I have been doing something that you are "told" you shouldn't ever do with mixes. Raising the level to the point where the master out looks like it is clipping, showing 1-2 dB above unity (0), the VUs are in the red, yet....I can't hear any digital distortion. I remember the bad old days, when I used an ADAT as an analog to digital converter. If you went into the red on that, boy it was unusable, horrible digital distortion.

So I thought I would see if anyone else has experience of this.

Does anyone do this? I am sure it can't be right, but it feels so...wrong

 

You might not be able to hear small amount of momentary clipping.

 

junh1024 is right. Keep the signal at least 0.2 db under 0. Maybe some DAs react more bad than others..

 

Learn proper gain-staging and you will be fine.

 

your fine on the channel strips as there is loads of internal headroom in the mix engine
but on the master you don't want it going into the red ie clipping

 

Thanks for the replies. I have been doing this for 20+ years...I know you are not supposed to go above unity, but...if I can't hear that distortion, surely that is the point? Ok, I have lost most frequencies above 16k, through years of touring in rock bands, and being a bit of an old fart, but am still pretty sharp with the ears, some of the tracks I have mixed above 0db have been taken onto sync music co servers, which have auto everything software that detects any problem. (Shame it can't spot a great tune;)

My question, really, was about trusting your ears rather than your eyes, which I have always done. When doing final mixes I do it in the studio, then listen with my back towards the desk, listen outside the studio, listen on my car stereo etc...

Thanks again for the replies, looks like I am in a minority of...one....ulp.........

 

ALL DAWs have a thing called headroom. you can go over the 0 (get shit in the red by 6db). if sound is pleasing, it certainly work.

If you go above the +6dB, I think your DAW's summing engine will do some kind of per sample brickwall limit, which will shit your dynamic and tame the peaks. You might not want that. If you're doing some hard, overdriven, fast&loud music, you can find it raw, cool and pleasing.

 

This...

Going over 0 usually starts to do weird stuff to your transients. Might go lower on the master and then just do some nice creative mastering-suite processing not to kill your dynamics.

 

This is normal...pops and clicks in the red don't always occur straight away, they creep in as artifacts...it depends on the sound you are using...if you are using a heavy and loud kick drum along with percussion, you will definately notice the artifacts...even if you can't hear within the mix it will do something really weird in another enviornment...

 

You might not be able to hear it now, but bounce the file out and look at the peaks for a visual decision.

Just take note! When it's converted to MP3, many things are going to sound worse and digital distortion is one of the biggest culprits. The track we worked on in college was somewhat fine in the DAW but converted to MP3 it just went to shit.