fascinating.
I personally like to keep my track levels super low, then just use a single trim plugin on the master bus to bring up my master level.
This thing about needing hot levels for the faders doesnāt exist. All modern DAWs use at least 32bit floating point, some even use 64bit float mixbusses. With that amount of resolution, there is absolutely no scientific need to have tracks peaking loud.
But its a foolās errand trying to convince anyone otherwiseā¦ heck, most VST plugs already peak above 0dB at the channel level just opening up the default init preset. And the UIās of DAWs also cater to these absurdly hot levels, by having calibrated the default waveform rendering to scale to expect such nonsensically hot levels.
The fact of the matter is - users expect Ć¼ber-hot levels because theyāve been taught to expect them. And DAWs have immense headroom that makes them almost impossible to internally clip by accident, enabling such ālegacyā practices to be utilized. I say legacy, because in the 16bit nineties, yes, you actually tried to use hot levels everywhere because there was practically no resolution to go around with. Butā¦ this hasnāt been the case in ages,
TL:DR = none of it matters. there is no way to win. As long as it sounds good, its good. Elektron should probably give in and add that 6dB in there. People will not change their habits.