Overbridge much too quiet? (nope: just plenty of headroom)

Agreed, absolutely no animosity on my part I can assure you :slight_smile:

I was taught in the early 90s at South Manchester college to mix down to create dynamic range, perhaps it is no longer the norm, but Iā€™m too old and set in my ways to change now as itā€™s always served me well. I still do wonder if my box has an issue and Iā€™m getting a different experience to you and others, although Iā€™m certainly not alone.

Thanks for understanding :slight_smile:

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@ Kosmologyā€¦You are right in my opinion! It is just too quiet. I have the same problem !

Just wanted to say im in ableton 9 with the same problem too,
I just recorded a pattern in and the loudest track was the kick peaking at -27.37
with most things averaging -40 to -50 db

Ok, not to throw gasoline on the fire but I found this video very interesting.

The summary is that a loud level is better because noise is not an issue in the digital domain, and that the UI is better if the level is high.

Best regards,

Gino

My digitakt patterns play at about a third of the volume of mp3s, youtube and stuff within windows.
Im on win 10, have just updated overbridge to 17 (was on 12) didnt make any difference(firmware 1.11 not the beta)
In usb config usb to main is +12db and iā€™m on post fader.
When I switch to int to main on it matches the windows volume on playback but still only peaks at -25db when recording but then I have to switch back to int to main auto or I hear the pattern from the digitakt not from ableton, then iā€™m back to hearing it at a third of the volume to windows again.
Checking back to the only other thing I recorded a couple of months ago while on the firmware beta, the levels are fine peaking at -14db and I can see the waveforms, admittedly I didnā€™t have the digitakt setup in plugins folder then though as I had just done it as my first test and it worked across the 8 audio channels.

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 doesnā€™t 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 foolā€™s 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 UIā€™s 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 theyā€™ve been taught to expect them. And DAWs have immense headroom that makes them almost impossible to internally clip by accident, enabling such ā€œlegacyā€ 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 hasnā€™t 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.

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As a test I have removed my plugins folder and setup ableton to record the 8 channels of audio from the digitakt which is how i previously had it setup when I did a test a few weeks ago and the levels were ok around -14 to -24. Now they are still -28 to -50 which plays back at a third of the volume of my digitakt , the waveform cannot be seen and is consequently really difficult to work with (despite the theory in practise it is a different matter)
This is something that has happened to the windows drivers since I upgraded the digitakt firmware from the beta to 1.11
Is anyone else on windows having this issue ?
Do electron people comment on these forums or should I be speaking to them direct?

It has been noted on this thread, but send an email requesting it anyway, I did. Hopefully it will be addressedā€¦ I find this thread frustrating and have been staying out of it lately.

Maybe its worth all of us having problems, listing our setups, as it may just be an issue
for windows users using ableton or cubase for instance.

Iā€™m win10 ableton live 9

Ok will do

Stumbled upon this thread after Googling ā€œRytm too quiet through Overbridgeā€. I donā€™t want to stoke the ā€˜flamesā€™ - I just want to share my setup & ā€˜issueā€™.

Iā€™m running USB audio from a Rytm Mk2 and Digitone through an Overhub into Overbridge + Ableton Live 10 on a MacBook Pro.

The Digitone is nice and loud, but the Rytm is super quiet, and the main volume dial does nothing (while the main vol. dial on the Digitone works).

Doesnā€™t feel like a deliberate design choice to me. :thinking:

I canā€™t say Iā€™ve found the volume too low. But I use a lot of overdrive on all my tracks.

By time Iā€™ve applied a bunch of FX on my OB tracks, theyā€™re rather loud.

Similar to the Virus TI.

I think that quiet space is headroom

Lots of headroom for adding distortion and gain if needed.
Better than not having enough room

If only the DT was anywhere near the Virusā€¦ I have no issues with the TI and yes there is plenty of headroom.

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Not if you are recording directly to stems, you just get a bunch of invisible waveforms. Not everyone is processing the output, and it would be simple enough to reduce volumes if the levels were higher, it has nothing to do with headroom, its a digital signal thatā€™s too quiet.

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Iā€™m talking about the Rytmā€™s track overdrive, FX and filtering. Nothing post Rytm

Try it. Crank the trackā€™s overdrive up when using OB. Add a peak filter and boost the resonance. And turn up the track volume on the AMP page

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Itā€™s perfect level on Rytm and A4 mk2s

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There is noise. I can hear it clearly on my headphones. When increase by 6db using Utility in Live 10 and then record my plugin I can hear that noise is recorded as well.

Analog Rytm MK1 and MK2 has also analog engine on board and signal is still toooo low.