Master track clipping?
 

If none of my individual tracks clip, how important is it to really keep the master from red lining?

Re: Master track clipping?
 

Vitally important!!!

Re: Master track clipping?
 

it's like if you have a Grain silo that can hold 10 trucks of grain, and then you try and cram 20 trucks of grain into it... the top will burst off and that will be a bad thing.

Re: Master track clipping?
 

Can you just mix everything down equally to remedy the problem?... in other words, should I just decrease every track by a certain amount on the faders?

Re: Master track clipping?
 

yes that is what you would want to do. More than likely you are recording you inputs into Pro Tools too hot. Just because you aren't hitting the red on the meters in Pro Tools doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't getting a slight bit of distortion from pushing your mic pre's too hard. Maybe you don't hear it in one track, but take 48 tracks of hitting the mic pre's too hard and you mixes will sound blurry. When you record into Pro Tools, try and stay around -12db on your meters. You can figure this out by Command Clicking on the green "Vol" indicator just below the output setting on the edit window once, and it will change from Volume level to Peak Level "pk". At that point every time you click on that spot, it will reset the peak meter and then it will settle in on your peak signal. Try to set your Mic Pres around that spot. A little over will be fine. Try and memorize how high up on the meter that is for future reference.

SO with that being said, start with your drum tracks and try to get all of the drum tracks and Bass track together to reach about -12db on your master fader. If your Drum and Bass mix alone sit around -12db on the master fader, then once you start adding everything else in and matching it to your drums, you should still be well under clipping in the red on your master. Remember this is just a basic starting point. You may have to lower the faders even more on all the tracks. Most mastering engineers will want the absolute loudest point on the track to hit just below 0dbfs on the master fader. So the average level of the song will be quite a bit lower. That way they don't have to make up so much gain when they master, but they still have plenty of headroom with how great their gear is.

Hope this helps a bit, but a great recording/Mix always starts with proper gain structure. And just because you can almost hit the red, doesn't mean you should!!

Re: Master track clipping?
 

One of the quickest ways to reduce your entire mix level is to enable the group 'all' tracks, turn the master fader down the needed amount, then un-group and restore the Auxes and Master fader to 0dB. It's quicker than doing the individual tracks and maintains the same relative balance.

MR

Re: Master track clipping?
 

Thanks for the help guys... so I'm trying to get it where my highest peak is at about -12db and I can just group all the faders and bring down to where -12 is my highest?
Also, would I have any clipping if I've only used software? All my drums are bused from Addictive Drums and all my guitar and bass is through a Pod Xt live. I guess it could from the Pod but not the software right?> You think there still may be a problem with the way it was initially recorded?... I mean I never heard any thing

Re: Master track clipping?
 

If you don't hear clipping on any individual track, you are OK. It's just that tracks recorded too hot "add up" to clip the Master, unless they are turned down to avoid that. If you already have a mix, grouping will allow you to turn down all the individual channels together.

By recording (next time) individual tracks peaking at -12, the channels can be closer to 0dB on each fader and not cause the Master (which should always stay at 0dB) to clip. If your tracks are hotter, but not audibly clipping, all the channel faders will have to be set lower to avoid clipping the master.

Your goal is to get the overall mix to peak the Master fader at -6 or -3 to leave room for mastering. The next time (or to check your current mix) start with the drums (with the current mix mute everything else) and check that they hit the master fader around -12.

It's only a reference, but in most mixes, it will mean that when you add all the other tracks your overall mix should land at the desired level of a few dB below zero.

MR

Re: Master track clipping?
 

i always set a group up with every track except aux's and the master fader for this,also i would think you could select everything you want to and alt+shift to bring the all faders down?

Re: Master track clipping?
 

ALRIGHT PEOPLE, CHECK THIS OUT!!!

GO TO http://www.masseyplugins.com/index_v2.html?page=l2007
Its a massey plugin mastering limiter, you can download the free version and its unlimited usage! I got it, you set the threshold at 0db on your master track in ProTools and bang! no clipping! Plus you can set the output lever to match a commercial recording! (Some people look for that!)

Check out all their plugins, you get them for free, they work awesome!

The guy that makes them worked for digidesign for a few years so he knows what hes doin!
Let me know if this helped anyone!