Indeed mate... But I cannot find meters for LUFS... any you could recommend me?

 

if u know how to read, u might know how to write by keywords in the sister's browser....it puzzles me a question like yours

 

we still need outbox level meter, plug to your output channel, software cannot do this, buy a one dude

 

I don't use the sister site that much, but aside from that; I was asking for recommendations... no need to be an ass about that

 

-18dB is the LUFS target reference. Gain Staging is most important for headroom. People often get it wrong because they use the channel output faders in their DAW. Gain staging applies to the input signal. For the initial CD or vinyl master the mix should be fully transparent. That is the most crucial thing. Any bus compression should be in that you don't hear any glue effect. Don't put any limiters on busses or the master bus. Mixes that are free and transparent make for the best masters.

 

Last edited: Apr 25, 2016

'Gain staging applies to the input signal'....you mean that to measure the g.s correctly is by pre fader metering?

 

You can do it several ways as long as it's the input signal. If you load an audio track in your DAW and insert a VU meter on that channel.. you can slide the channel output fader all the way down until the sound is gone.. but the active sum on the VU meter will be unchanged. However, you can trim the input gain using a plugin on the channel. You can also do it by decreasing the level of the audio object itself. The same goes for midi instruments. You can stage using the gain parameter on the instrument if available. That's how to do it on ITB channels that have no prefader input.

 

Last edited: Apr 25, 2016

what i learnt from the past 10 years : if the signal is too hot, just pull it back (clip gain) , so i can drive my plugins stronger (mcdsp,slate) so they can saturate better. simple. record in 24 bits, set the levels with the plugins not the faders(barely touch them). and yeah, digital is so much better than analog cause it gives you the whole spectrum without the shitty analog noise (i'm coming from analog).

 

thank you very much dbmusik. yeah, i do all that but unfortunately there is no way i know that could read the exact levels of the incoming signal that can be seen with the pre fader metering. i wonder if sonalksis freeg which has a 'pre' button could achieve this feature

 

Yes, thanks I'll check them out.

 

I think my mix levels are right, but the problem is, the individual audio tracks are too hot. Every audio track currently peaks at -0 dB before hitting the inserts and faders. So if I went and re-normalized each audio waveform to -6 dB (or just inserted a trim plug at the head of each audio track and reduce the volume by -6 dB before anything else), then compensated in my mix by pushing all the faders up by +6 dB, the mix itself would be fine. The problem stems from the audio files, which are too loud. EQ and compressor inserts aren't designed to take a -0 dB signal (couldn't say what the RMS per track was, but I'm sure it would also be too high), same goes for running a 0 dB DI guitar track through an amp sim. I was more curious what level the recorded audio per track should be at before even starting on a mix ….

… which makes what you're talking about even more of a headache. First, I have to worry about what maximum level those recorded audio files should be at. Then, I have to worry about what level everything should be mixed at (a.k.a. - the actual topic of this discussion). And the thing is, there's no one school of thought on any of this, so researching it is practically guaranteed to give you ulcers.

 

Your individual audio tracks must be between -12 & -18, preferably the later or else you are shooting yourself in the foot. Don't shoot yourself in the foot, it hurts and it takes like forever to heal.

 

Well, as stated before, we should track at -18 approx., and some DAWs just show the meter bars with no ballistics in them (Pro Tools for instance). So my rule of thumb when tracking is peaks no higher than 2/3 of the green run of the meter. Valleys will average at about 1/3 of the scale. This will look scary for some people ("Hey, this is too quiet"), but it translates in a healthy signal all the way through and less time wasted compensating for too hot signals. Unfortunately, loops and virtual instruments run too hot by default. I suppose it is an in-your-face-hot-as-commercial-records kind of selling attitude. This gives people the false perception that this is how signals should be recorded. There's literature supoorting this. The works of Marc Mozart and Bobby Owisinski support this line of thought. Graham Cochrane from the Recording Revolution has also emphasized this point in some of his videos.

 

Listen well to mercurysoto, blindly, that you might see the light.

 

i suppose that if we track at -18dbs we shouldnt worry about peaks at all...and i guess the incoming signal would never clip when checking with pre fader metering... unfortunately my daw doesnt have this feature so in very dynamic tracks i trim the amplitude down (with a plugin) to 'match' at guess the -18 average signal and if at the end i want to put all the tracks at unity i have to further recalibrate the 'volumes' again to have a perfect straight horizontal line :/

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2016

There is Izotope insight , waves wlm meter , dolby labs media meters, etc .There are many out there

 

yep, waves wlm and doroughs are very reliable lufs and vu / peak alternatives to most of the standard level indicators of the various DAW's.
I have the doroughs on all my busses on all my setups.

 

Yellow is the new Red.

 

????? What Doroughs? I thought that it wasn't showing LUFS but RMS.That's why i did't include it in my post

 

Yep. Doroughs shows rms, WLM shows lufs. Got the Doroughs on my 4,6 or 8 sum busses and the wlm on the master. (not on all setups though.)
Then there's a really handy little tool from SSL: SSL X-ISM
SSL removed it from their site since it is 32bit but I thought I'd share it, its freeware. Cheers.