i've only just noticed this and i cannot find anything online so far that addresses it, it's more likely i cannot phrase the question properly, but, anyway.
whenever i use studio one, no matter how much i am careful with volume and clippng on tracks ( trusting my ears mostly) i have noticed that the peak meter on the master is almost constantly in the red, even when i have things at a very quiet level. i am just wondering if anyone else has this and any ideas how to solve it ( if it IS a problem)
thx

 

Don't trust your ears, trust your eyes (it's usually not the case, but with gain-staging this is actually true). Don't clip. Turn things down.
Simple.
If you don't know about gain-staging I suggest you google it.

Let the ME (or yourself) do the mastering, when mastering is due.

Edit: Unless you've encountered some very weird bug/error. I've never heard of a similar problem. If I had, it would probably mean the end of a DAW/company.

 

yes it is very common, even when all the faders are in green, the master can go to red. just do the math. one solution is to turn everything down, what i usually do is i put the Mixtool plugin on the master, drop the gain -10db . clicking the remover dc offset from the master doesnt harm either ;). i put the built in limiter to protect my monitors(and ears). then i remove the limiter before mixdown.



so yeah man, red on the master fader is very common

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 1, 2015

d'oh!

 

well this is not proper gain staging (at least it didn't used to be),
theoretically the clipping already happens before the mix-tool plug-in.
but today's daw's support 32 floating point? I guess.... internally.


But it's good to turn the faders down, because that is what they are for

 

I found a useful hint some time ago by an experienced PRO DAW user.
– He recommends to check the output volume levels of all the Synthesizers & Plug-Ins. –
That's the first main source for clippings! Often it's not even noticed that a Synth can clip.
Some presets of software synthesizers can be very different in their loudness.
A good thing is to add a level meter on the insert of each channel-strip, on the first
and on the last stage in order to have an efficient monitoring.
So the first rule should be to check all output levels.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Last edited: Nov 1, 2015

short and plain answer for the topic starter is;

Same frequencies at the same time add up, so a kick and bass carefully mixed to 0 db on their individual channel,
will simply go over on the master channel

 

It would be great if all DAWs had RMS meters beside peak meters on channels, or a way to choose which meters you want on a channel, so you could set the volume more easily. If no channels went over -14dBVU you would get no clipping at any time and wouldn't have to worry about it. So just make sure your loudest channel doesn't go over -14dBVU. You can use some VU meter plugin like Sleepy Time Records' Mono Channel for that. http://sleepytimedsp.com/downloads Cheers!

 

It's all mathematics: dB is an exponential value and they are adding up… so the Sum of all Tracks will Clip the Output if the System runs out of Headroom, even in a 32 Bit Environenment of Studio One (192 dB Headroom) because the physical output of ALL current Audio Interfaces can only handle 24 Bit (144 db Headroom)! So there's already a huge difference between the internal Headroom and that of your Interface…

Bottom line is: The more tracks there are, the lower you need to go on single tracks.

What I like to do is adjusting the gain staging so that the peak of a signal is around the center of the actual Fader Knob, so when you move it up or down, the Fader position represents the actual peak of a signal which makes it a lot easier to mix. And like Kook mentioned: Put a Good Metering Plugin at the End of your Mixbus to check the Loudness, Frequency Spectrum, Stereo Field and Dynamic Range of your mix. I like to use the TR Meter by IK Multimedia but there are dozens out there. You need to find one, that you like AND more importantly: one you can understand.

AND Remember:

1. In the digital domain you don't have to worry about noise, like on analog consoles, so not every tracks has to peak around 0 dB FS.
2. A Mix is generally about Balance and Dynamics and not (so much) about Loudness. Especially in regard to the new loudness metering algorithms being implemented in streaming and multimedia services like spotify, apple music and youtube, where dynamic mixes will benefit from this while crushed mixes suffer from it.

 

In digital recording...if the meter is red, it's dead. What 5teezo said.

 

Good one! I use this one very often.

 

overall.of the sound : use TRIM,a lot of plug-ins have TRIM, or mixtool from studio one. rembember not only the gain-staging, but to not STAR a LOUDNESS WAR, and another thing to considerate on gain stege ITS.... how you are recording/mixing 16 bit /24 bitor 32 bit?
why ? 32 bit never clip, its full scale of noise floor NOT digital clip, gain staging. but if you are usen 16bit, you need to be carefull.
i recomend to you check some videos tutos on youtube :
type:
gain stage :
noise floor:
recording/mixing 16 bit /24 bit or 32 bit:
DIGITAL clipping:
loudness war.

 

this is precisely what i am aiming for. i am not interested in making stuff 'louder'. i am going to have to read up on stuff like gain staging etc, but i appreciate all the replies. plenty to think about.
just have to keep practicing i guess : )