Ableton Forum

I alway spend so much time try to get my levels right. but just when everything sounds balanced infact there is actually clipping before my tracks are sent out to the master.

is there a way to reduce the level of all tracks at the same time by a given amount?

I realise i can do something like drop in a utility in the master track but its bad practice, and doesn't prevent clipping before the master.

thanks for any help.

Yeah you should be able to select all tracks but not midi tracks and you should see the clip property's for all tracks selected. then just bring down the volume and that will affect and tracks selected. if you have midi tracks you will have to going in to each instrument and bring the volume down to suit.

Hope that helps

Just pull down the master fader.

i suppose 50% of them isn't too bad. ill try it out! thanks.

Just pull down the master fader. That will do exactly the same thing as reducing each track by an equal amount. Or put a utility plug on the master before any master effects if you are worried about too high levels going into them.

Michael-SW wrote:Just pull down the master fader.

that would reduce the clipping at the master but I think he said he's having clipping problems before each track gets to the master.

live's internal processing runs at 32bits (4294967296 values for 32 bit, only 65536 for 16bit), so even if your tracks go into the red massively, they aren't clipping. that only happens at the master stage where the audio is converted down to 16 or 24 bit, so the master fader will work perfectly as these people are saying!

I can get clipping distortion on an individual track without clipping on the master...

Johnisfaster wrote:I can get clipping distortion on an individual track without clipping on the master...

perhaps you have fx on there that converts the audio down to 16 bit?

.......maybe..... alls I know is I've found that no matter what I'm working on if I crank up an individual track I'll get a bit gain on that track even if I drop the master down. am I totally insane?

my bad (kinda) I just tested it and realised you can go about 40 db into the red on an individual track before you get audible distortion WITHOUT clipping on the master. so I was kinda right cause you can get clipping on a track but I can't imagine why anyone would ever go 40 db into the red unless they were intending to do so.

queglay wrote:I alway spend so much time try to get my levels right. but just when everything sounds balanced infact there is actually clipping before my tracks are sent out to the master.

is there a way to reduce the level of all tracks at the same time by a given amount?

I realise i can do something like drop in a utility in the master track but its bad practice, and doesn't prevent clipping before the master.

thanks for any help.

you also might want to try a limiter plugin on the master..
no worries about cliping then..

I like to push my mix a bit higher than 0dB into the master..

yeah i use elephant on the master. thanks for the info. sometimes ill see a kick ore snare go up really high in its own track and that just alarms me. need to bring it down!

Johnisfaster wrote: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.

Or :
In the arrangement window you can highlight all of the tracks you want to reduce.
In the sample window the clip volume now turns into a block shape. This now corresponds with the clip levels of the highlighted tracks. You can now reduce the volume of all the clips here.