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Originally Posted by minister hey johnny,
it does get hard when multiple studios work on projects. and many studios do not calibrate.
(mostly, i was talking about slamming levels up to -2dBFS and -1 on recording.)
curious, do you use your A & B trims?
and i am confused about something. if i record something cal'd to -18dBFS=0VU and my levels average around -18 -- you know, 24dBFS --> -12dBFS, let's say, and i send it to you and you are cal'd to -14dBFS=0VU. how would my levels clip your console inputs? wouldn't they be lower? yours would be averaging -14, mine 4 dB less. |
Hiya! :-)
I have A set to -14dBFS and B set to -18dBFS so I can switch between the two dpending on the levels. Where the confusion lies is that the lower the cal level, the hotter the output level will be. If I was set to -14dBFS in the scenario you describe, then the level of course wouldn't clip the console. But if I was at -18 it would have a more likely chance to. And this being a scenario where the levels are preinted very low, something I almost never come across.
Then there is the reasoning that the levels should be low because you don't want to strain the analog gear. But again, the only reason you would strain your analog gear with hotter levels is because the calibration level is so low. With a higher calibration level this becomes a non issue as it doesn't take as much output from the analog gear intro the DAW and the output of the DAW is lower.
Unfortunately the majority of tuff I get is by bad engineers who print everything right up to zero. Even at -14dBFS this can often clip the console inputs. Not to mention that when it comes to bouncing down 8 tracks of backround vocals all printed right up to 0 the result is a distroted signal.
But I think the biggest reason for this issue is that most DAWs don't have ny accurate way of keeping track of the level. The mters are generall two small to have an kind of level indicators so people just try to get the peaks close to 0 because there is no real visual reference. What they should do is make a user setable marker on faders so you can have an indicator at the level you reference to.