Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

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timmyg
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Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by timmyg » Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:17 am

A couple of my mixes are slightly clipping and I have lots of volume automation on a lot of tracks.

Can I turn down the Master Fader to prevent clipping or should this always remain at 0 (This solution would be by far the easiest)? It will be a real pain to adjust all the automation on every track.

What is the best way to achieve this?

cheers

instinctive
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by instinctive » Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:40 am

I'm not the developer, but with more than 99.9999999% of probability, Auria uses floating point mixing ;-) and yes, turning down the master fader should solve that problem. :mrgreen:

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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by Rim » Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:00 am

Yes, since Auria uses a floating point mixer, clipping in individual channels isn't important. Only the master fader matters.


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timmyg
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by timmyg » Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:18 am

Thanks for the swift responses. It's a great relief to know that I can simply turn down the master fader to allow enough head room to prevent any clipping. I've been holding back doing this so far...now I'll adjust the master accordingly.

I really didn't want to tamper with all my automation points...phew!

instinctive
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by instinctive » Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:28 am

The numbers that Auria or any other DAW uses internally can be "arbitrarily" high, so essentially clipping doesn't exist. Only the final output has a limited numerical range because well, it goes to a physical device 8) . The Master fader pretty much sets the scale factor for converting the internal "unlimited" numbers to the fixed-range numbers for output.

OK, I don't even think you wanted so many details anyway :?

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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by timmyg » Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:47 am

instinctive wrote: OK, I don't even think you wanted so many details anyway :?
Not really, just the answer to if i can turn down the master fader...good effort though bro

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mtingle
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by mtingle » Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:08 pm

leaving the fader at unity (zero db) is good practice. I recommend using the master channel strip eq to adjust the general volume or inserting pro-q on the master channel and changing the output volume.

I can't remember exactly why but there are some good reasons to do with digital dynamic range and dither and bit depth and gain structure for leaving the master fader at zero.

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eustressor
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by eustressor » Thu Feb 05, 2015 8:01 pm

mtingle wrote:leaving the fader at unity (zero db) is good practice. I recommend using the master channel strip eq to adjust the general volume or inserting pro-q on the master channel and changing the output volume.
Agreed, I leave the master fader at zero as well, primarily to help me improve gain staging at the recording end of the process. I figure if I'm doing everything else right, I shouldn't need to touch the master fader (although I'm sure there might be very practical exceptions to such a rule) :)

Worth noting if some tracks are running hot, one option is to use the gain control under edit/process to knock them down a peg. I've read a few places that keeping your various channel peaks to aroundabouts -10db is a good rule of thumb.

instinctive
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by instinctive » Fri Feb 06, 2015 4:11 am

Probably IEEE floating point numbers have a higher precision in certain numerical ranges than in others, so there might be some truth to this, but that's where my knowledge of this stuff really ends. And Rim is probably too busy with more important stuff to bother explaining :)

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Tarekith
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by Tarekith » Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:44 am

Normally I recommend leaving the master at 0 too, mainly because it just encourages good gain staging earlier in the chain. But if you're just clipping the master channel by a little bit, there's nothing wrong at all with just pulling the master fader down a bit to compensate. It's not like anyone here is probably making music using THAT much dynamic range where the resolution might "possibly" factor into things.

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Anthony Alves
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by Anthony Alves » Fri Feb 06, 2015 6:32 am

Usually this overdriving the Master is caused by inserting effects into tracks that are already too close to
O db. To avoid this problem start with the track at about -10 db. Use the gain reduction option to make this possible. This is happening because most of us want a louder mix when working with our tracks. So a good trick if you own ProL is to set ProL as the last plugin on the Master strip and set it to K20 during your mixing. This will keep your mix good and hot while mixing your tracks. When your done mixing you can either remove the ProL or set it to even higher K14 or K12. I use K14 as a final. Cheers.~~_/)~~~*

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martygras
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by martygras » Fri Feb 06, 2015 3:16 pm

I totally agree with what Tarekith and Anthony said above.

Since a lot of people work completely in the box, there's a lot of people who have never had to ensure a clean audio path through several pieces of analog hardware into the console, but good gain staging is still very important IMO.
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timmyg
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by timmyg » Mon Feb 09, 2015 10:19 am

This is an interesting topic and it's great so many people have weighed in. The answers coming back however do seem a little inconsistent.

Now I'm confused if i should simply turn down the master fader or use the gain reduction on each track with the master at 0?

If I master with Pro-L at the final stage, the master fader being turned down a bit won't matter?....or will it?

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mtingle
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by mtingle » Mon Feb 09, 2015 11:18 am

There's a lot of discussion on this topic, for instance:

http://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/01/25/ ... er-at-0db/

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Tarekith
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Re: Turn down Master Fader - clipping?

Post by Tarekith » Mon Feb 09, 2015 11:21 am

If you're going to be using Pro-L on the master anyway, then it really doesn't matter. Other than being sloppy audio engineering :)

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