfect here in both my laptop and desktop just check if you really activate the plug-in in the Live's plug-in box and be sure you set the L3 in the master bus channel I know it sounds very obvious but I don't find other explanations for this.

kineticUk · Post by **kineticUk** » Mon May 08, 2006 10:45 pm

I agree with you guys...
Also, do you think that all tracks should be stereo ? Even when you are playing back mono audio files, ableton handles them as though they are stereo..I dunno seems strange (Why play back two channels of audio, when we only need one?) maybe this is the same for other sequencers.
As for Cubase and Levels, I think ableton should look at the way they have it working and do the same.But then theres alot I like about cubase.

sinewave · Post by **sinewave** » Wed May 10, 2006 12:17 pm

Ok still no luck with this issue..one thing I forgot to mention is that I run the Scope 4.5 platform with a Creamware Pulsar 2 card with the Scope mixer open in the background...

Does anyone else run this and have similar problems?

cheers

djmichaelwenz · Post by **djmichaelwenz** » Thu May 11, 2006 10:19 am

utility

sinewave · Post by **sinewave** » Thu May 11, 2006 11:08 pm

Hiya

So I have figured out why my audio files were clipping in the Audio Tracks and therefore peaking on the Master Output..It seems that when you place an autofilter on the track that it increases the gain somewhat..it seems poor programming that a filter will increase the gain of the channel...

Anyone else noticed this?

Chris J · Post by **Chris J** » Fri May 12, 2006 5:17 pm

sinewave wrote:Hiya

So I have figured out why my audio files were clipping in the Audio Tracks and therefore peaking on the Master Output..It seems that when you place an autofilter on the track that it increases the gain somewhat..it seems poor programming that a filter will increase the gain of the channel...

Anyone else noticed this?

*

hey, I 'd asked you how much you had to lower your fader but you didn't answer.
This is not poor designing , a filter affects the sound in levels and freq.
You'd said your track was going straight out. Anyway if you have your L3 on the output it shouldn't go above

Pepehouse · Post by **Pepehouse** » Sat May 13, 2006 12:35 am

Live's meters suck, when they show red check the meters of the L3 and you'll see that there's not clippin at all also you won't notice any distortion coming from your speakers despite Ableton says the opposite, so the lesson is set a limiter and don't trust Live meters, ok?

Nothing, absolutely nothing can go above 0dBs if you set the L3 in the master output whatever effect or shit you use.

Another bug to remind to the abes.......

How to prevent clipping and distortion on Master Output?

How to prevent clipping and distortion on Master Output?

Re: How to prevent clipping and distortion on Master Output?