Master Fader

Hi all:
So here's where I am at.  I have a nice mix that I like, however, I am getting clipping on the master, is it okay to back it below zero till I don't see any clips?  I think it's my drum track, but I like the level it's at....
Is there anything wrong with going below zero in the master to compensate, does one lose any audio dynamics, especially since it's lowering the whole mix at once? 
 
OR is it better to link all the volumes and lower the whole mix, while allowing the master to stay zero?  Is this the same in the end either way?
 
Thanks
Kevin

 Yeah, you can do that.

Ultimately, you want everything out of the red, and sounding good. There are many ways to achieve that.  You can use a compressor/limiter on the drum track to knock down the peaks and not clip the track... but still keep it fat and full.

Play around and experiment a bit.

You say "master" ..... there are 2 master levels in ALL my projects.....

First... working from the top down.... there is the DUAL master outputs to the soundcard. I link those and pull them down to about half way to track and mix. I turn it up to 0db when I'm done..... or less if needed.

The next one is the "(sub)Master Bus fader" where everything goes..all the tracks and sub busses end up here. This one, on my projects is ALWAYS somewhere south of 0db. I do raise it as close to 0 as possible but always just under the reed clipping.

next down are summing/FX busses... they get input from tracks and always output to the sub-master
I rarely move their levels from 0db

at the bottom are the individual tracks... these are set where they are needed to get the level I want in the mix. Most often they are also south of 0db, and sometimes by quite a bit.  -20 is not uncommon depending on the track in question.

The settings will of course depend on the sound you are seeking in the mix.  there is nothing wrong with setting/moving/adjusting all the other tracks (individually) up of down if one thing sounds good but can't be made to set right in the mix any other way....

The main rule is: There are no rules. Just make it sound good.

GuitarHacker:
"First... working from the top down.... there is the DUAL master outputs to the soundcard. I link those and pull them down to about half way to track and mix. I turn it up to 0db when I'm done..... or less if needed."

I am not sure I understand, right now I have the master, and I have a bus setup for routing some reverb.  Then I have another level (red faders, sorry I am not in front of screen now), which I use to lower and raise the mix in my phones when tracking vocals say, this doesn't affect the overall master level I have noticed. 

I also have levels in Patchmix DSP, this is for EMU 1616M cardbus unit.  But I keep the level there to 0.  And the monitor level here seem to work with my windows volume fader, the same.

Hmm, maybe I am missing having another important bus?
Kevin

I'll post a screen shot later from my DAW.

Provided your audio tracks aren't actually clipping, you can drive individual tracks up so that they're WAY into the red.

Sonar's floating point engine will ensure that they will NOT clip upon ouput, provided they're attenuated before it hits your main outs.

You can try this out for yourself.

Pick a track, any track. Now boost it by using the trim, fader, whatever so that it peaks way above 0db on your track meter.

Now peg it back by the same amount on the master bus.

Does it clip or sound distorted?

I'm not for one minute saying this is a good way to mix, but it proves a point.

I answered this for you earlier:
 

 
Hit the Post New Thread button.

if your drums are midi, in the piano roll view, make sure any hits on the same vertical line are not all at 127.. that will make clipping for sure. ex - a kick, a snare, and a cymbal all at once...make the kick 102, the snare 120, and the cymbal 109. change the numbers accordingly for humanization. do that wherever they clip..if you are using midi notes on session drummer or superior drummer or whatever. it will take time but will sound impressive when the task is done.

thanks for the pic, I have made a youtube of my project, let me know what you think, thanks.
Kevin

Guitarhacker:
 
RE: Tracks and plugs, would I be better off making a few more busses?
For example making a bus for EQ and send my guitars to that bus?  And also making an Ozone Bus, and sending the guitars to that too.  This would put a couple of bus sends on several tracks, but is that less CPU drain in the end?  Or can I be too bus crazy and overload the same? thanks.
 
Running a reverb in the master, don't you then get reverb on all tracks?  Or I guess you can select for each then?
  
  
 

No, you don't need more busses to get it under control.

I'd start by lowering ALL of your track faders by a fair amount - 6db is a good starting point.

Then bring your master faders up to unity.

If it's still clippping, continue reducing your track faders until you're not peaking any higher than -6db MAXIMUM on your master bus

The downside to attenuating everything by using the trims at the top of the track is the effect this has on any subsequent processing in the track - particularly dynamics processors as you'll need to adjust their thresholds. This can then affect other settings like your time constants.

If you want to work with the track faders higher up their track (because of the greater resolution you get from operating up there) then you should start by getting a very rough balance between the tracks using the trims BEFORE applying any processing.

Just some random thoughts....

1. From a summing point of view it makes no difference if you raise the tracks and lower the master bus. It's just all math really.

2. However, it's not just about summing it's about the levels into the various plugins along the way. You drive them differently with the tracks up and the master bus down as apposed to vice versa.

3. Though the point above is true about SONAR's floating point engine be impervious to clipping, that's not actually the whole story. For one, if you go over 1.0 on the sample values, you start throwing away resolution bits for no really good reason, i.e. the number of fractional values available to represent the sample have to be reduced to allow for the value to go over 1.0.

Also, just because SONAR uses a floating point summing bus doesn't mean that all your plugs do. They are perfectly free to convert to a fixed point system internally, then back to floating point on the way out. They may do so because they want to have a single algorithm that will work on ProTools (often their bread and butter and a fixed point system) and other systems. If this is the case, they may very well distort if they are pushed to hard. Even if they are floating point inside, that doesn't mean necessarily that the algorithm writers have correctly dealt with above 1.0 values.

4. So, as a rule, there's really no gain to allowing tracks to go above zero dB. If a given plugin explicitly says there'ssome reasont do so, it will typically provide input/output gains so that you can limit that high level to purely within that one plug.

5. If you record your tracks so that they are peaking in the -12dBFS to -9dBFS range, then that leaves plenty of room downstream so that by the time they are all added together the master bus will typically come out about right and you don't have any danger of clipping anything along the way. There is no sonic penality paid for having your tracks at this level.

If you get tracks already recorded and they are higher than this (and you want to use plugins on those tracks) use the track trim to bring the levels down, so that the level going into the plugs is reasonable. If there are no plugins on these tracks themselves, just bring their faders down so that their levels as fed to the downstream buses are appropriate.

6. One trick is to take the loudest instrument in the song, often drums or guitars or vocals, and get them sounding about like you want and just their track levels so that the master buss is hitting up around -9dBFS'ish or so. Then start bringing in other instruments relative to that 'reference' instrument. If that really was the loudest instrument, then the other tracks will naturally come in at lower levels than that, and keep the master buss probably about right.

7. If you just have a few clips, then find out where those are happening, find out what instrument is having some extra high peak, and use some simple volume automation to bring that one instrument down. You can often use this trick to get the same benefits as a limiter but without the sonic degredation of one.
 
8. As mentioned, create drum, vocal, guitar, etc... buses, so that you can easily adjust the overall balance of these instruments in the mix without doing lots of fiddly manipulation of lots of individual track levels. You can also them often apply compress, EQ, etc... on those buses to the whole set of instruments at once, instead of on individual tracks. If you do this though, then the same thing applies as #5 above, but for the buses in this case. If all the plugs are on a bus, then just adjust the track levels of those instruments until you are feeding appropriate levels to the bus (and hence into the plugins on that bus.) ANd use the bus fader to control the overall level of those instruments in the mix. If you end up somehow getting the mix a bit too loud, probably the balance has changed from what you wanted, and you can just just a couple of busses downward to get the balance and levels right again.