Hi, I know this has been talked about with regards to the digitakt but anyway, using overbridge in ablton, through the main output the tracks peak at about -8db but when i monitor the individual tracks, with the gain turned all the way up and trig velocity at max the tracks peak at only -24db, why is it so much lower than the main output? Isn’t -24db much to low? Is there any way to change this or is it intentionally this low?
cheers
headroom for the overdrive, sweeping high resonance filters, etc.
It’s 24 bit so, at least on the digital machines side, noise won’t be an issue.
ok, I did read about the headroom thing, i just thought -24db was a bit drastic, perhaps not. Do you need to run Ableton at 24bit too?
Actually saying that I think Ableton runs in 24bit by default by the looks of it
I hazard a guess that Elektron goes for a “worst-case” scenario when making this the default: maximum gain and overdrive across the board in the hardware.
If you’re using Ableton, the easiest way to deal with it seeming too quiet is to just use a Utility plug-in on each track to add some gain.
Im cool with that. Out of interest, why is the main output of overbridge so much louder than the individual outs?
Did this ever get resolved or guess its standard. (always go direct in but thought I would experiment today with Overbridge to save sound card inputs)
My Overbridge Syntakt Individual Outs are very quiet (Can’t hear the kick and snare at all with Live Faders at standard default zero). However my Syntakt Mains via Overbridge when solo’d to compare are at great levels - in fact sounds like a diff song as you can hear the kick and snare lol.
So its not really just a case of Cables vs Overbridge as my main L/R Overbridge signal is great - its just the individual tracks.
Just checking that it is what it is and not user error with settings
Overbridge Main L/R -9db
Overbridge Kick Individual -33db
I’m just not used to using gobs of gain digitally just to hear something. clipping and headroom is never an issue when streaming tracks from my Rytm. You just turn it down on the machine. Lot easier and more reassuring regarding getting the pure signal in there but I’m no expert
its normal, so that you have enough headroom if you did something like put the filter resonance to max. I think its with 24 bit audio which everything is now by standard, you can safely just increase the gain in Ableton with a utility to get the volume to the level you want without getting any noise, because its 24bit there’s so little noise floor.
just stick a utility on it and increase to a better level, you won’t get any problems
if you peak eight tracks at -24 at the same time and sum them in a DAW, look how close to 0db you are on the main meters.
So they kinda have to leave that much headroom in case of resonance peaks or whatever.
you can get away with it in a DAW cos it’s floating point, but it still needs to be under 0db when it exits.
Yeah I put the utility on each track at 12 gain and it seems to be close to the main output level (I think some people here mention 15 but will leave at 12 for my setup)
With all tracks inserted via OB I also have the main output track coming through at the same time. Do people just mute that or is there away to stop it in the settings.
…biggest fear, biggest misconception, biggest mistake…
we all want loudness way to early in the process, when it comes to daws…
but let’s keep in mind…by now, we all work in 24 bit frontend while in the backend it’s all 32bit float…
which gives us all the benefit of no digital distortion…so let’s not give up the headroom and learn proper gainstaging…
whenever we work with external signals right next to internal sources, the internal sources better get tamed to around -20db than pushing external signals up…our final mixes will thank us…
if u want more loudness while working, just crank up ur monitoring…
couldn’t agree more, but I don’t see the harm in, if you want, stick a limiter on your master out and cranking that to near 0db for monitoring at a good level while keeping all your other tracks lower for gain staging no?
I mean this wasn’t a case of me wanting things loud as hell. The waveforms when recorded were non existent lol and the levels were way out of whack with any other hardware or software. Anyhow utility worked a treat
…yup…long long long before u get any normalizing or limitng or compressors get involved…
use naked, plain and simple utility tools first…each daw got such gain/volume tools to offer…
get it all around -18/-20…enjoy ur still full resolution capable for now untouched channel faders and feel at home by ending up around -6 on ur pure, also still untouched master bus…
then u might wanna start thinking about mixing into any limiter…