Venue Headroom Issues

[kwelch]

Hello,

I am mixing a band with 38 inputs on a Venue/Profile system. 3 DSP cards. I seem to be running out of head room on the master bus to quickly. Hopefully someone can help shed some light on the issue. Any help is greatly appreciated. Below is my signal flow.

-Input gains set to average 0dB on the input meters, metering RMS

-All inputs are routed to the stereo bus which is at the unity, 0dB position with a Waves C6 inserted. C6 set to default "Pooch Master Bus" preset

-Stereo bus is then routed to matrices to distribute to the PA, typically L, R, Sub, and front fill.

-We are not carrying PA on the tour so I was using the master fader to control over all level but found the master bus meter was clipping even with the fader down around -10dB or so. Typically only pushing the PA to averaging 98-100dB SPL A weight

-As a solution I assigned all the inputs to a VCA for overall level control and left the master stereo bus at 0dB. This keeps the master from clipping but now the master bus send to the matrix is close to and sometimes clipping.