What is that strange light in my channel strip doing?

I think that's telling you if the PC is being overloaded. Red = bad. 

I'm still learning myself but if you have a lot of effects or high EQ settings on an already hot track that can push you into clipping territory. That's why gain staging is important.

I could however be completely wrong and obviously that was a rather crude and vague "explanation" but I really don't think you want that thing turning red. Cheers.

If it goes red it means at least one of the modules is being overloaded. 
 
Even if the signal going into prochannel is low, it can be boosted by a compressor or eq, so that it overloads the next module.  You can see which one it is by checking the clip light on each module.

Woo hoo! I was kind of right. ;-D

I just might be getting the hang of all this stuff, aye? 

Now if I could only get my machine to spit out money I'll be set. :-p

Heheh...

Keeping the ProChannels from overloading can be a frustrating business. You really have to keep your eye on everything at all times. 

The hardest one to maintain is the Master ProChannel, because it's affected by the outputs of all of your tracks. At least with a track ProChannel you can pretty much work out what's overloading it instantly by looking at the lights on the modules (although the FX Chain light doesn't appear to work...has anyone else noticed this?)

Sometimes an audio clip or loop will overload a ProChannel right out of the box at the first stage. In these cases, an FX Chain gain slider won't fix things. You have to use the gain pot at the top of the channel. I've seen a few of the Cakewalk content loops overload the PC with all modules turned off. 

One thing to remember is that a track's fader won't affect that track's ProChannel gain staging, but the sum effect of all the track faders will affect the master ProChannel. Sometimes it can be really hard to maintain a balance. On the track I'm working on right now, I thought I had a good mix balance with nothing clipping, but there was one note on a synth that kept pushing the master ProChannel into the red. The same note, every time. Turning down that synth a little stopped it happening, but then it was too low in the mix.  It's frustrating because the master ProChannel can be clipping while the master channel itself is nowhere near clipping. I tried putting an FX chain in the PC and lowering the gain a little, but that didn't work. The actual signal going into the PC was too hot from the get go. So I had to turn every track down by the same amount. Problem solved. 

It's probably not worth worrying about "occasional" red lights too much until you're really ready to finish mixing, because you can spend ages trying to gain stage everything and then you do something else to the arrangement or play with EQ or saturation and then it's clipping again. Most of the time when that red light is going off, I don't actually hear any difference. 

The worst culprits for overloading a PC in my opinion, are the tube saturation and saturation knob modules. I usually find myself turning the output of the tube saturation module right down.  I'm also finding it necessary to turn the output of synths way down. The Z3TA+2 synth is crazy, I usually have to have the master volume turned down to 20-30% in order to prevent  overloading. 

Do you have the Breverb on a separate bus, or on the track itself? 

OK. Leading on from your question I took it out and placed it on an bus with an insert. At least Breverb is OK now and the console emulator clips only occasionally - I can try to solve that with the compressor. It does not sound the same at all now, so I'll have to play around with the settings, but at least that problem seems to have a sollution. I must just find it.

Thanks.

I left the emulator at the default value - which by now is not close to that anymore after I (seemingly randomly in pannic) twiddled knobs to make the problem go away (or more likely worse). The gain is now knocked way down.

The first thing you need to do is adjust the input gain - a lot of soft synths/drum modules run too hot.
 
Many compressors have make up gain which can be turned down.
 
The quad EQ is one module that benefits from an empty FXchain to compensate.  It is also better with EQ to cut, rather than boost, so if you're having to boost a lot, it's worth re-recording or re-working the source material anyway.
 
Gain staging does seem to be especially important with the Console Emulator.  It can seem to exacerbate the effect.
 
Also, the trim and drive knobs on the console emulator do not work as they may at first appear.  According to Overloud, their developer, the Console Emulator emulates the summing characteristics of a console.  The drive controls how much of the signal goes into saturation, and the trim knob affects how much the emulator effect is applied to the sound.  So the trim does not act like the input trim on a desk, and shouldn't be used to gain stage.
 
 

I'm a little late to the party, but can confirm there's some great advice in here. I find it crucial to avoid red-lighting any of the pro channel modules. You're okay until it lights solid red.

If you have a mix where there's red-lighting going on, getting rid of it can make a HUGE difference in terms of cleaning up the sound, especially (as noted previously) if you're using the Console Emulator.

If the input to the pro channel is excessively hot, in addition to the input gain control, you can also use clip envelopes to reduce the amount of signal. Bear in mind that altering the signal going into the pro channel will affect any processors that depend on input level, like dynamics and amp sims.

I sometimes boost to give a part more clarity or make it stand out more in a mix, but I only ever boost 1 or 2dB. I cut a lot more often, and usually by larger amounts. First thing I do is a wide sweep a high-Q maximum boost, to locate a problem frequency, and I'll cut that quite heavily. Then I high pass filter as much as I can without the instrument losing weight, and make some gentle cuts in areas in which it's fighting for space with another instrument. But I have so much to learn about EQ, mainly in the listening department. 

Beepster


And check all your effects and PC modules. Your actual track meter may not be clipping but something else in the chain might be or the accumulation of everything is pushing the PC too far. Hopefully someone smarter than I will come along and explain because now I'm curious myself.

Definitely. It's important to early on set your track and bus meters to pre-fader in order to properly set the gain trims to prevent clipping. Next, if you have plugins which do not have output level controls, you'll need to set the meters pre-fader post plugin to check again for clipping. Finally, once you've done the whole gain staging rigamarole, then can you switch over to post fader metering to view relative outputs...

Great stuff, guys. I can't wait to be settled in my new studio so I can just shut out the world and really start focusing on these types of in depth subjects. I can't focus properly here. Cheers.