is it possible to reduce all levels?

[Johnisfaster]

my bad (kinda) ...I can't imagine why anyone would ever go 40 db into the red unless they were intending to do so.

Actually I attended a Waves clinic last week where they showed a plug in that does something like that for a whole bunch of money. It supposedly models some old analog board to get the overdriven high end harmonics and whatnot.

I see the little face with rolling eyes but I do have have to say that I've only heard amazing things come out of those waves plugs. though I'm not familiar with the one you're talking about.

[xzusa8ky]

:::best fix i guess?

Limiter:::Limiter:::Limiter

:::That could fix your problem and you dont have to put down the Master signal:::

:::Actually my experiences is that a Limiter really do take the Mastering stress away when we are talking about "Red Lights"

:::If you would ask me for a good helper this one could be very handy, the name is "Finis" a very good choice and it just sounds brilliant i think.

[Benshik]

the name is "Finis" a very good choice and it just sounds brilliant i think.

+1

[queglay]

so is it tru i can go almost to 40+ db in live and not get distortion until i hit the master track?

[Tone Deft]

so is it tru i can go almost to 40+ db in live and not get distortion until i hit the master track?

I wouldn't answer that specific of a question until I tried it and then I thought...

[Syntheme]

so is it tru i can go almost to 40+ db in live and not get distortion until i hit the master track?

in 16 bits, the audio range is -32768 to +32767 [EDIT: corrected range]
in 32 bits, the audio range is -2147483648 to +2147483647 [EDIT: corrected range]

so normalised audio in 16 bit can be made 65536 times louder and not clip when processed as 32 bit.

coverting to decibels: 10 * Log10(65536) = +48.16 dB

[Tone Deft]

so is it tru i can go almost to 40+ db in live and not get distortion until i hit the master track?

in 16 bits, the audio range is -32767 to +32768
in 32 bits, the audio range is -2147483647 to +2147483648

so normalised audio in 16 bit can be made 65536 times louder and not clip when processed as 32 bit.

coverting to decibels: 10 * Log10(65536) = +48.16 dB

Different applications of decibels use 10*log(x), others use 20*log(x), audio and bit depth uses 20*log(x).

This is a link I found http://www.pcmus.com/digthe.htm#drb

16 bit audio has ~96dB of dynamic range. Instead of +/- 32767 it's 0 to 65536. Decibels are an odd unit of measure, named after Alexander Graham Bell, weird history to it. Too tired, too late to get into the thread's topic.

I'd suggest experimentation, the coding of all this isn't straightforward, IMO.

[Syntheme]

here's the ableton file: http://syntheme.com/testProject.zip


if you boost the audio by more than +48.1dB (and correspondingly reduce it by the same amount on the master track) you get clipping on the resampled audio. Boost the audio by +48.1dB or less and you get no clipping.

∴ a normalised piece of audio in ableton can be made 65536 times louder before it starts to clip
∴ it's ok to let your tracks go into the red as long as you adjust the master fader to compensate

[Syntheme]

m'kay?

[robin]

Nicely explained.

This is also good.

[queglay]

very cool. thanks for that info!

[wilxon]

Hey,


Just pull down the master fader.

This will turn all channels down by equal amounts