How often do you go "into the red" with pro channel modules

I was trying the bus compressor on a kick/snare track I'm doing and comparing the various compressors I have at my disposal (Blue Tubes, T Rax, Sonitus, etc.) I had the best luck with the PC4K S-Type . in order to get the same punch as the others I had to up the make up gain. I noticed that everything down chain from that started going into the red in pro channel. I get that I can reorder the modules, but it doesn't quite sound the same. I'm wondering if it is part of the design of Pro Channel to run these hot and impart some character, because that's all I'm hearing, not some saturation and definitely not digital clipping. Anyone else using it this way?

Never. If I see it blink, I fix it. I sometimes listen to the whole song watching for it to blink.
 
Clip hold, anyone?
 
For that matter, I often normalize tracks to -3 so I have plenty of headroom heading into the FX chain.

My take, please take with a grain of salt: 
 
I'm pretty sure the meters on the PC units are not actual "clipping meters" like I think they are called.  They are more like "activity meters".  They are tied to the analog circuitry they are emulating, but are not actual a clipping indicator for your signal.  You can safely run them hot (I sure can't hear anything negative when I do).  It may actual sound decent, as the emulated circuit is probably affected by the amount you are hitting the virtual circuits and virtual tubes and whatnot.

I set my gain structure before I do anything else,make sure all tracks are set well below clipping and the master bus volume sits around -6db or so,if I add a pro channel module or fx bin plugin,i use that modules gain control to keep the tracks gain at the pre set value and the master bus volume around -6db. Hope that helps a bit.

kennywtelejazz
 
At this point , what am I supposed to believe my ears or my eyes ?…
 

I don't know the answer to the original topic question...except that I often have the meters slammed.  But as far as your question, without doubt, there really is only one answer.  The visual helps your ears (get to their destination), but too often only distracts.

Bristol_Jonesey
It's always been my understanding that nothing truly clips until your audio hits your D/A convertors.

 
Well, there are some purists who will not even use the term clipping for a digital over. And it certainly would be possible to maintain extra bits in the processing algorithms so that a 16 bit number is actually represented as 18 or 20 bits. The meters could then be set to read an over at 16 bits but the data is maintained in the padded bits and can be recovered before final rendition. If someone is designing their applications like that, it would be nice if they would document it. But clearly the over does not occur at the AD convertor. If you burn a CD with digital overs, the data over 16 bits is well and truly lost forever in that rendition, regardless of whether you ever play it or not. 

Anderton
Think of the PC red LEDs as temperature gauges on a car engine. When they're pinned to the right it doesn't necessarily mean the engine has actually blown up, but that the engine very well could blow up if you keep driving.

That's a good analogy that suits the indicators well.

I try to avoid it using the Gain knob at the top of the track strip and as I mix I always make sure any effects output doesn't ADD gain.
 
Like I watch my track/bus meters and if the original volume was -12db as I add effects I adjust the "output" gain of my effects to only output at -12db... unless I am intentionally adding gain with those effects.
 
HOWEVER, if I start seeing my PC modules going red I will try to tame it BUT if taming it screws with a good sound in a negative way AND I don't hear any negative effects from the clipping I'll try to ignore it (hard to do for an OCD spazzoid but if it sounds good it sounds good and that overides any visula bullpuckery).
 
I do hear the negative effects of a clipping PC module many times though and it is cumulative so I definitely try to deal with it while I'm looking at it. Otherwise it gets buried and I may not realize where the frack some nasty noise is coming from in an ultra thick/complex mix.
 
/not a pro engineer

I continue to like this thread... I think it's really important as today we have the oportunity to set up a zillion gain stages with the tools we have... and every step of the way, from EACH input is a thread that must be watched... so why go near it when the noise floor is soooooo low to non-existant these days?
 
Love the  Craig snapshots... pretty revealing.  Another way of seeing this pretty easily is to set up a multi-instrument in Kontakt (say 8 to 16 things... drums, guitars, synths.... blah blah blah) and don't bother to route them to separate tracks.... just let them sum on the first Kontakt instrument track... which is what I use to do all the time when I first started and found Kontakt very confusing...  The cumulative impact of all those tracks just wanks the crap out of the single instrument track in Sonar... then disburse the same instruments to separate tracks, (like all those beautiful templates you probably got!)... it immediately levels out, each track's levels are less, and it sounds cleaner. I would imagine PC is even worse, as it is a SERIAL chain and an overload in the beginning impacts every module afterwards... creating all sorts of subtle wank.
 
I'm OLD and come from the day when low levels resulted in all kinds of crappy white NOISE... and I think the continued practice of riding levels high early in the signal chain (ie, before mastering/busses) is just residual programing in our brains some continue to pass on although it makes no sense anymore and as the snapshots show... totally wanks on the purity of waveforms... resulting in mush/edgyness
 
I think....
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Great reading in this thread. Reinforces how I work. Thanks to all the contributors.

 usually if I go into the red I check my gain structure on that track and that helps