MR816csx optical/adat outs distorting?

[shanabit]

"To further trouble shoot, I loaded the same cd into my cd player, sent adat out of the cd player to the dac-1, and the signal is clean monitoring with the dac-1."

The signal leaving Cubase is the issue, its too hot. Easy fix is to go to the input trim and enter -3. Cubase will now playback 3dB lower FROM the audio on the hard drive itself.
Cubase main stereo out is EASY to clip BTW. If you have a RED CLIP on the track OR the Transport shows CLIP then you have a gain staging issue. Reduce like I said then clear the clipping meter by clicking on it to re set it. IF your still clipping, knock it down another 3 dB. Problem solved. There is no ADAT output volume adjustment on or MR816's BTW.

Your obviously distorting the inputs on the Benchmark.

[LSP]

Originally Posted by shanabit

"To further trouble shoot, I loaded the same cd into my cd player, sent adat out of the cd player to the dac-1, and the signal is clean monitoring with the dac-1."

The signal leaving Cubase is the issue, its too hot. Easy fix is to go to the input trim and enter -3. Cubase will now playback 3dB lower FROM the audio on the hard drive itself.
Cubase main stereo out is EASY to clip BTW. If you have a RED CLIP on the track OR the Transport shows CLIP then you have a gain staging issue. Reduce like I said then clear the clipping meter by clicking on it to re set it. IF your still clipping, knock it down another 3 dB. Problem solved. There is no ADAT output volume adjustment on or MR816's BTW.

Your obviously distorting the inputs on the Benchmark.

If I lower the input trim on the "cd import" channel by -3, then I won't have a clear representation of what this particular commercial track is as far as RMS volume goes, which is the reason I imported into Cubase,... so I could make a fair comparison to my clients song,.. which of course he wants as loud as many of the commercial cd's out today.

There are no clip lights any where in Cubase when the aforementioned imported cd track is playing. The master outs are pretty much pinned at "0" though, but no clipping.

This particular track was mastered by Bob Ludwig,...the first song on Jason Mraz's latest album, and I think still sounds pretty darn good, even if it has been smashed for loudness.

I guess I can continue to reference the VERY loud cd tracks with my MR816 headphone outs if I want to do an A/B comparison to my mastered song.

The other thing I'm worried about is the fact that I had planned on running the same adat out of the MR816 into my HHB cd burner for my final master,... but since I've had to also make this clients songs LOUD, I'm afraid they'll also be distorted as they hit the burner. If I turn down the tracks before they leave my software, I'll be losing the volume that I'd worked to get in the first place.

I'm I making sense, or am I missing something?

Thanks

[shanabit]

Are you referencing the CD track WITH all your plugins TURNED on in the Master stereo output in Cubase? THAT will def give you a problem. What I do is BYPASS the inserts and sends on the Master out when listening to the ref CD

[LSP]

Originally Posted by shanabit

Are you referencing the CD track WITH all your plugins TURNED on in the Master stereo output in Cubase? THAT will def give you a problem. What I do is BYPASS the inserts and sends on the Master out when listening to the ref CD

The plugins are always turned off on the stereo buss when I play back the reference cd track. I did some experiments late last night.

I turned down the master buss input by 3db, and ran that into my HHB burner, with the digital input level set at 0. Strangely, I was still getting some digital clipping going in to the HHB. I can either turn down the digital in on the HHB, or turn down the input in cubase even more.

I've yet to compare overall volume of the original, which I can burn from within the pc, to the burned HHB copy though,.... more experiments this evening.

Thanks again.