Ableton Forum

Hi everyone,

in Live 8 I use the Drum Rack for my Hihats. Usually as I go along I'll add more and more, say 12 to 16 different ones. Eventually though, when many of them are used at the same time, the Drum Rack's output meter will run into the red. My question basically is, is there anything wrong with it as long as I only use Live's own effects after it (seeing as they should be able to handle the floating point values)? I know it's not good practice and for the sake of that I'll probably pull down each Hihat volume until the output is green and then re-balance them, it's just annoying.
Maybe you have different workflows or tips to share..? Not exactly a pro in beat programming..

Cheers

biatch wrote: when many of them are used at the same time, the Drum Rack's output meter will run into the red. My question basically is, is there anything wrong with it as long as I only use Live's own effects after it

Well, let your ears be the primary guide, but remember you typically will need to investigate end volumes with the appropriate tools, like Spectrum and possible also with oversampling tools that can handle any inter-sample peaks that may be unhearable.

It's not like you lose any options lowering a track volume in a 24bit project. In reality the higher volume you got on the busses and master, the less options you have in addressing that at that stage. If you want to have a higher RMS on an instrument track, use compression. Personally, I use gentle multistage compression on the instrument track, in the buss and on the master.

Stromkraft wrote:

biatch wrote: when many of them are used at the same time, the Drum Rack's output meter will run into the red. My question basically is, is there anything wrong with it as long as I only use Live's own effects after it

Well, let your ears be the primary guide, but remember you typically will need to investigate end volumes with the appropriate tools, like Spectrum and possible also with oversampling tools that can handle any inter-sample peaks that may be unhearable.

I see.. guess it's safe to just stay below that then.

It's not like you lose any options lowering a track volume in a 24bit project. In reality the higher volume you got on the busses and master, the less options you have in addressing that at that stage. If you want to have a higher RMS on an instrument track, use compression. Personally, I use gentle multistage compression on the instrument track, in the buss and on the master.

It's not that I need it to be that loud (I'm mixing right now with none of the track meters hitting above -6)--it's that while gradually building a track, I'll add more and more hats or some percussion or whatever to the rack and eventually its output meter will become red. It's just annoying mixing the Hihats, i.e. balancing their volumes inside the rack, while at the same time having to look at their overall volume i.e. the Instrument Rack output volume. Let's say some crash isn't loud enough. I crank it up a little but what happens is that now the output is above 0dB only at the point the crash is played. In order not to let that happen I'd have to keep the crash volume where it is, turn down every single other hat in the rack by the same percentage so as to have the mix I want, and then marginally turn up the volume of the track holding the instrument rack. Which is annoying but maybe it doesn't have to be done that way?

I run into this sometimes. You just have to turn everything down more to get it to not redline; gain staging is important. I wish there was a way to control all drum rack faders at once or a VCA fader type of control which they were all grouped to.

biatch wrote:It's just annoying mixing the Hihats, i.e. balancing their volumes inside the rack, while at the same time having to look at their overall volume i.e. the Instrument Rack output volume. Let's say some crash isn't loud enough. I crank it up a little but what happens is that now the output is above 0dB only at the point the crash is played. In order not to let that happen I'd have to keep the crash volume where it is, turn down every single other hat in the rack by the same percentage so as to have the mix I want, and then marginally turn up the volume of the track holding the instrument rack. Which is annoying but maybe it doesn't have to be done that way?

My approach is simply to strive for -18dBFS RMS peaking at between -12 and -6 when tracking and setting up initial levels per drum channel. Sometimes I do transient treatments before compression and sometimes instead of compression just to keep things under control. Transient treatments of course also affecting the attack, typically better than compression does.

What I do exactly depends on the track of course. This way when I add on drums I can still maintain the level I need and raise some instruments. Typically hihats are taken down in level as they cut trough so well. I guess I don't use that many hihats so my issues are typically in the bass region with kick and low toms making up much of the energy. Gettings hihats right is very vital though.

I use slow attack drum buss compression to get at the RMS I want on the drum buss and glue things together a bit. Typially I use parallel compression of sorts for the busses, so I maintain transients.

Airyck wrote:I wish there was a way to control all drum rack faders at once or a VCA fader type of control which they were all grouped to.

Select all the tracks and move one fader. They will all move together. Remember to deselect when done.

Stromkraft wrote:

Airyck wrote:I wish there was a way to control all drum rack faders at once or a VCA fader type of control which they were all grouped to.

Select all the tracks and move one fader. They will all move together. Remember to deselect when done.

Sweet, thanks..!

(Also I just noticed saying Instrument Rack here and there--my bad, I always meant the Drum Rack)

Stromkraft wrote:

Airyck wrote:I wish there was a way to control all drum rack faders at once or a VCA fader type of control which they were all grouped to.

Select all the tracks and move one fader. They will all move together. Remember to deselect when done.

"Wish granted"!

biatch wrote: It's not that I need it to be that loud (I'm mixing right now with none of the track meters hitting above -6)--it's that while gradually building a track, I'll add more and more hats or some percussion or whatever to the rack and eventually its output meter will become red.

Why not just use the limiter here?

Soarer wrote:

biatch wrote: It's not that I need it to be that loud (I'm mixing right now with none of the track meters hitting above -6)--it's that while gradually building a track, I'll add more and more hats or some percussion or whatever to the rack and eventually its output meter will become red.

Why not just use the limiter here?

I don't see how that would work..? What's the idea behind that.. mind you, the problem was with the output level of the Druck Rack itself, so not sure where to put a limiter (which totally sounds like a bad idea at any point of this setup since it would lead to compression etc but maybe I got you wrong)

Oh my mistake, never mind then.

Soarer wrote:

biatch wrote: It's not that I need it to be that loud (I'm mixing right now with none of the track meters hitting above -6)--it's that while gradually building a track, I'll add more and more hats or some percussion or whatever to the rack and eventually its output meter will become red.

Why not just use the limiter here?

You could use a limiter but that does affect the sound, so you'd have to make sure that's the sound you're going after. Gain staging a bit to leave some headroom to grow into is probably the easier solution. Plus that is an important skill to learn anyway.

You can set the default simpler volume when it gets created on a new drum pad.