I believe there are people that do not know how to work with Analogue emulations, and basically just put it in the signal chains, adjust few knobs and think they are good to go. As you may know with my posts, I'm quick and to the point, so read this if the title is relevant to you.

What?

You are working with any Analogue emulations, particularly with analogue emulations of compressors, you must make sure that the signal is coming in at -18dbfs. ​

Why?

Well, this is equivalent to 0dbvu which is where the *supposed* sweet spot is in analogue gear (I constantly misspell analogue with anal.) ​

How?

If you are using your DAW's metering system, upon ensuring that it is using dbFS metering, make sure the meter is hitting around -18dbfs.

Alternatively, you can have a VU-meter before your compressor to monitor the amplitude of the incoming signal to your compressor, an d make sure its dancing around 0dbvu.

Or, if you're using a plugin (i.e. MJUC) that enables you to view the incoming signal's amplitude, you could do it that way.

​

Also, if you have any tips worth sharing, please do.

Cheers.

 

great idea

i usually try to record at the right(ish) level, at the heat of a crazy recording session sometimes things go clipping, i know its not ideal but i dial the gain knob back a little then.
if signal is too big-> compressor is reacting too early, i pulled down the audio -10db so i have more play with the threshold or i can drive the input saturation knob on a channel strip harder to get more color where i want.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 18, 2019

Firstly, I think we have to make clear that this goes for RMS level, not peak (just as a help).

Secondly,

well, not quite. In practice this is mostly true in theory, not at all. VU means voltage undefined (or unspecific) which means every hard- or software developer can choose freely which dBFS RMS level equals 0dbVU. Therefore a quick look into the manual can be helpful to be on the safe side (on the hardware side SMPTE prefers -24dBFS RMS, AES/EBU -18 and when it's emulated according to this...).

As long as the plugin has an input VU meter you don't need to care about the dBFS RMS level at all, just look at the meter and you're good.

Plugins like MJUC or Satin have a calibration knob with which you can adjust the VU0 value, so the dBFS RMS level doesn't really matter at all here either (in practice, in theory it does, ofc).

In conclusion, there is no need to cling to -18dBFS RMS slavishly, imho and tbh, I never ever did that, because I didn't have to (on the other hand, maybe I just had luck so far? ).

 

Last edited: Feb 18, 2019

-18RMS (or VU) and your peaks hitting at around -6db full scale is a good starting point. From there you can go lower for less saturation, or higher if more character is desired from the device.

Some plugin devices don't care about incoming level, some do.

 

What i have found out using genuine emulation plugins is that -28 to -24 gives a really smooth and clean output,for eg the neve emulations give that soft highend etc which is not the case at -18 or even -20dbfs rms.At -18 dbfs it is always distorting at a macro level which can only be heard at the masterlevel when the same is applied on all channels .I have gone even lower -32dbfs and its quiet interesting to note that the plugin character changes a great deal with input voltages.For me -18dbfs is still a higher voltage when working in a daw.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 18, 2019

use different plugin emulation from differnt company on your project coz no 2 hardware sounds d same

 

yeah my gain staging is usually abysmal. using emulation plugs forces me to pay attention to it, which is both good and kind of annoying