picostudios said:
On my M-Audio delta 1010 meters, I always make sure it doesnt clip when I record. As far as the mackie meters go, I always make sure it doesn't hit the "red".
Well, the 1604VLZ is an analog mixer, and the line inputs are rated to +22db before the channels clip, which indicates to me it has a 36V split power supply (+/-18V,), which after summing you can probably go to +3db or +6db on the mains without clipping.
But...
The Delta 1010 cannot. 0db is its mathematical maximum and looking at your mp3's, you're definately hitting it. See the printscreen above as evidence
I am going to take a wild guess here, and its truely wild. I'm thinking your 1010 meters are just "off".
When I bought a few tascam digital mixers, I had the same problem. Clipping here, clipping there, but NEVER did the digital meters on the mixer light the 0db red LED indicating clipping.
Tascam, through an annoying menu, allows you to change the scale of the meter, so I "adjusted" it. Now when the red LED of the 8-bar meter flickers, thats -1db, not 0db, indicating to me that I'm not clipping, but darn close. I'm glad the tascam had that feature, but *I* come from the analog world... you know.... large format console with an analog meter per channel wired up to a pair of 24-track Otari's, also with individual meters. Analog board and analog tape sound "warmer" when you hit the 0db point and cross up just a little bit... so instead of adjusting my way of thinking, I simply adjusted the equipment because I got lucky in that my meters could be adjusted this way.
Maybe the 1010 can have the same adjustments?
If not, keep the mix a "hair" below 0db and all your clipping willl go away. But be gentle here because your ears hear things logarithmically rather than linearly, so every +3db doubles the volume, and every -3db cut, reduces the volume in half. Knock the levels down enough to reduce clipping, but thats it.
Now, to make things "loud" again, you need to do two things.
First, fill the audio spectrum 20-20Khz
Second, compress the final stereo mix.
The latter is straight forward, you and I have talked about it a few times, and I know you're playing with settings and getting the hang of of your compressor.
But lets talk about audio spectrum for a minute. You're ears can hear the range of 20hz to 20Khz, and are interesting in that they have little hairs inside that are different lengths, and vibrate at different frequencies, and that individual electrical signals generated are sent to your brain, and mushed together. Kinda like a huge, natural mixing console
If only a few hairs within your ear are stimulated, meaning that you're listening to one frequency, say, 5Khz, your brain will be confused and not necessarily hear the "volume" correctly. This happens to machinists and large equipment operators all the time, actually. The particular machine they operate generates a specific frequency of "noise", and after a while of operating that machine, they can't even hear it anymore. This is because the brain cuts it out, sorta a "limiting" function, to use an audio term.
The next time you mow your lawn, you'll notice how painfully loud the mower is when you first start mowing, and by the time your'e done mowing, its not that loud anymore. But when you shut it off, you'll probably either hear ringing in your ears, or a slight hissing for a short while. This is your brain trying to cancel out the noise your ears hear, by making internal noise. When the mower stops, your brain keeps going for a while. Neat, huh?
Anyway, do this experiment. Take the mp3 (mike, lance etc #1) and put it into winamp, and enable the boring spectrum analyzer, and play it all the way through, and watch the multi-colored bargraph. You'll see that you have audio data in the 40,60hz range, very little in the 80,120,160 hz range, a lot of midrange, and some highs. The highs might be limited because of the conversation from wave to mp3, so really look at the 80,120,160hz range and see that the little bars don't dance much.
Now load my mp3, and look at the spectrum. Notice that is "fuller". All of the spectrum bars move, and move quite a bit. This "fullness" adds to the volume in a musical way, and your brain perceives it as "louder". Part of this is careful placement of sounds on my part, part of it is the compression.
I'm sure you're sick of listening to my techno mp3, but I'm trying to help you here. Filling up the musical spectrum adds to the loudness perceived by the listener, and doesn't necessarily add to the clipping if the levels are watched, because its more of a "brain trick" than anything else.
BTW, this particular mp3 has been played in clubs (in its full length of course), whereas the raver's have felt the cartilage between their ribs pulsate with the bass drum. You'd have to agree thats "loud". And no clipping.
