Ableton Forum

Hi all,

So I'm working on some progressive track and I've got my kick, clap, bassline, sub bass and lead.. and in my master I am going red (clipping)... how do I fix this without silencing certain clips?

How do I make it so that all the clips can be heard without clipping lol?

thanks

Turn down all the individual tracks. Nice trick is to put a Utility plug on each track to lower the level by an arbitrary value (say, 6dB) so you have lots of room to later ride the faders during mixing. If it sounds quiet, turn up the control on your speaker.

Also, see Tarekith's guide to mixdowns.

merges wrote:Turn down all the individual tracks. Nice trick is to put a Utility plug on each track to lower the level by an arbitrary value (say, 6dB) so you have lots of room to later ride the faders during mixing. If it sounds quiet, turn up the control on your speaker.

Also, see Tarekith's guide to mixdowns.

this is probably a stupid question but im a stupid man, whats a utility plug?

monkeysee wrote:whats a utility plug?

The reference is to Utility - one of the audio effects in Live.

never exceed 0dB with track faders - if an instrument is too quiet there are plenty of places to adjust volume. that's my golden rule ;D

and some basic tricks
+ You can also make some space for adjusting volume by spreading instruments around the panorama - remember to keep bass drum, bass and lower sounding instruments in phase (mono) or possibly near it.
+ it is easy to make some more room by using sidechain compressor, but be cautious - it is easy to screw things up with it.
+ last but not least: try to keep the instruments organized within certain freq bands. Usually you don't need to get all the bottom freqs of hihat or the highest freqs of bass and cuting the unnecessary will give You the space for the important stuff to be highlighted.

Or you could just select all your tracks (shift + left click) and turn them down.

"Bastien's halfway rule"

1) Leave the master fader at 0 or just under

2) Set all your channel faders to -12 (roughly half way down, or type it in the square box)
2a) You need to drag the mixer up to full height to see the square box I'm on about.

3) Keep all your device output levels down, so the tiny meters between devices in the channel chains are bouncing round the halfway point and don't let them go red.
3a) (this is only a rule-of-thumb, if you actually like that abletonny sound of everything coming apart at the seams, run the little meters red)

4) Then mix around that. But don't turn up your (kick) drum or bass channels too far, keep them peaking at -12 or lower, this peak level is shown on the mixer peak readout (the rounded box) or in a spectrum device.

This will leave loads of headroom on the master. Never let that go over 0 or anywhere near 0. If you want it louder, turn up your stereo.


Now, why Live doesn't set newly added channels to -12 by default, there's a question

bastien wrote:Now, why Live doesn't set newly added channels to -12 by default, there's a question

No DAW does by default. -12 might be a bit extreme for some users and not enough for others and every project is different.

Sage wrote:

bastien wrote:Now, why Live doesn't set newly added channels to -12 by default, there's a question

No DAW does by default. -12 might be a bit extreme for some users and not enough for others and every project is different.

True enough.

But remember, a puppy dies every time someone watches a Youtube "tutorial" video where the master channel is hitting the end stops.

It would have saved a lot of innocent puppy lives.

bastien wrote:Now, why Live doesn't set newly added channels to -12 by default, there's a question

Not officially allowed to comment on beta features, but all I can say is be patient

you can run all your internal channels in Live hot (in the red) without clipping *AS LONG AS... the Master track (output) is not clipping.

Live doesn't clip internally. the red on those track faders is simply letting you know that the signal is above 0 dBs.

H20nly wrote:you can run all your internal channels in Live hot (in the red) without clipping *AS LONG AS... the Master track (output) is not clipping.

Live doesn't clip internally. the red on those track faders is simply letting you know that the signal is above 0 dBs.

Again, true. But then you decide to group a load of those together and put a compressor or limiter on the group... Utterly UN-controllable, until you turn all the enclosed channels down.

^ agreed.

but there is no sense in making the OP live in fear of the color red.

bastien wrote:
Now, why Live doesn't set newly added channels to -12 by default, there's a question

because the ableton instruments have set -12dB output by default,

that's why when working with ableton instruments one may keep the track vol. at 0dB