When clipping sounds better than limiting

[Reckless Erik]

What rules do you mean Chris?

[Picture Start]

It's a good point. I have a couple different fold down "formulas" I like, but getting the gain right is a little confusing. I use the Downmixer. Is best practice to lower all faders to avoid any clipping while keeping the formula or do you keep your LCR, for example, at unity while lowering the output fader. It's confusing when you want to maintain a stereo fd that closely represents levels of the 7.1, but this is near impossible because of the inevitable gain increase of combining a lot of tracks.

[cjguitar]

Originally Posted by Reckless Erik

What rules do you mean Chris?

Well, it varies, but generally C -3db, Surrounds down -3 to -6, Lfe to taste (or none), I usually like it around 0 depending on the monitoring setup and the content of the Lfe. Hope this helps.

[Reckless Erik]

Well, it varies, but generally C -3db, Surrounds down -3 to -6, Lfe to taste (or none), I usually like it around 0 depending on the monitoring setup and the content of the Lfe. Hope this helps.

Thanks Chris. It does. The Lfe level is a good point. I find that a lot of people want their music lo end sent there. As a result the down mix can seem a little light if the Lfe channel is discarded as per "theory".