i guess what my question is still should all of the meter levels be the same on software, mixer/interface and monitor controller? dont know if it matters or not. also, signal goes in that order during playback.
Lt. Bob said:
But I don't see how you lose headroom at mix down even if you track at 0db. All I have to do at mixdown is
lower the send of the entire mix to where it's below 0db ..... I basically have headroom at the master fader.
On 'puter recording do you try to avoid using some sort of master fader plug-in?
The key to the whole signal path is to think of line level - 0VU - as the sweet spot around which your signal levels should average (not counting when you purposely want to push something hot for a wanted distortion effect, but even then, you'll want to return to line level after getting that distortion so you're OK downstream.)
Then remember that 0VU is NOT 0dB. 0n the analog side, 0VU is technically measured at +4dBu. On the digital side, it depends upon the calibration of your converter, but typically it will be within a couple of dBs of -18dBFS.
To look at digital levels from the standpoint of 0dBFS is kind of looking at it backwards. Instead, keep doing the same thing as you do on the analog side, keep your average levels somewhere around line level. In digital, if yor line level is, say -18dBFS, that gives you 18dB of headroom for your peaks and transients. If that's not enough, then you can turn down the input into your converter, or, if you don't have one of those, as a last resort turn down the input recording fader in your softwre. But if your peaks some in *below* 0dBFS - say at -6 or even -10, that;s fine, don't feel compelled to turn it up to 6-10 dBs to zero.
How do you know how to set your recording faders to average around line level? Simple. Just average 0VU analog into your converter, let it convert, and keep the input faders on your software at unity gain (no boost or cut.)
To answer Bob's question, sure you can turn the master faders down in software. But by pushing all digital levels up to zero, you are unnecessarily booting the digital gain, and in the process boosting the gain of the converted noise level recoded from from analog. There is no advantage and only disadvantage to pushing the recording to as hot as possible in digital like there is in analog; so there is no reason to crank the tracks just to throttle them back down on the mains again.
Liv_rong, it is unrealistic to expect your mixdowns to come out anywhere near as loud as your average commercial CD made since about 1990. They wount sound that loud, nor should they sound that loud. Those commercial mixes are put through heavy pre-mastering that squashed the dynamic life out of them, allowing them to unnecessarily boost the volume under the false belief that louder equals better. Even their mixes come out of the oven sounding quieter.
You can make your mixes louder by smashing them into pancakes in premastering as well if you want. I'd recommend against trying to match the levels of a commercial CD though; they have better people, better facilities, and higher budgets than you do, and if you try to playthe volume war with them too closely, your mixes will loose most every time.
Learn to push the volume in premastering enough to tighten up and polish your mix, and to get the volume up just a little, but learn to use the volume control on your playback device to make up for the rest. It'll sound a hell of a lot better that way.
G.
