Soft Synth Peaking

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fenderguy4life
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2013/03/31 22:26:50 (permalink)

Soft Synth Peaking

So I'm using a  soft synth drum. When I do this Sonar creates two tracks right? The first is a midi track, the other is the drum track. Why does the midi track peak so high and affect my master peak? Does that make sense? I don't always know enough to ask the right questions sometimes. Hope this is clear to somebody what's happening.
 
Edit: In fact, it seems whatever I do to volume or velocity, nothing changes the midi track peak. It's always peaking out. I must be doing something basically wrong.
post edited by fenderguy4life - 2013/03/31 22:32:54

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    RobertB
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    Re:Soft Synth Peaking 2013/03/31 22:53:39 (permalink)
    This one throws a lot of people.
    The MIDI track is not peaking. Those red indicators at the top of the meter merely indicate  MIDI activity.
    The meter is also registering velocity. Velocity affects not only volume, but the timbre of the note, because the samples are layered to respond to velocity.
    Generally, you want to give velocity its full range. If you are clipping in the master track, dial the volume down on the audio output track(s). Or adjust the levels in the synth GUI mixer.
    Also realize that the master is cumulative. It's not unusual to have to dial most of your tracks back some to keep it from clipping.
    I like to turn on the waveform preview in the master bus, because it shows you exactly where you are clipping.
    Don't sweat the red indicators in the MIDI track. Just watch the audio.

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    fenderguy4life
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    Re:Soft Synth Peaking 2013/03/31 23:39:52 (permalink)
    Okay cool. Good to know I am not doing something entirely fundamentally wrong. I'll look back into this tomorrow. I'm going to start a new project from scratch and see if I can get my process down to where it all makes sense to me lol. Waveform preview is something I am so far unaware of. Also, the GUI synth level defaults to @70. It sounds good at that level but is probably too high? I realize without you knowing the details of the synth you can't advise yet. I will say I've turned it down to 50 and it seems more manageable. I just don't know. More to come on this tomorrow.

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    chuckebaby
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    Re:Soft Synth Peaking 2013/04/01 02:01:44 (permalink)
    its a good question fender :)
    logical to think something is up when all you see is red, but like Robert said, its all good.
    use the individual drum tracks themselves to adjust rms.

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    fenderguy4life
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    Re:Soft Synth Peaking 2013/04/01 13:59:06 (permalink)
    Got it! Started a new project and recorded from mix to master. Familiarity sure goes a long way with digital recording. I'm noticing new cues more and more. It takes time and practice. Still unsure of the waveform preview feature. Where is that? Lol. I've been back and forth between a few daws (cheating on Sonar lol) and I remember seeing an EQ preview somewhere. My screen is slightly smaller than the requirements for Sonar so I'm sure that doesn't help. Anyhow, my sound is better than ever to my ears. Levels, eqs, compression, touch of reverb. It's all there sounding like it should to me. Thanks all!

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