yes, theartfulducker, the clipping lights come on when the level goes over the threshold set by the DAW. Sometimes this will be 0dB, sometimes 3dB, wherever the designer of the DAW decided to put the level, whether they decided to leave headroom or not.

The discussion here is about where elements in the mix should sit relative to each other. In practical terms, no instrument should ever go "over/red light clip" by itself - potentially if the highest the kick drum reaches is -8dB, then once the other instruments are in place the overall mix will be somewhere close to 0dB. But even the hottest element in the track, the kick, will go nowhere near clipping on it's own.

Reason doesn't display every channel's dB level though (hmm...at least I don't think that was introduced in Reason 4...I bring the tracks into Cubase and do my mixing there, so I haven't paid huge attention to the new Reason sequencer lanes...). But yes, it will tell you if the overall level of the track is in the red.

But in Reason, you could still set up a template with the levels of each element set to nominal starting levels, rather than starting with all faders at 100. But that's totally up to individual preference. Some people like starting with a certain ballpark, some people like having all the faders up at unity and turn things down, some people like having everything at 0 and bring the faders up one at a time to their appropriate levels. As long as the method produces excellent results, it's fine.

use your ears yo

meters can be helpful, but not the be all and end all

david

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ok so levels should roughly be around -11 --8db what levels should it be say if your just playing Kick and Bass.

say your kick is at -8db what level once you put the bass on should the level go upto?

I'm also curious about 'proper' levels when putting together a track.

Are you guys saying that each individual sound should be set at a certain dB (taking into account, of course, that things need to sit (sound) correctly in the mix relative to each other)? E.g. the kick drum should peak around -8dB on its own channel? And then the other sounds, e.g. the bass-line, should peak at some other level on its own channel? Or, alternatively, are we talking about levels on the master? I'm just trying to walk through the steps in my head of how to build a track. So, for example, I find a kick that I like and I make sure that it peaks at 'x' Db and then I do the same for the bassline, the snare, the arp, and so on?

No theres no particular levals for anything. You prolly want your kick pretty high in a trance track but that would obviously sound stupid ina rock song. Use your ears and make sure it all sounds good and make sure nothing is redlining basically. Pretty simple really. Theres no secret trick to it, or special textbook of levals for things. People who mixdown tracks better have trained there ears more basically. Getting to know your monitors helps too.

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quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Why on earth would you need this when Cubase has a built-in meter on every channel?

hahaha

i try to keep everything as hot as i can without clipping at any point in the fx chain... then i just turn down that particular channel in the mixer...

people often forget about the noise floor... not sure how applicable this is in a digital environment with only generated sounds, but i like to play it safe

david

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quote:

Originally posted by davidbuhau people often forget about the noise floor... not sure how applicable this is in a digital environment with only generated sounds, but i like to play it safe david

Depends on whether you're using hardware or software. If you're using hardware, potentially the outputs may have a little noise associated with them, potentially the audio cables may pick up a trace bit of noise. You'd be able to tell very easily how much noise/ hiss/ whatever there is after recording a part - just crank the volume way up at the start of the recording before there's any sound and see if there's anything there but silence.

With software instruments, unless they've been programmed strangely, there should be zero noise. There are no cables, no connections, nothing which would conceivably produce noise.

Back in the day, equipment had a higher level of inherent noise, so engineers tried to capture the incoming signal as hotly as possible, to get the widest distance between the signal and the hiss/dirt/noise floor. This resulted in the "cleanest" signal. If you were recording many instruments and they all came with a bit of noise, eventually all that noise built up to a degree. Many times engineers even let the signal go "over" (that is, red light) now and then - it was a tradeoff, to maximize the distance between the signal and the noise floor.

In the digital domain, using modern equipment, the noise floor should be extremely negligible or non-existent. The damage done to the recorded sound by letting the channel ever go into the red, at any point, is much worse than the gains in getting a clean signal well away from the noise floor. In most cases you should be able to record comfortably at many, many dBs under 0 with no audible difference in sound quality.

Noise floor isn't quite zero in a software environment, but it's so low that it's not worth worrying about. We're talking on the order of -100 dB or so - your mix would have to be barely audible for that to make any impact.

Truncation and dithering do make an impact, though. When you do your final bounce to 16 bits, if your mix peaks at -3 dB, you've effectively reduced your resolution to 15 bits. -6 dB peak, 14 bits. And so on. It's almost like sticking a bitcrusher on the master out, except not quite as dramatic.

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Yes, if the overall mix peaks well below 0dB that is an issue.

I work at 24 bit for recording and mixing (then bounce down to 16 bit for the final output file, if it's not going to external mastering). I set my recording levels at a point where the signal is strong, but there's no chance it will go "over".

Where does the noise come from when using a VST? Or is the noise floor inside the sequencer itself, so there's an overall noise floor, but not a cumulative one when using multiple VSTs?

lol my projects constantly clip i dont really pay attention to it. i r sukkkkkkkk