Output levels??

[Bulls Hit]

No, the question was: Is it better to take all the track faders by -3 OR take the master fader by -3? And why? (not talking about the effort to move 64+ faders)

No not all the track faders, just the one causing the problem. But anyway that's not the question.

I think the question David is asking is why bother turning down the master fader if he can't hear any problem when the 2 track goes over 0. If that is the question, and maybe it's not, I've been wrong before, but if it is then the answer is another question: how much do you trust your ears to hear distortion? Bob Katz was real big on distortion, while other engineers don't worry so much about the red lights.
If the red lights come on, then someone with superhearing might hear some distortion. Would it bother you if someone could hear that in your mix?

 

[DavidK]

Perhaps I should give y'all another piece of the puzzle:

I use Sonar 3 with an m-audio firewire solo. The master fader levels appear to be wrong. When I export audio and open it in wavelab, it is about -3 less than in Sonar. Therefore, HEARING any badness is a tough call since I dont have accurate metering on the Sonar output.

Also, as I said before, I felt somewhat shafted on my last CD because the levels are two low. I turned them in low to allow processing, the result was a low volume CD.

 

[Farview]

A deranged monkey escapes from the zoo, breaks into my house and messes with my music. Totally by 100% chance, the meters happen to be the best mix in the history of humanity, except the master level goes to +3. Do I turn down individual tracks or the master fader, and IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?

All things being equal, there should not be a difference.

The only thing that would make a difference would be tracks that are routed to a group buss with a compressor inserted, or any other situation where some of your tracks are feeding into something other than directly into the mix buss.

In the example of the group buss with a compressor inserted, turning down the channel faders would change the amount of signal driving the compressor, thus changing the way the compressor reacts. You could lower the threshold of the compressor to make up for it, but in a complicated mix it wouldn't be worth the trouble when you can just lower the master fader.

 

[Farview]

Are you saying the meters won't hit the red zone until you exceed 1500db..??

Yes. Remember that two signals of equal strength playing at the same time will be 6db louder than either of them individually. Multiply that action by 32 tracks + effects, you use up a lot of headroom quickly. One more reason to keep the recording levels down.

 

[Farview]

Also, as I said before, I felt somewhat shafted on my last CD because the levels are two low. I turned them in low to allow processing, the result was a low volume CD.

Did you send it to be mastered or did you just give it to the duplicator?

Anyway, as I'm sure you know, classical music is alway going to be quiet on the CD. Anything with a lot of dynamic range will always make a quieter CD.

The only way to get a consistantly loud CD is to reel in the dynamics, which is normally not done with classical pieces.

Most CD's that I listen to have between 9 and 12db of dynamic range, orchestra pieces are hard pressed to have less than 40db of dynamic range. Since the medium (CD) has a window of useable dynamic range, you have to produce your music and fit it into that space. The easiest way would be to find the loudest point and put that at the ceiling, and let everything fall as it will.

 

[DavidK]

One more reason to keep the recording levels down.

Yet another thing I do not understand.

If one is tracking with fairly high levels, why not just turn them down?? Since I am recording synths, there isnt much of a "noise floor" to be concerned about, I record direct and there is hardly any noise to be concerned about.
When I record individual synth tracks, I record below the red, maybe -8. Yes, if I have 50 blaring its going to be a problem, but I just turn them down. Is that wrong? Will I be scorned, mocked and ridiculed?

 

[DavidK]

Did you send it to be mastered or did you just give it to the duplicator?

It was mastered by someone with very impressive credentials. My music is crossover stuff, some of it is rock-ish. I get the feeling that it was an ultra-rush job on his part. Since it was through a label, I didnt get a chance to talk with him or to check out the final copy. The levels should have been higher. Several tracks were picked up by radio stations, and when I actually heard them on the radio, the levels were just too damn low. Public Radio doesnt compress the hell out of everything like a rock station.

If you click on my sig below, you can hear samples on i-tunes of it. I think (?) you might agree that the levels are two low. Track #1 (Infernal Dance) should knock you on your ass, track #2 is a rock tune, its just too low.

 

[Farview]

Yet another thing I do not understand.

If one is tracking with fairly high levels, why not just turn them down?? Since I am recording synths, there isnt much of a "noise floor" to be concerned about, I record direct and there is hardly any noise to be concerned about.
When I record individual synth tracks, I record below the red, maybe -8. Yes, if I have 50 blaring its going to be a problem, but I just turn them down. Is that wrong? Will I be scorned, mocked and ridiculed?

It depends on if you are recording soft syths or hardware synths. With soft synths, it doesn't matter. The noise floor is nonexistant and there is no analog chain to over stress. The only bad thing would be having to turn them down in the mix, which isn't a big deal.

With hardware synths, they will sound better with proper gain staging. Obviously, you want a good signal coming out of the synth to keep the synths noise floor down. Then you want to set the preamp at conservative levels so you don't use up all it's headroom. (that will lead to a smaller, more 'pinched' sound). If you aren't using a preamp and are just plugging the synth directly into the converters, you want the average signal around -18 just to keep everything in line.

 

[scorpio01169]

Here's a question... do you like the way it sounds when it's peaking at +3? Is that how "loud" you want it? If so, I suggest throwing a master limiter on there and making sure the final output never goes above -0.3 db. +3 just on peaks isn't even that aggressive, with a decent master lim you won't even hear that. And I have the perfect master limiter for you... Buz Maxi3... it's free... and does the job as well as anything I've heard...

never ever put a limiter or compression on the master output, unless you are using the mix for personal use leave that for the mastering engineer to do.

 

[MrLip]

I, too, have heard that you should leave the master fader at 0dB. Although I can't remember getting a clear explanation to why. I can see how it would cause additional, unnecessary calculations (or maybe just 1 calculation?), and therefore errors. But I'm sure with today's high resolution mix engines the errors are minuscule and barely audible (anyone want to do a test?).

I would like to learn more about this as well.

A test... anyone?

 

[Farview]

I, too, have heard that you should leave the master fader at 0dB. Although I can't remember getting a clear explanation to why. I can see how it would cause additional, unnecessary calculations (or maybe just 1 calculation?), and therefore errors. But I'm sure with today's high resolution mix engines the errors are minuscule and barely audible (anyone want to do a test?).

I would like to learn more about this as well.

A test... anyone?

Did you read the rest of the thread?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I, too, have heard that you should leave the master fader at 0dB.

If you're talking a master input fader in your editor software, the idea is to just let the converter (which comes before any software input faders) do the driving. There is no advantage to "boosting" the master digital signal, and in fact, there can be a disadvantage in that all that will do is increase the level of the noise floor. As Jay said earlier, with the proper gain staging - i.e. having good levels set at each stage of the recording chain - the A/D converters will do their thing naturally and give you the proper digital levels to work with in your software.

If you're talking about a master output fader in your software, then you're talking about setting the overall level of your mix. If your level is too hot coming out of the mix, you *can* throttle it back at the master fader if necessary; and there are times when that's fine - especially if you're talking about a 64-track mix with a lot of dynamics in it and you just have heated mix levels from the sheer addition of a large quantity of high dynamic tracks. Actually the thread author, DavidK, may have to deal with this a bit in his genre of work.

That said, though, it's always a good idea when feasable - especially with lower dynamic genres and mixes without an unusually high number of tracks to sum, but really in any situation - to go back and take a look at the individual tracks and see if they can be notched down slightly and equally so that you're not summing too hot to begin with. Often times the need to turn down things at the master stage is a red flag that the individual track levels are just riding hotter than they need be. That may not always be the case, but it's almost always worth the double-check before just blindly assuming that you need to turn down the master gain.

If, OTOH, you feel the need to turn the master output gain on your mix up, then it's usually best to just save that for the premastering stage. If the mix sounds good, but it looks a little low on the meters or sounds like it can stand to be a bit louder, don't jump the gun. Just save the mix at unity gain on the master output, and then do whatever volume adjustments and whatever other polish you feel the mixdown may neeed after the mixdown and in the pre-mastering (what most now erroneously refer to now as "mastering".)

HTH,

G.

 

[ecktronic]

Certainly I can turn down every track, is there a specific reason why the master fader should remain at 0?

Well if your mix is too quiet ,turning up the master fader is pointless really, as you arent going to get more quality from using more bits. Only reason of turning up master fader is if the mix isnt loud enough in your monitors.
Id prefer to bring down each fader if the mix is too loud, although it isnt wrong to turn down the master fader if your mix is too hot.

Eck

 

[Farview]

Only reason of turning up master fader is if the mix isnt loud enough in your monitors. Eck

In this case you should just turn up your monitors. It's too easy to get your gain staging screwed up if you are using the master fader for monitor volume.

 

[ecktronic]

In this case you should just turn up your monitors. It's too easy to get your gain staging screwed up if you are using the master fader for monitor volume.

I agree.
But if for some reason your monitors arent loud enough... That was what I was getting at.
Not that mine arent. Mine bleach!

Eck