Important tid bit about cubase.

[Guitargodgt]

So I have been using this software for around 6 years now. Started on LE version 1, moved to SL 3, then to studio 5 and now I'm using 5.


What I never knew and now know without any doubt at all (thanks to a newly acquired tutorial video) is that:


Moving all the mixer faders down so the master doesn't clip is the same as just moving the master fader down.

Make sense? So in other words, when you are mixing if you clip the master fader bus, you can just slide that sucker down so it isn't clipping anymore and it's the same as sliding all your channel sliders down.

It was demonstrated with a sine wav, one was done one way (where it was turned down at the fader of the channel of the sine wav) and one the other way (where it was overloading at the channel fader and the master fader was pushed down).

The 2 sine waves canceled each other out, it's phase coherent.

So YAY. This saves me some time down the road.

 

[Farview]

Yes, that is true, but you will run into problems with certain plugins. Anything plugin that emulates hardware will be overdriven by those types of levels.

Since the master fader is the very last thing in the chain, it will not save you from any clipping that happens before it. It will only save you from clipping the master buss. In other words, if you have a plugin inserted on the master buss that is clipping, turning down the master fader will not stop the plugin from clipping.

It's easiest just to avoid the whole thing by using proper gain staging. In a 24 bit environment, there is no reason to be clipping the master buss with less than 60 tracks if you have tracked everything properly.

Using group channels can help. I always set up group channels so I can have all the drums on a group, guitars on another, bass, vocals, backup vocals, etc... That way, if it does get out of hand, you can simply turn down the group channels and not everything.

 

[Guitargodgt]

Yeah if I was going to do this, the only thing that would go on the master fader would be dither. I would subgroup everything before sending it to the mains like your forced to in pro tools.

I've been working like you say for all these years btw. I've been just leaving the master fader at 0 and not clipping that thing...

Although again, just learned about intersample clipping as well. I'm not big into mastering so I've been DERP on that for some time as well.

 

[Farview]

With Cubase and all other DAWs that use floating point math, you really can't clip internally. (the exception being plugins that either use fixed point math or are designed to distort at high levels as part of their programming) The only time going above 0dbfs becomes a problem is when you send that signal to the converter.

Converters are fixed point, so they cannot do anything with a signal above 0dbfs.

Inter-sample clipping is not as big of a problem as it once was. Converter design has come a long way in the last 15 or 20 years. That's one of the big problems with the internet, you can't tell good information from horribly outdated information. For example: 'Record as loud as possible without clipping' was great advice for recording to your Tascam DAT machine in 1991, it hasn't been good advice since the proliferation of 24 bit converters.

 

[Clam Soup]

I figured this one out accidentally, as is my style ... but I try to get every last bit of poop out of the final just short of clipping. So in the mix the first thing I do is set a sort of vague outline of all of the different tracks where they are near to clipping, or clipping just in couple of spots. Then I return to whichever channel I assume is going to set the loudest signal in the mix and fix it's level. Then I work my way through each track - adjusting them to the volume/mix of the first. Sometimes the additional tracks cause the main out to clip once or twice and I fix that by just pulling the master down a smidge in those places as the last part of the mix.

No doubt someone who knew what they were doing would look at me and wonder if I'm intentionally sabotaging myself somehow... but it seems to be working for me like this so far.

 

[Farview]

No doubt someone who knew what they were doing would look at me and wonder if I'm intentionally sabotaging myself somehow...

Yup, pretty much. Volume is not the point of mixing. Once you get it to sound good, you can then take it and turn it up as loud as you want. Having all the individual tracks pushing clipping actually causes all sorts of gain staging problems both in and out of the DAW.

Your mixes will be clearer, cleaner and more 'open' sounding if you were using proper gain staging techniques.

 

[Mo Facta]

Just for the record, you can't really clip audio in the 32 bit floating point world. It will only clip once the reconstruction filter has been applied at the DA converter.

The best argument for conservative levels is therefore intersample peaks/distrortion at the DA converter and making sure plugins that don't handle full scale signals well are working correctly.

Cheers