Hi guys, just a quick question about gain staging addictive drums 2 in sonar x3, up until now I usually just open AD2 get my drum sound which is usually a clean sounding kit as I don't use the processing inside AD2 so I don't use the preset kits, I build a kit myself by selecting each kit piece individually and having no inserts on, I then set the faders in AD2 to unity gain and have all kit pieces going to their own channel in Sonar as I like to do all my processing there, When in sonar the channels will be clipping at this stage so I use the trim knob on each channel to have my channels peaking around -10dbfs. I was wondering if I should be adjusting the gain of each kit piece channel and overheads and room mics inside AD2 so that when they output to their respective channels in sonar there is no need for me to use the trim knob to stop the channels from clipping.
As always guys your help is much appreciated.
Andrew

What you are doing sounds right to me. Can you hear any problem?

Thanks for the reply, No it sounds fine, I just think of AD2 as an instrument like my guitar, bass or vocal. When I record guitar, bass or vocal, my mic is going into my interface and I'm setting the level so I'm recording with a peak level somewhere around -12dbfs going into sonar so I never use the trim knob on these channels before I mix, I was just wondering if I should be adjusting the output of AD2 as if I was recording real drums, I realise the peak value would probably be higher for drums, maybe around -6dbfs. I know on each kit piece in AD2 there is a volume slider, I'm talking about the volume slider beside the picture in the editor not the fader on the mixer, I was wondering should I turn this slider down to get my desired levels, I can turn each piece down including cymbals which means my overheads will be relative to my normal close mics Maybe there is no correct way to do this.
The knowledge base section on XLN is pretty useless and there is no great info on this around the net or other forums.
Thanks

There are certain places in the signal chain where clipping happens... Like the interface. A clip at the interface is real and not really fixable. In sonar, distortion can happen by clipping into FX.

I think that if you just overload a track into a bus with no FX and trim the bus gain, no clipping will happen to the audio. In the Box, some overloading doesn't result in clipping.

sausy1981
Hi guys, just a quick question about gain staging addictive drums 2 in sonar x3, up until now I usually just open AD2 get my drum sound which is usually a clean sounding kit as I don't use the processing inside AD2 so I don't use the preset kits, I build a kit myself by selecting each kit piece individually and having no inserts on, I then set the faders in AD2 to unity gain and have all kit pieces going to their own channel in Sonar as I like to do all my processing there, When in sonar the channels will be clipping at this stage so I use the trim knob on each channel to have my channels peaking around -10dbfs. I was wondering if I should be adjusting the gain of each kit piece channel and overheads and room mics inside AD2 so that when they output to their respective channels in sonar there is no need for me to use the trim knob to stop the channels from clipping.
As always guys your help is much appreciated.
Andrew

I get the same thing with BFD and have in the past lowered the faders inside the BFD GUI down to about -10dB in order to get a lower/healthier signal inside Sonar.
 
It makes no difference if you do it this way or lower the trims in each of your drum tracks in Sonar. The point is, the levels have been attenuated prior to mixing

Thanks jonesy I think I'll just use unity gain on everything in AD2 and touch nothing and use the trim on the channel to attenuate the signal, That way I'm getting the sample exactly as it was recorded but have gain staged it within the DAW. Just a quick question man, what do you let your drums peak at? Do you use -12dbfs or higher, Thats a peaking value not RMS.

I aim to peak between -9 & -12, which leaves bags of headroom.
 
Program a few hits on each kit piece at maximum velocity (127) to give you an idea of how much to attenuate the trims.

Cheers man, at least now I know someone else is doing things similiar to me. Cheers.