Gain staging problem?

M

Matt Beddall

New member
My band have decided to record some of our songs using cubase 5, it's our first attempt at recording ourselves as all our other stuff was recorded in a studio.
We're 2 songs in and learning as we go but this problem keeps cropping up and we don't know what we're doing wrong.
We are currently trying to master our 2nd song and we're really happy with the mix and how everything sounds apart from the overall volume, it's a bit quiet when compared to stuff that has been on general release.
As we were exporting the separate tracks into 1 stereo track we could only set the master fader to -4 db, any higher caused it to clip, I think I read somewhere that we need to export at 0db but I may have taken that out of context.
We are mastering using ozone5 and I recently read that it's possible to increase the volume using the maximiser which I think works like a limiter?
I'd be grateful of any advice at all, if someone can point me in the right direction I'm happy to research any info, but at the moment our lack of knowledge has stalled our recordings as we don't want to make the same mistake on the next song if it's something we need to be aware of from the start
Cheers for reading
 
[1] Don't do any 'mastering' until you have all of the mixes completed or you'll be chasing your tail on all of them. It's a completely separate process with completely different goals.

[2] Your levels are too high. Possibly much too high. With your master fader at unity, you (ideally) shouldn't be anywhere near clipping the main bus.

[2a] It's not "illegal" to drop the master fader. Although many would call it "bad form" for being in that situation. I'd grab all the faders and drop them down 6dB or so and see where you wind up (keeping in mind that may possibly affect levels to compressors and auxiliary sends).

[2b] I'm really hoping you weren't shooting for hot levels at the input... And just in case, I'm going to drop this here: Proper Audio Recording Levels | MASSIVE Mastering Blog | The Rants and Ravings of an Audio Mastering Engineer

[3] "Loud" is the simple part. Don't even give it a thought until everything else is done. I'll save my thoughts on Ozone, except to say that I kinda hope you're only using the limiter module...

[4] The "export at 0dB" thing... Not sure if referring to the main bus (fader should be at '0' or unity), digital output levels (should be WELL below -0dBFS at every possible stage up until the final mastering phase where it should still be comfortably below). I'm assuming it's not referring to having bulk levels ride around 0dBVU, but that would be applicable also.
 
Yeah, have read that article a few times, since I first saw it a few years back.
Every time I read it it makes more sense.

Great article. I have always liked the steak analogy.

:D
 
Thanks for your help, I don't have time to read that article right now but soon as I get home I'll be right on it,
I agree with what your saying about mastering all tracks in one go but we're limited to one or two 3 hour sessions a week so it's taking us an age to get the tracks down what with all the mistakes/learning we're doing along the way and we want to get some stuff out there. We're saving at every point so once all the tracks are done we could possibly master them all in one go at that point or may pay someone to do it
 
Ok so yeah I read the article and yeah I have made the unforgivable error of recording everything as hot as I can get it (facepalm)
So I'm definitely gonna go for a different approach on the next track (I'm finding all the dbfs talk a bit confusing though, is there a ball park level I can look for on the meter when recording a guitar for example? Like halfway up is fine? Or 3/4? Or do I need to get more technical? Everything we've recorded so far we've aimed at getting the signal as high as possible without the red light coming on)
Again I appreciate you guys taking the time to read and reply, you've already been a massive help
 
Matt Beddall said:
Ok so yeah I read the article and yeah I have made the unforgivable error of recording everything as hot as I can get it (facepalm)
So I'm definitely gonna go for a different approach on the next track (I'm finding all the dbfs talk a bit confusing though, is there a ball park level I can look for on the meter when recording a guitar for example? Like halfway up is fine? Or 3/4? Or do I need to get more technical? Everything we've recorded so far we've aimed at getting the signal as high as possible without the red light coming on)
Again I appreciate you guys taking the time to read and reply, you've already been a massive help
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Yeah, don't get too caught up in that. I guess it's useful to know, but you can get by without being able to recite it. I still get confused with db, dbsf, dbscoobydoo, etc....

Basically, you can never record too low. I mean, within reason. If your tracks are coming in at -75dbsfghcshd, then that's probably something wrong with your gain staging. But generally, just don't go anywhere near clipping and you'll be fine. "Half way up", "3/4 of the way up" is fine.
 
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gecko zzed said:
Yep.

I don't look for numbers. As long as the signal looks healthy, that's ok by me.
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Healthy as in "about 3/4 up the scale" or healthy as in a biggish "waveform" in the track Gecks?
Many people are fussed about the latter when it is very small (can usually be re sized) but they should not be, it is the dBFS value that matters and around -20dBFS is the target.

However, the OP is using Cubase 5? Now, IIRC that does not have dBFS markings and so it might be an idea to see where levels are going in Reaper or even Audacity. The trial download of Sony Soundforge will give you some delicious meters. Then there are plenty of stand alone meter apps about.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Healthy as in "about 3/4 up the scale" or healthy as in a biggish "waveform" in the track Gecks?
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When tracking, I don't really care about how big the waveform looks. I'm looking more at the levels on the scale.

The Reaper screen capture is fairly typical of my waveform appearance and playback levels. I didn't show an actual recording level as it was happening. Like Cubase, Reaper doesn't have dbfs markings. I think it may be an option, but one I've never gone looking for.

reaper-edit.jpg
 
Yeah, I'm not talking about the size of the wave form. Like Dave said, that's adjustable anyway. I meant the fader lights. If we want to get more technical, for a guitar track, for example, shoot for somewhere around -18 to -12 with peaks going up a little higher than that occasionally.

If we want to get even more technical, if all your gain staging is correct with your hardware before you get to your DAW, it should pretty much automatically get you in that -18 to -12 range.
 
Yeah I think it does, we had to go nuts pushing everything up to get it to the levels we recorded at because we thought louder=louder song
So glad I stopped by this place!
 
gecko zzed said:
When tracking, I don't really care about how big the waveform looks. I'm looking more at the levels on the scale.

The Reaper screen capture is fairly typical of my waveform appearance and playback levels. I didn't show an actual recording level as it was happening. Like Cubase, Reaper doesn't have dbfs markings. I think it may be an option, but one I've never gone looking for.

View attachment 94565
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I'm glad I'm not the only one using the old default Reaper skin! ;)
 
mjbphotos said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one using the old default Reaper skin! ;)
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I can't come to terms with the Reaper 5 skin, and though I tried many of the other skins you can get for earlier versions, I am happy with the simplicity and functional elegance of the default
 
Massive Master said:
[2a] It's not "illegal" to drop the master fader. Although many would call it "bad form" for being in that situation. I'd grab all the faders and drop them down 6dB or so and see where you wind up (keeping in mind that may possibly affect levels to compressors and auxiliary sends).
Click to expand...


In any modern DAW that uses 32 bit floating point internally, there's no reason whatsoever not to do things like pull down the master or even (shock horror!) normalise to lower your levels. All the talk of bad form or not normalising is a hold over from the dark ages of integer-based processing.

Other than than, Massive is right on the money.
 
The way I explain it to people is, set the level of a sustained note to about half way up the meter, then just make sure that the peaks don't clip. When doing things with no sustain, like drums, set the peaks around -6dbfs.

It doesn't have to be any more confusing than that.
 
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