Let's take this apart piece by piece.

-18dB refers to a sinewave's peak

In this context it refers to the RMS loudness of an arbitrary audio signal, and defines that that should be the basis for 0 on an arbitrary scale called vu. For the purposes of recording that RMS value should equal -18dBFS on the difital peak scale. It does not refer to the sinewave's peak.

as you probably know this results in an RMS of -21dB

Whatever does this have to do with anything?

Therefore setting PD's sinewave to -18dB equals 0VU!

Talking gibberish contains a vast number of sentences of which sensible sentences are subset, therefore talking random gibberish is better than talking sense.

And even if you were right about -18dB RMS

Which I am.

I just needed to set its peak to -15dB, simple as that. No VU-Meter needed.

But you didn't, did you? You just slapped up any old bullshit to support your totally deranged misunderstanding of audio signals, and then tried to quibble your way out of it. Are you a Republican by any chance?

 

i always using ears...edit : even my ears
---

 

Last edited: Feb 2, 2020

Because 'However, plug-ins in which use saturation or distortion (like Saturn obviously,...), it does matter how hard you drive the input of the plug-in.
I just wanted to show that you can easily compensate it with lower drive settings, that's all.

 

Please tell me that you don't believe everything that's written in a manual.
Nope, it's not about RMS gain staging ITB and headroom has nothing to do with RMS, which is, as you should know, what a VU-Meter measures.
There are convention abouts -18dB ITB???
And speaking of standard, you know that this standard wasn't made for ITB, don't you?

 

Jeez, your reply is so ridiculous and lowbrow that, even if I could again proof what I said, it doesn't deserve a serious answer other than this.
Furthermore I think we should stop being off-topic.

 

...'only' my ears/your ears? Otherwise not perfect sense in English.

 

Collecting ears, gyro?

 

i would do things...if you bring me your ears..or talmi's or mild pump milk's
i got a site star-audio-engineer's-ear's.onion
also cableguys.onion is worth a visit...

 

The percussions tracks are usually less sensitive to the problem.
If you listen/work on a single track only you cannot easily hear the problem. In a average complex mix (24-32 tracks) you will start, most likely, to have issues.

In the graph, taking care of all that garbage below 100-120db has absolutely no sense. And this is a big problem of Plugin Doctor, the developer choosed a wrong scale, IMO.
In the "28dB" graph you can spot that the tested plugin/daw (?) has a protection because you're woking way below the 0dB (it seems -10-12db)
And most likely the "saturation" you feel is the action of the safety-clipper.

Anyway the concept is that with a Lambo you can reach 225mph but if you keep that speed forever it's easier to go out at the first curve.
Having the headroom of 195mph to modulate your speed if needed is good, having 0mph (or few) of headroom to modulate your speed will kill you.
Then what can do Lamborghini if the 80% of the customers are pushing hard to full gas? They will put a RPM limiter and a fake engine rumble in your car so you believe to ride the lightning, but in reality you're going at 100mph :D
So you will arrive safe to the disco with your chick, and very proud of being a little Hamilton...

 

I would think the driver isnt the one one fooled by the fake rpm and speakers, that's for the chick

 

No apostrophe in "ears", only with "engineer's", denoting that their ears belong to them. And you haven't taken them! lol

 

This is exactly what I'm saying, You can't clip converters

glad you'd ask, my system is actually calibrated to the K-14 scale.

yes I'll be ok clipping my analog modeled plugins and it'll be ok, I'd be on the input volume on that plugin on no time when needed.
I think one would have to be mental to put everything at the exact same volume, channel by channel.

I'm barely interested in presets, which were most of these problems arise from I would imagine.
most of the folks here, don't match the gain. and barely A/B with and without a certain plugin they insert.

I don't doubt that, I just think you don't the full picture/ don't have a clear understanding of it

what easy problem?

good luck only using 0 VU on your 1176 emulation, the threshold is in a fixed position.

 

He/she was addressing someone else, not you. Pay attention!

 

Kramer Tape doesn't really "need it". It depends on what you want to do with it: if you want to use it as a clean master tape type of simulation running in an anolog type of setup, then yes, -18 dBFS is the optimal input gain to make it work in it's optimum range. But if you want to distort the f out of some drums then just hit it hard.

People should care less about numbers and readouts and listen if to the effect an analog emulation has. It's about decision making and not numbers! Do you like the sound or not? Is it what you want or not?

Nobody with a clear understanding of what he wants to achieve sonically with a certain plugin cares about numbers! The number are just there to help you if you want it clean but it is actually distorting. THEN you can think about input gain staging to solve issues. Don't let your creativity be hindered by some digits on a meter telling you that something is not right when your ears tell you otherwise. Especially during production. In mixing it's a bit more suble.

 

Oh man, this discussion again?! Really? There is no such thing as the one standard for VU! Different countries, different standards. And there is still no point in worrying about VU when you mix ITB.

People are always talking about a sweet spot... but 99% of the plugins don't care how hot the input signal is, as long as it stays below digital 0.
And the 1% where it makes a difference, there is also no -18db sweetspot. Because the sweetspot depends on the individual instrument and is a matter of taste.

So, why do the manufacturers always use this word? Very simple: if you send a 1kHz sine with -18db into the compressor you will get a very slight compression in the default setting. About 1db gr in normal case. It sweetens the input signal. That's it. No magic. Just wording.
Something similar applies to the generation of overtones. But I still wouldn't call it sweetspot.

...Is it a good level to mix? Yeah, sure! No question! But it doesn't make sense to normalize everything to -18db before mixing, nor does it have a great sonic impact. Good gainstaging just gives you some headroom and costs less handles because most plugins are calibrated to this level. That is all.

Apart from that... the certain peculiarities of analog devices, which are often called sweetspots, all these plugins can't offer you anyway. For example, the breaking of the sound material when overdriving a transformer circuit...

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2020

i <3 linear curves

 

the threshold is in a fixed position?

 

Yep, that's true. But should it be a general guideline then?

A resolution of 200dB is ridiculously high and useless, that's right, but it's not really a problem, imho.

Wouldn't that have caused additional distortion/visible harmonics?

Err, yes, most probably. OTOH I see no sense in sticking to 50mph on a straight highway without tempo limit. But maybe that's because I'm from Germany and we have a lot of Autobahn without it and we're used to make use of it.

 

Hm, at least Fufutos quoted Kwissbeats, see https://audiosex.pro/threads/which-...calibrated-to-18dbfs.51952/page-3#post-452677