It seems that there is a difference between Mk1 and Mk2, on Mk1 I look for yellow-ish/orangy input leds most of the time with red on peaks.
Targeting for green led is too low.
If you sample your signal, you can check the waveform in the audio editor, the ceiling in the display is basically the ceiling, above it will start to clip.
The diagram here helped me solve that same question : Signal flow/gain staging diagram for Octatrack MKII
Boost the THRU machine by the AMP page volume, not on the SRC page. The latter introduces clipping.
Track levels at maximum, all the rest at 0 (neutral).
Ah excellent - you just reminded me I always forget about the level knob per track. Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Got it - thanks for the tips. Just read elsewhere the green light is not hot enough, must be a definite issue.
Thank you!
And if you want a very in depth discussion with the research that some heroes here did to find the wisdom, check this: Gain aGain
I didnt mention it but of course the 1st thing you do is set a proper gain in the mix page. Make it peak just in the red seems to be the consensus.
Much appreciated. Can’t wait to hear the difference putting all of this together!
You can absolutely clipp by using the AMP page volume, it’s just clipping at a different point in the signal path. Which one works beter is more of a case by case thing, but in general I’d say it makes sense to set the level on the SRC page so that the highest levels your input signal will reach under normal circumstances doesn’t clip, and then using the AMP page for things like parameter locks and LFO modulation.
I’ve only been using the OT for a week or so but here’s the scenario that I ran into: I have the AR on inputs AB. I set the gain on MIX page so that it peaks the leds in the red. I’m running it through a THRU machine on track 1. On track 2 I have a recorder and FLEX listening to the AB inputs as well. If I sample the signal and play it back on track 2 it’s way louder than what I have via the THRU on track 1. The famous -12dB situation.
If I want to mix the 2 tracks i either have to bring track 1 up or track 2 down. Elektron chooses for boosting recordings by default so I also choose to boost track 1. I can do it either on SRC or AMP page. If I do it on SRC page with this hot input signal, I very soon hit clipping, long before I have the necessary volume boost. If I do it on the AMP page I can turn it up to +63, which gives me the 12dB boost without clipping.
Though I’m sure under some circumstances it’s also possible to clip AMP/VOL.
So maybe the better formulation of my statement is: better to boost on the AMP page as there is more headroom at that point in the signal path, and simply turning it to max neatly levels your THRU track with any recorded playbacks of the same input.
I’m gonna have to check my setup for the details, but I think I only have to boost incoming audio / source of a Thru track some random number like 17 or 27 to match the volume level of buffer recordings on flex tracks when I keep Amp settings zero everywhere? (I really always try to keep amp at zero and track levels at 127, from a performance/UI standpoint that’s so much more easy, to just be able to turn something up to full and know that’s your target…)
(I’ll check my settings in a bit, but maybe maybe you’re already two steps ahead or me, gain staging and me don’t go way back)
So I have been trying to utilize the gain staging advice from all the suggestions above. I wanted to share my observations and hopefully gather even more great observations and ideas from people (thanks a lot everyone who has chimed in on this thread).
I’m feeding way hotter signals into the OT, which has been an improvement overall for me. However, on my A4 I have been keep everything basically at maximum, which does seem a bit out of whack to me - or is it? I’m sure some gear doesn’t output particularly hot, though when I plug headphones directly into the A4, there seems to be plenty of juice… I tried headphone swapping turning the OT headphones up, turning the A4 headphones down to compare, but they never seemed to quite match. The A4 still sounds more full and alive when monitored directly rather than through the OT.
Before reading the replies on this thread I had tended to ignore the Mixer page. I’ve since been utilizing the Gain knobs there to help boost input signals further, looking for yellow and red lights on the meter as recommended. Using gain has been a great simple realization because that way I can still mute tracks at will (as opposed to when DIR levels are up). Hadn’t realized that before! I notice that mixing some DIR with this creates a sort of phasing effect, which is both interesting and a little unsettling, lol.
I have also been keeping Track channels themselves generally cranked to 127, while leaving the Playback (or ‘Source’ on the MKII) volume at zero and riding the AMP volume for most fine mixing adjustments. Balancing everything is tough as sound sources seem to get out of control quickly, but that is surely where one’s actual mixing skills come in, a topic for another thread no doubt.
Finally, I noticed that the character of the headphone mix changes a lot depending on whether or not Studio Mode and/or Track 8 as an FX channel are enabled under the Project menu. I know there are differences between the headphone mix and what comes out of the mains, but I haven’t reviewed the manual for info on that topic yet.
Sorry, trying to be concise! Any comments would be great to hear. Thanks again!
This sounds like you have the same signal going through two different paths.
If you have FX (eg filter) enabled on the T8 Master, then this is totally expected behaviour.
Hmm, two different paths sounds like a good diagnosis. Maybe I had the AB set on two different tracks without noticing…
Regarding the headphone mix, I actually tried removing the filter (so no FX at all) and it didn’t make a difference.
Though if you do intend to mix DIR signals with processed/recorded signals there is a delay compensation setting to correct for the slight timing difference between them that s causing the phasing. I forget where it s found exactly. Have a look in project settings.
To me it sounds like it would be good for you to start afresh with a new project, to be sure some forgotten setting is not throwing you off.
I checked levels of synths connected to my OT with the built in noise gate out of curiosity.
You simply turn up the noise gate treshold from inf (=everything coming through) until the signal disappears. Take note of the db reading when the signal cuts off, that’s the level which OT meassures the input with.
Seems that OTs input leds turn orange at -14 and red at -10 db.
Master track level has to be set to 127, everything under 127 will lower the levels of tracks going into the master track. 127 is unattenuated.
When I did a bunch of gainstaging testing a few years ago one thing I noticed was that the LED color changes happen at ifferent levels depending on whether you’re increasing or decreasing the gain. I forget the exact difference and it might vary depending on the actual material, but with test tones it wasn’t insignificant, something like 2-3dB at least. So if you increased the level of the input signal until the LED changed color, the change would happen a few dB higher than if you started with a signal that was hot enough to put the LED into a colorother than green and then reduced its level until the color changed. It happened with all of the color changes (gree/yellow, yellow/organge and ornge/red).
The lesson for me was that the LEDs are really rough indicators, which we already knew anyhow.
EDIT: this was with a MK1, no idea if it behaves the same way witha MKII.
Thanks for the tips!
Ha! Didn’t notice that. Classic OT style metering. 