Levels and metering - analog v/s digital

jjitter

New member
Hi everyone.. I have been trying to find information on mixing and especially reading levels on a firewire connected analog mixer(yamaha n12). In my case I use NI maschine, Cubase to sequence, with n12 taking in all the instruments.

I was reading about how 0db on an analog mixer is equal to -18dbfs rms of dbfs scale. Is this 0db rms = -18dbfs rms? Or if 0db is the peak on an analog mixer what is its peak equivalent in dfbs? Or the other way round? A little confused in this area.

Also, does every fader, in any given digital environment show dbfs values? Because I have never been able to see this difference on the meters of an analog mixer and the daw connected to it.
For eg. I get my instrument level upto 0db on the analog mixer to record into cubase. Now both the meters - n12 and cubase's main ST, whether you are monitoring before recording, or playing back after recording, everything shows 0db. Or even any plugin which has a meter. for e.g Slate Digital is supposed to have a dbfs scale but the peaks it shows me are the same as they were on the mixer before recording.
When its said "I keep my levels around -10, -12 db" what is it that they are referring to? To pull the fader down to -10,-12, or keep the fader at 0db and get the signal only upto -10,-12db before recording? Or are they talking about pulling it down to -10,-12 after recording at 0db?

Even in case of maschine, a kick which shows its hitting 0db on the maschine meter, is hitting 0db on the mixer. So what is the metering scale that maschine is using? Is there a difference between reading a meter before recording and reading it after recording (A to D) with tracks are coming onto its channel through firewire? When a digital sample comes on a analog mixer like n12 through firewire, how do you read that analog mixers readings?

Like the line i read in an article on massive mastering, "If you run a steady signal(a sustained note on a keyboard for instance) through a preamp and turn up the preamp gain till the VU meter reads )dbVU, at the converter(and on the active track in whatever program you are using the record), it will resd -18dbfs rms" I have never been able to see this on the 'active track'.

Sorry I am a noob when it comes to understanding and translating analog and digital levels. Hoping to find some help here.
Thank you.
 
In the digital world there's only such thing as dbfs. -0dbfs is always going to be the max for any digital signal. Anything past that and your signal clips. This is absolute and does not change in the digital world. There's plugins that have other units, such as dbu, but regardless of their graphical look, they still clip at -0dbfs internally. I always found the analog emulation meters useless and I always went by the dbfs reading.

Think of having a cup that only holds 8 ounces of water with the top of the cup having a -0dbfs label. You can put other labels on the cups in whatever measurement you want, but the top of the cup will always be -0dbfs.

This is the first website I found on the topic so don't take it as gospel. I can't really remember what I used to calibrate to when I had a mixing console either.

dB dBu dBFS dBV to volts audio conversion digital - calculator volt to dBu and dBV dB mW SPL dB decibels 0 dBFS - convert dB volt normal decibels relatioship relation explanation analog audio absolute level true rms convertor converter decibel to dbf

If we go by the information on that page, then you can calibrate by doing this.

Generate a 1kz sine wave at -20dbfs on your DAW. Set your analog mixer faders to 0. Now set your gain accordingly so that your meters (dbu) read +4.
Now your digital meters will match the analog meters (roughly) but they will be on a different scale.

For my input chains I always set the meter to 0 on my mixing console and adjusted my gain to taste. If you're recording into a preamp interface with only a gain knob, then you can imagine the fader is at a fixed position of 0.
 
'In the digital world there's only such thing as dbfs.'


'There's plugins that have other units, such as dbu, but regardless of their graphical look, they still clip at -0dbfs internally. '

You forget the possibilities of floating point resolution in the mixbus. :)
 
Hey thanks a lot for the reply. But when this -20dbfs sine wave comes to my mixer through a firewire. And the mixer main meter also shows -20 db. I am really confused how do these firewire mixers work. I am clear till getting an instrument into the mixer, getting a hot signal upto 0db. But after recording when it goes in the digital domain, and playing it back through the mixer(i/o), what is the meter showing now? Did D to A happen before the meter? or no D to A happen up until it goes out for the speakers?Mixer meter.jpgdaw meter.jpg
 
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Also what confuses me is when I set the instrument gain on the mixer to show 0dbvu on the meter (this is before recording), the software also shows 0db after recording. How is that possible that a meter before A to D( analog meter) and a meter after A to D (digital meter) shows the same values and vice versa? Is it that I should pull the fader down on the daw track to -18dbfs after recording (A to D)?

Or if we are working entirely in the digital domain just with a sampler, here is a straight forward question -

If i see my instrument/sample level reaching 0db, should I pull down the level first to -18db by default for headroom and just assume that since a software is always digital, everything is dbfs in this domain?
 
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In the digital domain an input/output signal level of 0 dBFS corresponds to the voltage RMS capacity of the audio interface/converter's input/output stage. This means that the amount of voltage produced at 0 dBFS on setup A is going to be different from the amount of voltage produced at 0 dBFS on setup B, the higher the voltage, the better sound quality you can achieve from that audio interface, as simple as that.

So to be good at gain staging, you need to understand the voltage curvature of the audio. If you would go to a world class mastering studio and capture the voltages in 100 Hz increments of let's say a classic pop hit song, you would have earned say 10 years of amateur tweaking within an hour or so, it's really that important.

In Pro Tools the inserts on the input tracks/auxes are pre-fader, but post-fader on the master track. The sends are post-fader but can be switched to pre-fader. It is overall more important to handle the dynamics than to focus on the levels. It kind of works like this: The louder you can boost each instrument in solo before they hit the ears in an unpleasant way and the quiter you can turn the sound sources and still have great dynamics present on a well represented range of monitors, the better your mix is going to sound. This is much more important than leveling your tracks, because leveling your tracks will always be affected by the dynamics of the tracks. So what you want is that each sound source, no matter if it is the snare, the vocals or the piano etc., can be turned very loud and stay pleasant, or very quiet and stay exciting. You want to maximize that. Then after that you want to maximize how that behaves in the context of the arrangement/production, that's where side-chaining comes in. So focus on this, because gain staging can otherwise become your "sloppy knob".
 
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'In the digital world there's only such thing as dbfs.'


'There's plugins that have other units, such as dbu, but regardless of their graphical look, they still clip at -0dbfs internally. '

You forget the possibilities of floating point resolution in the mixbus. :)

The output is still going to clip past -0dfbs. There's just no way around it. The dynamic range could be huge internally but at the end of the day you're stuck at -0dbfs. If it doesn't clip past -0dbfs then it's not dbfs.

Hey thanks a lot for the reply. But when this -20dbfs sine wave comes to my mixer through a firewire. And the mixer main meter also shows -20 db. I am really confused how do these firewire mixers work. I am clear till getting an instrument into the mixer, getting a hot signal upto 0db. But after recording when it goes in the digital domain, and playing it back through the mixer(i/o), what is the meter showing now? Did D to A happen before the meter? or no D to A happen up until it goes out for the speakers?View attachment 45106View attachment 45105

If you're using your mixer as an audio interface, your mixer is also digital until it gets to AD and DA conversion. That's why the numbers match exactly.

If you measure the output of the analog outputs, then you'd be measuring in dbu at that point because the signal is no longer digital and the dbfs no longer applies.
 
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