General DAW Questions

M

midget

New member
OK so in garageband I imported an MP3 of some Avril Lavigne song. It was not clipping according to the track's fader, but the master fader was all red! What's the deal, there was no mastering on the track (probably). It was a new track and I didn't do anything to the master. Weird.

Also I was playing a loop of a drum track I recorded, I was using a compressor to even the snare hits out. I highlighted 4 bars and looped them, as they had the extreme louds and softs in the timespan. The fader would not show the same peaks and valleys every time, why would it be inconsistent?!?! Seems unreliable.

Also does the fader (is that what you call the green/yellow/red lights?) span from -144db to 0db? There is no info (numbers) with GB's faders which is frustrating. It would be easier to use a compressor if you knew exactly what the amplitude was of your hard and soft hits.

Thanks for reading
 
Are my questions obscure/pointless, or does no one know the answer? I'd think these would be standard questions but I looked at an faq for a bit and it's a dead end for me!
 
I can't imagine why a looped phrase would have an inconsistent signal level, it doesn't make sense.

Does your compressor permit you to view raw and processed levels?
That might be a better place to observe its effect when you are using it.
 
Forget the 'general DAW' questions - what DAW are you using, and what compressiojn plug-in? I use Reaper and ReaComp shows the original signal and the compressed signal in the colorbars.
 
Hey mjb. I am using Garageband, and the compressor is Garageband's compressor. I haven't downloaded any plug ins or anything yet. I agree it is bizarre that the levels are not consistent when looped. There have been many times where I've done a mixdown to mp3 and there would be a clip or an extra loud hit that shouldn't be there, then I'd mix it down again and it wouldn't be there, even though I didn't edit anything.

!?!?!?

It's Garageband 08. We've had this laptop for quite some time and I've seen other oddities. For example, loading a track, I get the error message "track:basstake1 could not be found", I hit "skip" and all the takes are there, nothing is missing.

WTF APPLE

I'd like to upgrade to the newest garageband. I like the program and have learned a lot of its shortcuts/features. Not interested in spending much since I need more gear first!
 
A lot of times DAW's have a bit of headroom after the red lights flip on. I know this is the case with ProTools, probably the same with GB. The song is just crushed so it pushes right up against digital 0. Nothing to worry about, your computer isn't broken ;)


midget said:
OK so in garageband I imported an MP3 of some Avril Lavigne song. It was not clipping according to the track's fader, but the master fader was all red! What's the deal, there was no mastering on the track (probably). It was a new track and I didn't do anything to the master. Weird.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top