setting record level on Masterlink

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RockaBill

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Hi,

I've just purchased a Masterlink & it is my first experience with a digital recording media. I understand with digital that it's a bad idea to go over 0 DBFS. In an effor to set the levels as high as possible, I've been setting my record levels so the peaks hit -1 & occasionally "max" (which I assume is 0 DBFS). My questions is, I can see no indication on the Masterlink, nor mention of it in the manual, of an "over" or "clipping" condition, is there one? Any tips on setting the highest possible record level are appreciated.

Thanks,
RockaBill
 
You are on the right track. If you are going to do anything with the resulting .aif file in a "mastering" environment, then you may want to make sure that you don't hit 0dB very much, or at all really. With 24 bit, you can strive for -1 and be okay.

What you should really be concerned with mostly is your RMS level of the song. That is much harder to get up really high, and I don't recall if the metering on the Masterlink has a way of checking RMS levels or not. A good RMS average is around -12 or better! THAT is a lot harder to achieve than you may think! ;) Proceed carefully. Check to make sure you don't have errant kick drums and bass guitar notes that are causing Peaks in your audio, as these will be the instruments that will most likely cause digital distortion that you can hear. A good amount of compression on one or both of these instruments may be in order to get your RMS levels up high enough to satisfy you, and to make your audio compete, in volume that is, with commecial products.

Good luck.

Ed
 
Hi RockaBill,

It's usually best to leave a bit of headroom when recording
to the Masterlink. I tend to record around the -9 to -4 dbfs
area to allow some room to add some dsp. If you get
that close to 0 dbsf (-1), and want to boost some eq, then you are going to get some of that nasty clipping we all know and
love :-) .....however if you don't use any of the dsp functions, are happy with the sound, and aren't clipping, then who
am I to ruin your party!!.....IMHO!!! (Blue Bear is the resident
Masterlink expert, so hopefully we'll hear his words of wisdom
too!!)

Hope this helps,

Mike
 
It absolutely is a bad idea to go over on the analog side. The "max" indication on the Masterlink is just that: it indicates that you hit 0dBFS, and beyond that, there ain't no more. That's the joy of digital metering; dead-nuts accuracy up until 0dBFS, and then oblivion. However, it doesn't tell you how hard you hit it, or how long your audio got clipped off at a positive or negative peak. It just says you crunched it: it could have been an inaudible single-sample clip, or it could have been 200 samples in a row that got flat-topped. You just don't know, and neither does the Masterlink- it has no analog metering to show how bad you crunched it.

My personal audio religion is "no overs". I'd rather leave a few dB of headroom on the table, and have squeaky clean peaks, than have the signal get crunched even once. So I sandbag pretty hard: I usually set things up to peak at -3dB when mixing, or even -6dB for really dynamic (read: unpredictable) music. After I have a clean pass at it, I'll then normalize it up before rendering. When I'm using mine for live-to-2-track recording, which means only-one-chance-no-retakes, I'll always leave at least 12dB (unless I have a limiter in the signal path).

Anyway, I always want to see 3-6dB of gain in the final normalization pass. When I see zero dB get added on, I know I crunched it, and I start over (if I can).

24bits gives a theoretical 144dB dynamic range, and the Masterlink can get an honest 110. So I don't mind leaving a little on the table, since even with 6dB of headroom I still have significantly more dynamic range than the 16-bit rendered final result. The truly wonderful thing about 24-bit recording is that it allows you to be just a little more relaxed with your levels than 16-bit recording did: you don't have to run right on the ragged edge of digital crunch. You can back away to a much mre relaxed level, and get the job done well with a lower work/paranoia load.
 
I am going to add to skippy's post a bit here.

Along with all that he talked about with not knowing HOW FAR OVER you have gone, you also have no way of knowing how ACCURATE the actual metering really is. Don't think for a second that top of the line meters were installed on a unit who going price was $1400 new! Top of the line audio meters cost about half that! So, you can assume that what you see is not neccesarily what you get in the metering department.

But I DO live by "what I hear is what I get", and with a good, clear, high headroom monitoring system, you will HEAR if you pushed it over too much.

If bass frequencies caused the "overs", you are probably going to hear some digital distortion. If it was high frequency stuff, like 8KHz or higher that caused it, you probably are not going hear it. According to Bob Katz (http://www.digido.com) you need to have about 8-12 samples that are "over" to hear distortion. High frequency content may not last that long, thus, your ear would not detect the "technical" distortion that was caused by an over. Low frequencies certainly will last longer than that. This is why I recommend keeping a very good lid on your low frequency content. To further support this possibility of happening, most people around here are mixing in very poorly designed acoustic spaces, and tend NOT to know what is really happening in the low end of their mixes. Some also are using not so great monitoring. Combine the two, and you have a REAL mess! If your room is causing a lot of cacellation, you will tend to mix too much low end, and if your monitors don't respond well, you may not be hearing low end "peaks", which are VERY hard for any but the most experience to hear even in a GOOD acoustic mixing environment. So, a lot of time I am finding that people may not be getting a good lid on their low end stuff in a mix. It is out of control, and causes you to have much lower RMS levels in a mix because you tend to base your mix more on how it sounds. It is important to learn HOW to read "Peak Metering" to check for low frequency "peaks" that are hard to hear. Sometimes, you can only "see" them. But in the case where the metering on a unit might not be all that accurate, well, then you have THAT problem too!!!! I have recieved DAT tapes to master where on a DAT player the meters will filled out at 0dB constantly. But when the song was transferred into a DAW, and look at and monitored with accurate metering, I found that the song SELDOM hit 0dB!!! So, the moral here is that you can't always depend on the stock metering on your unit! Thus, you may have MORE ROOM, or LESS ROOM to play with. How can you be sure under these circumstances? The only real way to tell is to mess around with it and view your mixes on something where you can monitor the mix with better metering to ascertain just how good the metering on your mix down deck is.

Okay, I am done now....:)

Ed
 
Keep in mind also...

...that you can raise the level of the recording on the Masterlink AFTER you record it. I do this all the time.

There is a digital readout on the top right section of the display where you can move your cursor during playback and increase the level in whatever increments you desire. It may also allow lowering the level, I forget, but I've never had to do that since I tend to record levels pretty conservatively.

spwee
 
Thanks for all the good info! If I hadn't been away from my computer for a week, I could have used some of this info while mixing this past weekend :(

I can see I am mixing too hot. First indication is that when I run the DSP Normalizer it adds 0 DB. And of course I never even thought about RMS, I'm pretty sure I've got some drum peaks that should be tamed (thanks sonusman). I don't have the ability to look at waveforms, so I'll have to make due with my meters & my ears (lord have mercy on me). I do remember, when I was looking for my Masterlink, having a "pro" tell me to run the Normalizer on the Masterlink, but instead of using it, just bring up the level that amount.

A little off the Masterlink subject. Since I only have 2 channels of compression, I've been compressing the stereo mix at a 4:1 ratio & getting between 2 & 4 GR. Then using the limiter so that it just flickers on the loudest peaks. Is this a good approach? Would it be better to compress individual tracks that have problems? I am a "newbie", but with "open" ears.

Rockabill
 
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