Question on volume levels in Homestudio2002

[Pedullist]

Hi,

When I start out to record a song the levels of the tracks usually are the default values of 127 for midi and 0 dB for audio. This works out fine in the beginning, but after 20 tracks of recording the overall volume of combined midi and audio reaches the point of distortion. To prevent that I have to pull all sliders back in one go by grouping all tracks (to maintain my monitormix). After that I have to ungroup all tracks. Using the Virtual Mains seemed a solution for this, but it only works on audio and not on midi.

Two questions:

-Is there an easy way to change the default values from 127 to 100 for midi and -5,0dB for audio?
-To group all tracks I have to select track after track and group it seperately to group A. I feel there must be an easier way to do this. Unfortunately selecting all tracks and grouping them all to A doesn't work...

Any suggestions? (O, my setup is HomeStudio2002 with a Soundblaster Audigy. For my songs I'm using audio tracks and midi tracks with Soundfonts only)

Thanks

 

[Eurythmic]

It sounds to me like you might have the wrong recording source checked in the Windows mixer. I've never had this problem, no matter how many tracks I add to a piece.

Double-click the Windows mixer, go to "Properties", and then "Adjust volume for recording". I'm betting that you have "What U Hear" checked - and unless you have every track muted when you record, you're recording some of your tracks several times over, which will cause distortion.

So when you're recording audio, you'll want to deselect "What U Year" and instead choose the line (or mic) in.

And then when you transfer MIDI to audio, if you're using the Audigy's hardware reverb, you need to go back and select "What U Hear" - but make sure every track is muted except the one you need.

If you're adding reverb in post-production, then you can just select "MIDI Synth" as the input source.

I think that should clear up your problem.

 

[Pedullist]

I'm betting that you have "What U Hear" checked -

Beep, wrong! Thanks for your response though!

I know how the Audigy's mixer works. The seperate tracks don't distort. Five tracks together don't distort either. It's after 10 or 20 tracks when things start to rumble. It's only the audio tracks, I think. All of my audiotracks are routed to Virtual Main A. When I look the level of Virtual Main A in the console I see it hits the red light quite often. When I pull all volume sliders down to -5Db the problem is solved, and the meter of Virtual Main A stays in the green.

Hey, perhaps I should just adjust the Virtual Main A fader! It won't change my midi volumes, but I can do that manually...

 

[TripleM]

Is it your speakers

I don't know what kind of speakers you have, but I had a similar problem myself. First off, I'm assuming you've ensured that all your tracks are not recorded at levels that were too high and that you're not "in the red" on any of them.

I had a situation where if I played two particular guitart tracks back in a mix, I would notice distortion at a few places. Removing either of the guitar tracks got rid of the problem. I verified that neither of the tracks were recorded too high.

My problem was due to my very cheap PC speakers. Playing the song on some better speakers let me know that the problem wasn't in the music, just the speakers.

If this could be your situation, maybe you could send an MP3 to a friend with better hardware and see if the problem exists there.

 

[rpe]

Pudullist.......

have you had any problems (crashing) using your audigy & homestudio? I use an audigy platinum with CW guitar studio and n-Track and am having major problems with crashes.

thanks,

rpe

 

[Pedullist]

Well, I've got some beautiful high end speakers (pretty expensive too) so I don't think that's the problem either (cd's, wav's, mp3's & small Homestudiotracks never distort)

I just wanted to know if an average audiolevel of -10Db is normal. Because I would expect an average of 0Db is normal.

Here's a screendump:

http://www.home.zonnet.nl/tbusink/screendump.JPG

The active tracks all have volume levels of -8Db to -13Db, but the Virtual Main A still hits the red light and the music distorts at this point...

 

[Pedullist]

Re: Pudullist.......

have you had any problems (crashing) using your audigy & homestudio? I use an audigy platinum with CW guitar studio and n-Track and am having major problems with crashes.

thanks,

rpe

No, I've got no problems with crashes...(if it only crashes on particular songs you can the try the Cakewalk Problem Reporter and send the results to the Cakewalk support service)