Question about master bus levels

[paul_g]

Originally Posted by Rich Breen

All the info about 32 vs 24 is fine, but to answer the original question, the math in the bus summing blocks is improved from older versions but wouldn't change overall gain in any way - 0 is still 0. Do you perhaps have HEAT enabled on your tracks now and didn't before? That would definitely account for more gain.

No, I seldomly use heat, when not in use, it's deactivated.

[JFreak]

Guys, gain staging begins with proper AD input levels, not dragging faders down later. When you are tracking make sure mix window shows pre-fader metering and KEEP OUT OF THE YELLOW as green has enough dynamics. When you sum green tracks together the AUX or MASTER will be hotter, but that is okay.

PRE-FADER METERING, beats me why it is not the default.

[nednednerb]

It's possible to record at -12 dBFS, master to -0.02 dBFS. Where is "Loudness," as you mentioned the war?

New school thoughts (such as relatively recent standards and discussions by Audio Engineering Society) say this kind of ratio might be a guideline:

-14 LUFS integrated for music masters,
with -6 to -9 peak dBFS!

Stay away from zero in the master too! Dynamics and speaker power should make for loudness and impact, while -9 dBFS headroom generously allows for boosting gain without sacrificing clarity in the goal DA chain, likewise after giving headroom in AD stage as just pointed out.

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[JFreak]

Oldskool says if your AD converter has 124dB dynamics, you gain absolutely nothing if you track hotter than -20dBFS, so set that as your target point. It does not matter if your stuff is sometimes peaking hotter, but that means you have 20dB headroom for it.

Math says 64bit floating point mixer is basically impossible to distort, so do your worst. Whatever sounds good is good.

Mastering... oh, well... better leave for more seasoned professionals, but if you do it yourself just drop the output from limiter to -1dBFS to avoid intersample peaks. Better drop to -2 for radio. And for TV they give you specs, which is usually -10.

Loudness? Oldskool thinking was 20 for film, 14 for music, 8 for radio/tv. Newskool thinking is close to zero.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by nednednerb

New school thoughts (such as relatively recent standards and discussions by Audio Engineering Society) say this kind of ratio might be a guideline:

-14 LUFS integrated for music masters,
with -6 to -9 peak dBFS!

Huh?

If your song is registering a reading of -14LUFS integrated with a peak reading of -6 to -9 dBFS, that track is pretty damn compressed/limited.

I’d like a link to where you read that as it makes zero sense.


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[its2loud]

Loudness? Oldskool thinking was 20 for film, 14 for music, 8 for radio/tv. Newskool thinking is close to zero

What do these arbitrary numbers represent?

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by its2loud

What do these arbitrary numbers represent?

First word of the quote you made.

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by JFreak

First word of the quote you made.

Ahhh. So just plain old decibels then. Got it.

[paul_g]

Thanks for everyone's help on this. One thing I'll note is how my sessions have really changed over the years. 10+ years ago, I did sessions with real drummers, real kits, live rooms, and mic's everywhere. Likewise guitars, were mic'd (57/121 etc..) as was upright basses, and I even got overzealous and built a Deca Tree over a baby grand piano once. I have the picture! That was fun.

Now a days, I'm 3000 miles away from every musician and friend I used to play and record with. I've turned to VI instruments. EZ Drummer 3, and occasionally recording guitars w/ mic's (only when my wife lets me take up her small walk-in closet). Most of the time it's HX Stomp, or my amp going into a Two Note Captor X load box with Virtual Cabs. IMO those are lovely, but nothing replaces a mic'd cab.

I've really lost (and miss) the dynamics and feel of real mic's on real drums and real guitar amps.


Now with all that said:
There is quite a possible situation, where I may be over utilizing compression to get those VI drums to sound more, alive, dynamic, and real. However, I'm really conservative and keep a keen eye on the levels. I pull every individual EZ drum onto its own INST Track, so I can treat it like a real drum kit. Each track getting it's own EQ/Compression (snare top/sn-b, kick in/kick out/over heads etc..)

That is really the only thing that has changed for me. I can go back and listen to old sessions, and they sound great, and the levels are all in check.

Again, I never record over -12 db, and in mix, the only thing I can think of is over compensating compression for the VI instruments. That's the only thing that changed, my work flow remains the same. Maybe it's time for an updated work flow.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by paul_g

Again, I never record over -12 db, and in mix, the only thing I can think of is over compensating compression for the VI instruments. That's the only thing that changed, my work flow remains the same. Maybe it's time for an updated work flow.

OK. So this raises a lot of red flags to me.

You’ve mentioned several times times that you’re not peaking above -12dB FS, but now you’re talking about using VIs for your drums etc. The instruments you’re recording might not be tracked hot, but unless your trimming the output of the VIs down, they’ll definitely be outputting very hot. Every VI I’ve ever used has a hot output, getting very close to 0dB FS. They’re typically full of processing and ‘mix ready’ from the get go.

So, if you’re not trimming down the output of these VIs then I’m definitely not surprised you’re seeing clipping on your master buss.


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