Tracktion Software

Sidhu · Post by **Sidhu** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:28 pm

platinumears wrote:
sidhu wrote:disabling meters wont work for me. I need a good idea of where my levels are. While platinums comments are very valid. There is alwaz that transient that i would like to tame. Before it reaches the master.

Sidhu
Tame with what? A compressor? Doesn't that have metering?

Compressors often cannot tame a very fast transient, Unlkess it's look ahed and has a very fast attack.

Tame it manually. By bringing the clips (ater splitting it) level down. For which i need to know I had had a clip over there, for which i eed meters.

And i will not have 24 compressors open at the same time. Just to chek levels.

To each one his own...

Sidhu

Hypertone · Post by **Hypertone** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:30 pm

sidhu wrote:Like they now have fullscreen input metering... i was almost expecting it to serve as an output metering also.

Sidhu

Me too, actually that would be more useful. I monitor my input levels in my soundcard control panel.

pHz · Post by **pHz** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:30 pm

erm ... forgive me if ive missed something (only skimmed over this) ... but dont we all know that a visually clipping meter doesnt NECESSARILY represent an internally clipping signal ???

slainte

rob

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:35 pm

<raises hand>

I do!

Regarding the 'taming' thing-- the tool for the job is a simple transparent limiter. If you know that your 'baseline' track is at about -6 dB, but that you have occasional transients that are clipping, why not set a limiter at say -5 db? The dynamics of the rest of the track won't be affected, but those renegage peaks will be shut down at -5, thus allowing them to 'jump out' a bit more if that's desirable, but maintaining a controllable level.

If that's an unreasonable suggestion, then call me a monkey's uncle, but it seems to work for me.

Besides that, where are you getting these renegade peaks? If you screwed up the recording process that badly that you have such out of control audio, chances are pretty good that you're already going in there with an audio editor (or in Tracktion!) and taming it all up anyhow, with your other visual cue-- your waveform display.

Greg

stephengardner · Post by **stephengardner** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:36 pm

I know everyone's sick of hearing about it..but we must have a full feature wave editor and on and off (mute automation) for filters and tracks please!

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:38 pm

I can only assume that the "we must" was a sly joke, considering the recent posts in this thread.

semiquaver · Post by **semiquaver** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:45 pm

Sidhu - first I would suggst you leave yourself some room - in fp mixing there is no sonic penalty if you turn every track down 10db. Honest!

More to the point: If on over doesn't actually *sound* bad there is no reason to "tame" it. Transients, particularly on drums can sometimes be clipped without harming the sound in my experience. If on the other hand you heqar an ugly digital splat then by all means fix it. But if you hear it you don't need the meter there...

Re: Greg's suggestion: there is no such thing as a transparent limiter really - if it does something you will hear it!

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:51 pm

Pshaw. That's just rhetoric, my friend. You know exactly what I'm talking about. By that logic, you'd never use a master limiter on a mix, because the sonic character would be too drastically altered.

There are plenty of limiters of sufficient transparency that a mere quick transient peak can be tamed without a human ear really noticing any difference other than volume. With the magic of look-ahead, our sequencers CAN predict the future!!!

Greg

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 10:11 pm

semiquaver wrote:More to the point: If on over doesn't actually *sound* bad there is no reason to "tame" it. Transients, particularly on drums can sometimes be clipped without harming the sound in my experience.

I would go further: TRANSIENTS SOUND GREAT!! if you "tame" them all you will end up with boring mixes.

nuisance sonore · Post by **nuisance sonore** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 10:13 pm

I've been reading the word "transient" ever since I started reading about sound. What does it means exactly? Babelfish translate it to "passager" and SDL to "vagabond", something I can't really relate to sound as much as I try.

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 10:20 pm

"Transient" in this context refers to a very short peak in an audio signal, such as the crack at the start of a snare drum hit.

nuisance sonore · Post by **nuisance sonore** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 10:36 pm

Aaaah, thank you platinumears.
Oh, and I think it's not true what they say about you...

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 10:40 pm

Sidhu · Post by **Sidhu** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 6:32 am

@ Greg

I do not screw up my recordings!

Also i tried usoing the MDA limiter (for lack of owning a better one, and it lets these transients through. I would have been ok with a limiter set to -3, as long as it works. Any suggestions ?

@semiquaver

Yes turning down the faders are no problem. I dont have any audible artifacts. there is no audible clipping with my recordings.

All im trying to say is that having output meters like the way we now have input meters (i have to chek them out though) would make the job a bit simpler.

@platinumears

Transients do sound great. Some do go overboard though!

finally, I dont understand summing very well. So i will take your word for it. Trimming the master bus has absolutely no effect on the sound or resolution ???

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 6:43 am

For limiting, the best free one I've come across is George Yohng's W1 limiter. You can get it at his site, yohng.com, or with a GUI at BetabugsAudio.com

Greg

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