Are there guys who use digitakt and digitone with ableton? I want to customize my setup so that it is comfortable. but there are difficulties when setting up individual tracks with dt, the volume is too low! I don’t know if it should be like this, but I want the volume in the Ableton project to be the same as the one that plays directly from the Digitone or Digitakt. is it possible to set it up like that?
Sorry for my English:)
Use the utility plugin in Ableton to crank up the gain.
Like @mncrmo mentioned, use Utility to add gain.
In a different thread with similar topic, it was mentioned that this is normal and since it’s a digital connection you’re not increasing the noise floor.
This is normal. You could use a Utility, but I’d probably go with either a Limiter or even a gentle Compressor, either on each track individually, or on a group containing all of them. (The Limiter/Compressor approach will stop you clipping no matter how much you bump the gain).
It also reveals what’s going on internally in the hardware: the gain of each channel is actually relatively low, but there’s a lot of headroom. This is why when you have lots of delay feeding back, overdrive, etc, it’s still very hard to get a channel to clip: because there’s loads of headroom above its level. At the end of the internal signal chain, there’s a compressor bringing everything up to a nice loud volume (and gluing it together a bit - I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure there’s a small amount of compression going on).
When each channel is run individually into Overbridge, that final gain-stage is missing, so you get channels at their internal levels.
Super duper idea to make a group track with a compressor! it will be very convenient, I don’t quite understand the chain of how everything happens and why there is such a big difference in volume, but I roughly understood, thanks!
Levels are bouncing around -18db and that’s exactly how any recording should be made, there is no need to get anywhere near zero
But then you grab your soft synths that are designed to stay just below zero.
Honestly it doesn’t really matter because staying below zero is still staying below zero.
The important thing is not to clip. Digital clipping sucks.
Exactly this!
The other option is, of course, to turn your speakers up.
it’s all clear that super professionals write about -18, but if I turn on the DT not through ableton, but in parallel, the sound will not be -18, it will be like that from the DT itself.
Yeah, that’s the problem when people don’t provide context.
The reason for it relates initially to gain staging. Especially if you can’t hear it, you’ll see your summed mixes much louder when there’s frequency overlap, or doubling of certain frequencies. Most people notice with their gain decreases in the master mix, due to frequency cancellation but it works the other way too and a big reason why people mix as they go along (cutting frequencies as they go).
Then it’s a matter of mixing at lower levels with the idea of creating a more dynamic mix.
Again what’s most important is not clipping.
Yes, gain staging is important.
I do leave headroom but not -18db.
I have all my tracks default to -10db.
Edit: deleting my comment because I just re-read the post. I had initially misunderstood, so it was irrelevant. Never mind!
Already discussed many times before: Overbridge much too quiet? (nope: just plenty of headroom)