Headroom in Ableton????

[Oliver Chesler]

http://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/01/25/ ... er-at-0db/

[Jan Holm]

Thanks to the floating point audio engine you can drive any internally routed tracks rather hot (about +60 db in Live)
without clipping. Every track that is sent to a physical output of your audio interface should not go beyond 0 dbfs.
Best,
Nico

In that case - would there be any disadvantage of just putting
the ableton utility plug on the master and pull down the gain
until there's no clipping - instead of adjusting all seperate tracks.

[leedsquietman]

I don't allow any peaks above -5db, and this would be the odd transient and on tracks like a drum subgroup where you get more transients, I usually set a limiter at -5db. Typically the average peaking at -10 to -12 is good. Use the extra headroom 24 bit affords you. Helps prevent clipping and such.

This is assuming we are working with 24 bit audio. With 16 bit audio, you should aim for higher peaks to use all the bits for better signal to noise ratio. So there, peaks of -3db are fine. You still want to avoid clipping and 16 bit gives you less wiggle room, so it is much more preferable to record in 24 bit.

Clipping in a track channel is also not desirable, not just the master channel. It will cause audio artifacts later, especially when compressed and limited on mastering. It might be OK if it's not too much, through a live sound system to have a few overs, but is just poor engineering practice when recording in a studio or home studio for a product that ends up as CD audio or mp3 etc.

[[nis]]

In that case - would there be any disadvantage of just putting
the ableton utility plug on the master and pull down the gain
until there's no clipping - instead of adjusting all seperate tracks.

As long as internal routings are concerned and you do not exceed the aforementioned 60 db limit, it does not make any difference if you adjust the track volumes or the master. That's the theory. Oliver made a valid point in his Blog article, though: certain plugins can add distortion if you feed hot signals into them. All VST and AU plugins generally use 32-bit floating point processing internally, so they would theoretically not clip either, but some plugins may use certain algorithms to add "analog warmth" or a "vintage sound" to your signals, which is in fact harmonic distortion. If driven hot on the input, such plugins can add too much (unwanted) distortion. Same thing is true for most dynamic tools (compressors etc). Other tracks which just host "simple" plugins, such as delays etc, can be driven hot.

Keeping your track volumes low is a good and safe strategy for a good mix. And: if it sounds good, it is good.

[Bunky Freaks]

i'm also mixing at the these levels.
Though one might consider putting a utility plugin in every channel set to -12 db instead of pulling all channel faders down to -12 db.
The resolution of the fader movements is a bit higher @ unity gain especially when lowering the volume (due to the scaling of the faders). That way small volume changes are bit more exact and easier to achieve.

[Grappadura]

i'm also mixing at the these levels.
Though one might consider putting a utility plugin in every channel set to -12 db instead of pulling all channel faders down to -12 db.
The resolution of the fader movements is a bit higher @ unity gain especially when lowering the volume (due to the scaling of the faders). That way small volume changes are bit more exact and easier to achieve.

Also, if you map all gains to one controller knob, you can adjust the overall volume adjusting each tracks volume equally, which is not possible with the faders (unless you map them all to the same controller knob of course).

[Jan Holm]

As long as internal routings are concerned and you do not exceed the aforementioned 60 db limit, it does not make any difference if you adjust the track volumes or the master. That's the theory. Oliver made a valid point in his Blog article, though: certain plugins can add distortion if you feed hot signals into them. .

For some time I've been running this way. No overshoot on individual
tracks and a utility plug as the first on the master. This normally sits
about -12 on my master. This is the one gain to rule them all - and this
method also, as Bunky noted, gives better resolution on the individual
channel automations.

Whats not to like..........

[Bunky Freaks]

levimoniz: for me, it's not about what is more work, but what gives better results. Copy/pasting a utility plugin in every channel before mixing a song should take a comparable amount of time to setting all faders to -12 dB (half a minute or so

In the end only the results count: but better workflow usually gives better results, so everyone has to find their own way of setting up their prefered "mixing template".

The potential advantage of the "utility plug in every channel" methode instead of putting one utility in the master channel is, that it may prevent overloading the input of some plugins (admittedly, i personally didn't experience any issues in this regard).