Stereo level meters when mixing down?

[CellarCat]

If the levels in the stereo meters are goin up into the orange marks above 0 does this mean it will be causeing distortion on my mixed down tracks?? I can't seem to find any info on this in the manual . They talk about keeping the individual track levels below -3 so you don't get clipping which will cause distorion , but not about the stereo levels when mixing.

[CellarCat]

sorry .... forgot to say this is on my Yamaha MD8...

[Ray J]

Good question, I was wondering the same thing. I got an MD8 not long ago and had trouble mixing the first song I recorded, so I began thinking about those stereo meters. As it turned out in my case the rythm guitar had too much low end and was kinda resonating with the bass guitar. I took some low end out of the rythm and panned it and the problem went away. BTW, where in the hell did this forum come from? I have a bunch of stupid questions to ask about minidisc when I have more time because, due to financial restraints, I've also decided to mixdown to minidisc, so I'll be getting back with you guys. Sorry I couldn't help you this time....peace.....Ray J

[Nilbog]

When the little orange light turns on, it's a warning that you are inputing too much. This can cause distortion on your track, it seems like usually it's on the low end.
What I like to do is put the slider at about 7 or 8, then tweek the gain until the levels are just below the red line.
-Nilbog

[CellarCat]

Nilbog .. I know about the orange light for individual track levels.. I was refering to the stereo levels it has a scale from -20 to +12 and the +3 , +6 , and +12 numbers are orange colored , i was wondering if the levels went into the orange numbers if this meant i was getting distorion ?????

[Nilbog]

Oh...that's a good question.. Let me know what you find out...
-Nilbog

[DALtune]

What are you mixing down to? If it has meters on it, check those out. I never had a problem with distortion from the stereo out when I mixed down and keeping that master fader in the shaded area will usually ensure this. If it seems that you do not have enough signal getting to your mixdown deck, see if the deck has an adjustable input on it. From the year or so that I used the MD8, I never had a distortion problem. Have you heard distortion yet? If your tracks are not distorting, I would say start your mix over, instead of turning things up, turn everything else down. Also, make sure you're not juicing the signal too much with the effects.

[CellarCat]

I didn't have any distortion when mixing down ( which i will do to a cassette deck for the time being) but i did have some distortion on indvidual tracks my first go at it . I was just going through all the functions of the deck to make sure everythin worked so i did a mixdown and also tried bouncing tracks etc. thanks for all the input!!!!!! :-)

[enemyofthesun]

I mix down to a tascam cdr and I always push the stereo meters to the top with no problem.

BTW this is James D. from the MD8 board. This was a good idea Nilbog.