macrae11 wrote:And the worst part is that its probably already been significantly clipped, but the clips aren't showing up any more and there's nothing you can do about it.
Christian LeBlanc wrote:In the past, I've always tracked instruments as close to 0 in my DAW as possible (normalizing when necessary to get the volume up), not because I was consciously in a loudness war, but because I just wanted clear signals. For example, if I recorded a microphone set too low, my vocals sounded real hissy when I made them louder in the program, so I just tried recording with clarity of signal as my goal.
macrae11 wrote:Any digital peak meter will measure in dBFS, so yes Cubase measures in dBFS. One easy way to tell is that dBFS is almost the only dB scale where the highest point is 0.
Mathieu Benoit wrote:Interestingly enough though Cubase will show levels in DBFS above 0 which I always found really strange... Might be because it uses 32 bit floating point. That being said if you have anything above 0dbfs in Cubase when you export to fixed point 24 bit, don't expect anything above that 0dbfs to not be clipped.
This is depending on how you have your pan law set up in the DAW. Some faders at "zero" may mean a level below unity.Mathieu Benoit wrote:To further clarify Andrew's point: When your fader level is at 0 it's considered unity gain. Meaning you are not increasing or decreasing the gain.
Malcolm Boyce wrote:Mathieu Benoit wrote:Interestingly enough though Cubase will show levels in DBFS above 0 which I always found really strange... Might be because it uses 32 bit floating point. That being said if you have anything above 0dbfs in Cubase when you export to fixed point 24 bit, don't expect anything above that 0dbfs to not be clipped.
It is precisely the floating point math that allows you to produce levels above 0dBFS in the DAW. You need to have a solid understanding about digital levels to deal with everything in that domain, especially when dealing with the various ways that different systems crunch the numbers. Levels above "Zero" need to be considered out of bounds, and to be dealt with accordingly.
Malcolm Boyce wrote:This is depending on how you have your pan law set up in the DAW. Some faders at "zero" may mean a level below unity.Mathieu Benoit wrote:To further clarify Andrew's point: When your fader level is at 0 it's considered unity gain. Meaning you are not increasing or decreasing the gain.
Mathieu Benoit wrote:Malcolm Boyce wrote:This is depending on how you have your pan law set up in the DAW. Some faders at "zero" may mean a level below unity.Mathieu Benoit wrote:To further clarify Andrew's point: When your fader level is at 0 it's considered unity gain. Meaning you are not increasing or decreasing the gain.
RIght. That's an excellent point, I forgot all about that. That's actually a good discussion to have...
Christian LeBlanc wrote:I actually tried looking this up in my documentation, but I didn't even find a reference to dbFS, much less how to recalibrate the faders with respect to different places on different db scales, which I understand some DAWs allow you to do.
In my Cubase (and even my Cubase LE 4), it still doesn't show actual audio levels in real time, just peaks. In that sense it's real time, if a track gets louder and louder. Stupid thing, it's going to force me to use my ears instead of my eyes - that's not what I signed up for!
Sonar does show levels above zero as well. It is handy, and I wouldn't love not having it.Mathieu Benoit wrote:Malcolm Boyce wrote:Mathieu Benoit wrote:Interestingly enough though Cubase will show levels in DBFS above 0 which I always found really strange... Might be because it uses 32 bit floating point. That being said if you have anything above 0dbfs in Cubase when you export to fixed point 24 bit, don't expect anything above that 0dbfs to not be clipped.
It is precisely the floating point math that allows you to produce levels above 0dBFS in the DAW. You need to have a solid understanding about digital levels to deal with everything in that domain, especially when dealing with the various ways that different systems crunch the numbers. Levels above "Zero" need to be considered out of bounds, and to be dealt with accordingly.
I understand all of that, but I find it strange that Cubase actually shows the levels about 0 dbfs on the meter. In Pro Tools it doesn't actually show the level going above 0 dbfs although it too is 32 bit floating point. Does Sonor show levels above 0 dbfs? I just don't want to confuse Christian into thinking that anything above 0 dbfs exists in a tangible sense.
Malcolm Boyce wrote:Sonar does show levels above zero as well. It is handy, and I wouldn't love not having it.
Panning taper or "pan law" is designed to keep the level consistent regardless of where the pan pot is set. If all a pan did was reduce the level of one side while panning to the other, you would be lowering the volume of a channel by panning it off. As you pan off, you are reducing the one side, while increasing the other side to maintain an overall consistent level.Mathieu Benoit wrote:0db which means there is no attenuation in the center. Basically anything panned in the will sound louder than it should.
-6dB which means that there is 6dB of attenuation in the center. Basically everything will balance out very well for mono but if you want some extra kick in the center you'll come up short.
-3dB This is basically a happy medium between the two extremes. I'm pretty sure Cubase defaults to this.
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