Question about master volume

[jimmyjetle85]

Hey there, I'm confused about what the master volume is. I use Sonar 4. When I am recording something in a track, I make sure that the input signal level is just under the red, clipping zone at all times. However, when I play back the track, the master volume level always shows the volume levels being at much higher levels than i had recorded them(they go to the red decibels often). So I guess my question is, is this normal, and if so what exactly is master volume and how does it relate to make audio tracks?

[MichaelM]

I'm assuming your talking about when you play back the mix, and not one idividual track....

Think of the master volume as like a summing buss. Anyway you have all your tracks, with none of them clipping. You combine these tracks together (summ them) to get your stereo mix. If they are all a bit hot, then the tracks combined may cause the master volume to clip. You can either mix each track at a lower volume, lower the volume of the master fader, or compress/limit the master.

[Massive Master]

And you're recording your tracks WAY too hot... You don't shoot for -0dBFS, you shoot for 0dBVU -- which is around -18 (give or take) dBFS. You're pushing your analog signal far beyond where it was meant to be.

Record your tracks at those levels and you do a whole bunch of wonderful things - (A) Your recording where your gear was designed to run at. I can't even get into how much better it'll sound in the long run. "Pinch" a track or two on a project and you'll hear it. Pinch EVERY track?!? Forget it. (B) You won't have to attenuate the entire mix to get a decent mix level - which again, by the way, shouldn't even be approaching the red zone. That's not how the sytstem was designed to operate.

This isn't analog tape here - There's no advantage to cooking the signal a little. There's no saturation, there's no "thickness" or anything else. And even with tape, you're talking about going over a few dB for saturation. Most of the analog chain will handle that just fine. Pushing a signal to record at nearly full-scale is adding A LOT of gain from the analog chain. Noise, distortion, loss of focus - It's all there. You're shooting yourself in the foot from the very start.

HEADroom is GOOD room. Take advantage of it. You're probably going to use it all up during the mastering stage anyway (almost everyone does at this point in time, which is sad). But if you keep a good amount of headroom in your tracks and your mix, the mix as a whole will likely handle the abuse much, MUCH better when you finally strip it of all that glorious headroom later.

[mixsit]

Originally Posted by jimmyjetle85

Hey there, I'm confused about what the master volume is. I use Sonar 4. When I am recording something in a track, I make sure that the input signal level is just under the red, clipping zone at all times. However, when I play back the track, the master volume level always shows the volume levels being at much higher levels than i had recorded them(they go to the red decibels often).

And just to zero in on the meters, with just one track playing, with all of it's controls and fader set zero', no added processing, and the same on the master -no changes there also, the master meter and track meter should read the same. If not, check both meter's settings, they can have different ranges and be set average' vs peak', etc.
Wayne

[jimmyjetle85]

This is the weird thing, my problem occurs when i have recorded just one single track, and both the track and master faders are set to zero. When i record, the signal never reaches red, but when I'm playing back, the master volume is in the red a lot. Both of the meter setting are set on "peak" as well....have any ideas what could be the problem?

[jimmyjetle85]

Hey Massive Master,
The reason I am recording at such hot levels is b/c I found that all my music was really quiet once i exported it out of Sonar(a lot more quiet than regular music). It seems that Sonar was making everything sound louder than it really was. Is there a way to record at
the levels you suggested (-18dbFs) and then make it louder when i export it to wav or mp3? I guess that is a mastering issue? I am obviously am new on this, and so I didn't really understand what you were saying about the headroom and such.

[MichaelM]

Everyone's mixes sound really quiet compared to regular music after exporting from Sonar, mastering takes care of this.