Keeping your levels low in digital recording/mixing...

[where02190]

So long as the A/D D/A convertors dont clip (0db) what does it matter? Is my music really going to be better if it peaks at -12db at the A/D stage when recording?

There seems to be an implication that A/D convertors work better at certain ranges. Has anyone got any info from say RME on this subject? I'd love to hear their opinion (or a company like them).

It doesn't, but the problem is, the way many daw's are set up for metering, often there's no way to see if you're overshooting, you have to be able to hear it. take for example the master buss. Meters are almost always post fader, and there's often no pfl, so unless you keep the master fader at 0 and no plugins on the buss, there's no way to know what's going INTO the buss, which is often where the problem originates.

Similiar issue with plugins.

Not to mention if you run you mix to 0dbfs, you've left the mastering engineer no headroom.

Also consider that 0dbfs out of the converters is in the vicinity of +24-+28dbu, at or beyond the limits of most analog gear.

[where02190]

I do agree that music-techs post was valid,to the point and in general really good. However it does nothing to support the notion that MIXING at low volumes somehow magically transforms your mixes into sounding better. Au contraire he mentioned nothing to even remotely support that theory.

This and many, many other posts and articles do support this to be true, that the quality of audio is very noticably better when proper gain staging is observed.

No it does'nt. He even said so himself unless you did'nt notice.

At what level you should hit you AD and DA converter is a completly different subject and is a whole other topic initself.

Completely false, and it is specificially related. Again, the result of proper gain staging throughout.

You're just saying i'm wrong yet again fail to even remotely back up your standpoint. Saying i'm wrong does'nt make it so.
Hitting the AD converters will of course affect the sound as they are analog and you will get different resolutions. How is that even remotely related to what level your faders are ?
Or do you mean that changing the levels is bad ?

The truth is you can still mix with every track hitting close to zero and just lower the master fader and you will get the EXACT same result as if you lowered the individual channels.

Again completely false, and a trained ear knows this.

This is so easy to prove and i even showed you how to do it.Why are you so afraid to try it out for yourself ? It's dead easy. You do realize that expecting something to sound different will make you believe it will sound different.However a quick blindtest will reveal it ain't so.
Or do you believe that 2 soundfiles that cancel eachother out when one is phase reversed can sound different ?

Of course you should trust your ears to a point but be carefule so you dont enter John Vestman territory.

All the math in the world means nothing if it doesn't sound good. We're not mixing to satisfy a formua, we're mixing for the human ears.

So John Westman claims he can hear the difference between different brands of harddrives. Just because he has sold more records than me does that mean he is right ?

Math's and science may not be the way to great sounding mixes but they're very effective at shattering ridicoulus myths that "pros" who really don't know what they're talking about are spreading. Or maybe they're discussing a completly different platform (integer) which very few of us use. It is good to take advice from succesful names but just because they've sold shitloads of records does'nt mean it applies to your situation or even that they're right.

This is just funny. The pros "don't know what they're talking about". Why do you think they are pros? Because they DO know what they are talking about. Many of them are hands on in development of the technology that is part of the digital process today.

You do notice that you've contradicted yourself here ? First you say maths does'nt matter and here,all of a sudden they're famous because they do know about maths.

I've seen Bob Katz claim that a properly dithered 16 bit recording can have 120 dB of dynamics. Which is kinda funny since the theoretical limit is 96.
And did you read when Roger Nichols made a complete ass of himself in SOS ? It was painful to read.

So if Trevor Horn (or whatever favourite producer you have. TH is one of mine) claims that changing the colours(or skin) of your host makes the sound better,that it is right ? Just because he sold more records than me ?

If he believe's that,it still won't prevent him from making great sounding records but it still does'nt make it right.

This buisness is hard enough without believing in woodoo.

A couple of questions:
1. Why are you so afraid to try for yourself ? It's so easy to prove you wrong,yet you still refuse to try.
2. What on earth does record sales has to do with if you're wrong or not ? I don't see the correlation.
3. Do you even know the difference between integer and floating point ?
4. What does gain staging on a fixed point host has to do with a floating point host ? You do realize they're 2 completley different matters ?
5. Have you ever heard of placebo ? I can't count how many times i've seen people telling that they changed the EQ on a channel that was'nt even on and heard a difference. I've even done it myself a few times. You swear there is a difference and then you look up and see you're adjusting the wrong eq.

You obviously can't hear those differences. Engineering is a tallent, and we do not all possess it.

You obviously can hear the difference when there isn't one.Engineering is a tallent, and we do not all possess it.

I, and I suspect few if anyone else is interested in your one sided pissing contest. I afraid of nothing and have been a professional engineer for over 25 years, and like then other pro engineers that KNOW there is a difference in the audio quality, I've no need to debate this with those who cannot distinguish the difference. Best of luck to you.

[jackson]

You're right because you say so. Man, I wish I could use that logic professionally.

[bduffy]

It reminds me of Carl Jung, when asked if he believed in God. He replied, "I do not believe, I KNOW".*













*Jung also "knew" that books spontaneously exploded on his bookshelf.

[Epiphany]

I think we've covered it, about 3 pages ago. If everything was coded perfectly to adhere 100% to floating point, headroom would be irrelvant.

Since that is NOT the case, it's sensible to watch the levels.

See, not hard.

[Epiphany]

Also - music-tech, you're one of kvr's most consistently articulate, knowledgeable and helpful contributors. Thank you. More like you and less chest-beating, dogmatic "professionals" would do us all good.

[music-tech]

Also - music-tech, you're one of kvr's most consistently articulate, knowledgeable and helpful contributors. Thank you. More like you and less chest-beating, dogmatic "professionals" would do us all good.

Thanks very much for the generous comments! There are definitely plenty of other helpful people on here as well. I guess I just type REALLY fast and love "talking" about this stuff, so I always seem to write little mini-books (even in e-mails, which my wife hates).

I don't claim to know everything, by any means, although I fully admit to be a total technical geek and spend WAY too much time on the net reading up on this stuff (and trying to sort out truth from myths or beliefs).

I've been a full time professional recording/mixing engineer and music producer for over 12 years now, and a lot longer as a serious hobby, and worked for several years on staff at one of the largest studio facilities in the Seattle area. However, I still have MUCH to learn though, and the more I do this, the better I get at it. You never really stop learning in this business, especially with digital technology changing so rapidly.

I'm also a musician and a music lover, and I never forget that all of this has to serve the music! The music ALWAYS comes first in my book, and capturing the moment of inspiration from great musicians is MUCH MUCH more important than all these little technical details we all argue about constantly. Yes, it's our job to make things sound as good as possible, but when I'm working with clients who are paying me by the hour, I do what I know will work and sound good without wasting time experimenting to see if maybe some minor technical change will have some minuscule impact in the sound. As previously mentioned, I always am careful about my levels to and from my converters, and since I split everything out of the computer to a digital mixer through up to 52 digital outputs, I also have to make sure each one of those channels isn't clipping since the hardware digital interfaces are all fixed point. And, since my digital mixer is fixed point as well, I'm always watching my levels there to make sure I'm not clipping. So, the part of this argument about whether lowering your levels during mixing makes a difference is not something I've ever tried because I've never been even able to push the levels with my fixed point mixer unless I want to clip.

Ok... blah, blah, blah... more redundant rambling! Sorry!

I need to get back down to the studio and finish up some tracks of my own before the guitar player and drummer come in next week.

Steve

[xcomp]

Now that I think about it -- don't level meters show time-averaged values, so transients (which can distort b/c of their higher levels) aren't necessarily displayed? I guess that would be another argument for keeping metered peaks well below 0 dBFS when sending the signal to the DAC? (Sorry if someone said that already and I missed it.)

[Kingston]

thank the lord there's the DSP forum where myths from threads like this have no room to grow.

[xcomp]

thank the lord there's the DSP forum where myths from threads like this have no room to grow.

Did I quote a myth?

(Edit -- If you were referring to what I wrote, just wanted to clarify that I'm not looking to argue, just to learn.)