Getting loudness by just slamming the 2-track in a 32-bit DAW . . .

[Gordon]

Can you guys tell me if I'm imagining this . . . Made a rough mix of one of my songs that loud and punchy because I've got nothing limiting/compressing the 2 buss. The kick/snare/toms have strong defined transients, the bass is huge, guitars are chuggy, and the keys can be heard just fine. There are no vocals yet, my RMS level show at between -14/-12db which is very loud for non-mastered materials with no vox . . .

I'm using SONAR 8 with the 64-bit mix engine enabled . . .

Anyway, so there are many times when the 2-track goes above "0" on the main mix bus but it sounds fine, big and punchy. Added comps/limiters KILLS this. When examing the 24-bit exported wav file in Wavelab, you can "see" some clipped transients but nothing sounds clipped, it just sounds big.

Am I imagining this or it going over "0" on a floating-point mix bus and ripping over the bottom bits viable? Attached is a clip, keep in mind it's a rough mix done by and amateur, there's maybe 9 plugins on the entire mix.

[7rojo7]

I've done this with Prism convertors. (out into a pair of STT-1s with the gain makeup cranked and just a touch of compression and makeup eq) slamming another pair of Prism ADs into the red, no overs. but i usuallyfollow it with a TC MD3 with digital ceiling set to .01 and a look ahead of 10 ms. doesn't sound like compression or limiting
adjust your compressors on individual tracks very carefully and add mix/mastering compression in layers, limiter last
I recently had a nightmare where all my serious plugs became unauthorized and i had to use only DigiRack plugs, and i concocted some pretty nifty EQ compression and reverbs on my own
I got level to K9 and some pretty interesting reverbs just working with sidechain and delays and eq's
In a pinch use your brain, it's likely to work better than your DAW

Gavino Murgia, Quintetto Megalitico is the disk I mixed, it should come out on Enja before long

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by 7rojo7

I've done this with Prism convertors. (out into a pair of STT-1s with the gain makeup cranked and just a touch of compression and makeup eq) slamming another pair of Prism ADs into the red, no overs. but i usuallyfollow it with a TC MD3 with digital ceiling set to .01 and a look ahead of 10 ms. doesn't sound like compression or limiting
adjust your compressors on individual tracks very carefully and add mix/mastering compression in layers, limiter last
I recently had a nightmare where all my serious plugs became unauthorized and i had to use only DigiRack plugs, and i concocted some pretty nifty EQ compression and reverbs on my own
I got level to K9 and some pretty interesting reverbs just working with sidechain and delays and eq's
In a pinch use your brain, it's likely to work better than your DAW

Gavino Murgia, Quintetto Megalitico is the disk I mixed, it should come out on Enja before long

The audio ain't leaving the PC, I'm "clipping" the ITB mixer of SONAR 8 to get the loudness.

My convertors ain't high-end enough to use that trick.

[theblue1]

Of course, inside a 32 or 64 bit floating point DAW, you have enormous latitude with regard to levels. But when it comes to plug ins, they may well have sweet spots they prefer to operate in, and may not recover from overs or inoptimal levels.

And, of course, when it comes to outputting to a file or to the DA, you then run into the standard problem of explicit overs. One may not notice occasional overs, minimal clipping, etc, but multiple 0 dBFS values in a series will contribute to signal degradation and potentially cause CD-mastering errors.

A less understood problem is that of intersample overs.

Here's an explainer -- and a free download of an intersample aware bus meter plug in to help you suss them out: Solid State Logic | Music


With regard to why all overs (including intersample overs) should be avoided, you might glance at this section from Bob Katz' book on mastering: Mastering audio: the art and the science - Google Books

[Gordon]

Did you hear anything fouled up in my clip that I posted?

[smoke]

Originally Posted by Gordon

Did you hear anything fouled up in my clip that I posted?

I like it. Didn't hear anything foul as far as clipping at all. Could use a lil more kick drum.

[m_gant]

Is that clip truncated? I didn't bother to look in an audio editor. All I can say is that it gets fatiguing to my ears fast. Very "sharp" and not smooth like you may get from a nice bus compressor. On a positive note...Nice tracking and performances.

[JBaptista68]

No clipping. +1 on the kick.

[7rojo7]

Don't get too involved with what works for me
but put something that catches the clips
with look ahead
most CD players will mute on overs
maybe this is changing but that's the way it's been

[FBM]

Don't even have to look in a audio editor. Sounds terrible to my ears. If you want loudness, mix with moderate levels and then send your stuff in for mastering .
To me it sounds like all tracks are fighting for a place in the mix.
When you put all the levels a whole lot down and keep your master fader at 0db (AND LEAVE IT AT THAT LEVEL!!)you get a indication of how the levels have to be.
I'm not talking about pushing your master fader down till the level shows 0db but leave the fader at the the 0db symbol and don't touch it. Keep the Master level under 0db by lowering the volume of your tracks.
Try a maximizer and limiter on the mix bus to hear the difference between your track slamming and proper loudness.
And of course use compression, eq etc. on your tracks.
Nice music!!!
Good Luck!
David

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by FBM

Don't even have to look in a audio editor. Sounds terrible to me ears. If you want loudness, mix with moderate levels and then send your stuff in for mastering .
To me it sounds like all tracks are fighting for a place in the mix.
When you put all the levels a whole lot down and keep your master fader at 0db (AND LEAVE IT AT THAT LEVEL!!)you get a indication of how the levels have to be.
I'm not talking about pushing your master fader down till the level shows 0db but leave the fader at the the 0db symbol and don't touch it. Keep the Master level under 0db by lowering the volume of your tracks.
Try a maximizer and limiter on the mix bus to hear the difference between your track slamming and proper loudness.
And of course use compression, eq etc. on your tracks.
Nice music!!!
Good Luck!
David

thanks, last night I slapped a bus-comp with about 2 db of gain reduction and it sounds "smoother" for lack of a better word and didn't kill the transients. That's a "mix" decision in terms of making it sound better. What I found weird about this whole thing is slamming the mix buss IMHO sounds better than L1 in terms that it fouls up the audio less.

[dangoudie]

I had a listen very briefly on laptop speakers and there are no really obvious fudges so it seems fine.

What you're doing makes me nervous. I know friends of mine who have had clipping tracks and when I've mentioned it they're said something like "yeah but can you hear it?" Sometimes yes sometimes no. I feel the little red-lights are there for a reason and I've noticed that reducing the rms level of my tracks in PT has allowed for a louder and fuller end result.

You should try the Massey L2007 if you are looking for a transparent limiter. That thing blows my mind. Anywhere up to 6dB reduction is pretty inaudible.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by dangoudie

You should try the Massey L2007 if you are looking for a transparent limiter. That thing blows my mind. Anywhere up to 6dB reduction is pretty inaudible.

Maybe when he releases his plugs in VST format, I'm a SONAR user.

I have the 64-bit engine enabled, I'm wondering if that's a factor . . .

[FBM]

Hi Gordon, The thing you have to keep in mind is that you can't clip 32 bits floating point, but the problem lays in the fact that you have to pas the master and then what happens?! You go down to 24 bits (your sound card!) or even 16 bits after dither for a CD, MP3 etc. CLIPPING!!!!
That's the reason I wrote down a basic mixing lesson for DAW mixing.
The only way you get your f****ed up levels a bit down is lowering the master, because if you don't you get clipping. That results in a very bad quality sound of your total mix. Try it the way I wrote down. (It's not my invention it's basic mixing). It will even sound louder!!! Using 64bits or 128bits internal makes no difference.
David

[jinksdingo]

What your experiencing is a fairly heavily compressed mix on individual tracks with no vocals and you have some room on the master fader.
Also you can push the level to occasional clips as their is a slight manufacturers margin applied to three overs equal a clip but to ensure against user abuse a DAW meter clips could actually be slightly below real clipping.
You've used your ears and with distorted guitars you can get away with the harshness tradeoff easier than a clean sounding recording.
The piano sounds I notice were ducked noticibly near where it starts, so my guess is you probaly also went thru in WLab and ducked problems and why not, you got it loud!

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by FBM

Hi Gordon, The thing you have to keep in mind is that you can't clip 32 bits floating point, but the problem lays in the fact that you have to pas the master and then what happens?! You go down to 24 bits (your sound card!) or even 16 bits after dither for a CD, MP3 etc. CLIPPING!!!!
That's the reason I wrote down a basic mixing lesson for DAW mixing.
The only way you get your f****ed up levels a bit down is lowering the master, because if you don't you get clipping. That results in a very bad quality sound of your total mix. Try it the way I wrote down. (It's not my invention it's basic mixing). It will even sound louder!!! Using 64bits or 128bits internal makes no difference.
David

I normally do mix that way, normal my kick/snare peak between -10/-6 when mixxing. This was a happy-accident that I stumbled upon with like 20 minutes "mixing" and was curious as to why it worked.

The SONAR mixer is 64-bit floating point, I exported this to a dithered 24-bit file using the SONAR export function. When I open the files in Wavelab, they sound the same, the "overs" are clipped and show at 0 db. I'm very familiar with the sound of digital clipping from my DA-88 days, I don't hear it here.

I'm more curious as to what happens to those extra bits when you render to a 24-bit file. To my ears whatever the heck it's doing doesn't sound bad.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by jinksdingo

The piano sounds I notice were ducked noticibly near where it starts, so my guess is you probaly also went thru in WLab and ducked problems and why not, you got it loud!

The piano is the True Pianos built into SONAR 8 with no effect. That "ducking" is my piano player's dynamics.

[FBM]

quote: m_gant "All I can say is that it gets fatiguing to my ears fast."

That's exactly what my ears are hearing in a acoustic treated studio out of
two Adam audio p33-A speakers.

My advice leave it for a couple of day's and have a fresh listen.

David

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by FBM

quote: m_gant "All I can say is that it gets fatiguing to my ears fast."

That's exactly what my ears are hearing in a acoustic treated studio out of
two Adam audio p33-A speakers.

My advice leave it for a couple of day's and have a fresh listen.

David

The "fatiguing" is the overly-defined transients on the snare drum, I hear this as well but the quality of the mix/song isn't the point of my inquiry. i agree, this needs a bus comp to tame that stuff and glue stuff together but it's not a finished mix, it's barely a started one. The Guitars for example have zero processing, that just the mic'd tracks with nothing but panning and level.

What I'm really curious about is what exactly the DAW does to the overs when you render to a 24-bit file.

[FBM]

Hi Gordon, On the 32 or 64 floating point tracks there is no clipping. After the master yes when going down to a lower amount of bits, because then you are leaving the floating domain. The result (only when the master go's above the 0 db) clipping. Or you have to stick a brick wall limiter in between .
Don't misunderstand me! I like what you are doing, but I don't like the f***ked up sound.
I think it can sound much better. And even louder!!!
David