why is my Master fader not same as track fader?

[Kerochan]

Hi Everyone
I recorded ONE audio track, then I created a Master track, but the meters levels are slightly different, shouldn't they be identical?

[Darryl Ramm]

You want us to guess? How about any description of what you are doing?

Are they even the same type of meters? What type meters do you have them set to in preferences?

Your meters set to pre or post fader?

What are you doing? Tracking or just mixing when you notice the differences?

You really need to understand the signal flow through faders, plugins, and meters. And what a master fader is/does and it’s unique post fader plugin signal flow.

All this signal flow stuff is well discussed in the Pro Tools Reference guide, the PDF of that is already on your computer.

[Kerochan]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You want us to guess? How about any description of what you are doing?

Are they even the same type of meters? What type meters do you have them set to in preferences?

Your meters set to pre or post fader?

What are you doing? Tracking or just mixing when you notice the differences?

You really need to understand the signal flow through faders, plugins, and meters. And what a master fader is/does and it’s unique post fader plugin signal flow.

All this signal flow stuff is well discussed in the Pro Tools Reference guide, the PDF of that is already on your computer.

Thank you, its just one normal audio channel, set to Pro Tools classic, NO plug ins and on Pre fader, checking after recording.
*BTW if I record an instrument track, then thats exactly the same metering

[Kerochan]

Update
The meters are identical if I use a stereo audio track rather than mono!

[albee1952]

Is the track fader set at -0? In any case, I would not get hung up on minor meter differences. Keep levels sensible and keep meters out of the red(especially on the master track)

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by Kerochan

Update
The meters are identical if I use a stereo audio track rather than mono!

Going back to what Darryl said, it help to know details in order for anyone to help you.

If your original audio track was mono and you then had a stereo Master fader then yes, you would see a change in level on the meters.

Also, to ditto Albee1952, people often get hung up on the metering being equal. Unless you’re sending 1k tone for testing or reference tone, there’s no reason to worry about matching levels track for track, meter for meter.

[Kerochan]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Is the track fader set at -0? In any case, I would not get hung up on minor meter differences. Keep levels sensible and keep meters out of the red(especially on the master track)

Cheers albee! much appreciated

[Kerochan]

Originally Posted by its2loud

Going back to what Darryl said, it help to know details in order for anyone to help you.

If your original audio track was mono and you then had a stereo Master fader then yes, you would see a change in level on the meters.

Also, to ditto Albee1952, people often get hung up on the metering being equal. Unless you’re sending 1k tone for testing or reference tone, there’s no reason to worry about matching levels track for track, meter for meter.

Thank you!

All makes sense!

[Darryl Ramm]

Everybody is giving you good advice.

A mono track split into stereo is going to have stereo components at a lower level, equally panned it's going to reduce by the Pan Depth number of dB. If there was no pan depth/law implemented you would expect to lose -3dB (half the signal sent to each stereo track), and Pro Tools legacy depth was -2.5dB. You'll see different depending on what your session pan depth is set to. Lots of past and recent discussion on DUC about pan depth. But regardless of pan depth settings, if you pan the mono track hard to one side then you'll see that master fader output agree with the mono track meter (in post fader of course). Stereo track signal levels agreed because there is no panning/pan law happening when feeding the stereo components straight through.

I agree with all the comments about not over fixating on meters, I want to watch pre-fader input metering to avoid clipping while tracking and have quick looks at stuff during mixing but not fixate on minute levels... professionals who need to deliver stuff to meet production levels, well they are likely to have fancy plugin metering on the master faders or more.

But but but... I think it's great for folks to do some playing with anal-retentive levels to make sure they understand signal flow through any DAW and plugins etc.. Like use signal gen to drive a track or maybe drive a physical output and bring back into a preamp and just use that to play with mixing and panning and clip gain and plugins etc. and see that stuff makes sense. Use a sine wave or pink noise and just play around.