about the Master Track

[James_AvA]

Hello to everybody. Just a quick question. In the master track, I was told two different things. I was told that it is ok if the Master track goes into orange, so long it doesn't go red. Where as, I was also told that it should always be green, and should not be orange because if so, it won't sound clean. (I'm using garage-band). I'm still trying to figure this all out. pls advise. Many thanks.

[ore_terra]

What do those colors mean to you in terms of level?

I’ve got my DAW configures to get yellow beyond -12dBFS, orange at -6, red at 0.

My master track usually ends up peaking around -6 when mixing. What’s important here is that you leave enough headroom and dynamics for the next step (mastering?).

[amanise]

Not a user of that DAW - but generally I'd say leave the master bus on zero and work at track level first. Keep them in the green, and you'll soon see the master bus climb into the amber and on towards the red as you add tracks. Then you have to decide if you've enough headroom left on the master for all the tracks you want to add. Then the fun starts-

[BWC]

Happy Reaper user here, but a quick search revealed that GarageBand doesn't include numbers on its meters.

Best clue I could find with a quick search:
https://ryanfreeman.com/blogs/learn/rea ... garageband

[James_AvA]

Not a user of that DAW - but generally I'd say leave the master bus on zero and work at track level first. Keep them in the green, and you'll soon see the master bus climb into the amber and on towards the red as you add tracks. Then you have to decide if you've enough headroom left on the master for all the tracks you want to add. Then the fun starts-

Regarding track level, it can go into the orange area, just as long as it doesn't go red. My question is if the master can go into orange, without there being a problem. I was told that even if it is orange, as long as it doesn't go red, its ok, while someone else told it shouldn't even be orange and should stay green so that the sound is clean.

[BWC]

What you've been told, from both sides, is oversimplified. There's a bit more to it than that.

[Sam Spoons]

Keep the tracks in the green 'cos when you add them together (i.e. mix them to the master track) the sum of those tracks will be louder and probably take the master track into the yellow. This will be fine but it mustn't go into the red (but that assumes that the GB meters go red at 0dBFS and since they don't give any details of meter calibration the only safe thing to do is stay out of the red).

[amanise]

Not a user of that DAW - but generally I'd say leave the master bus on zero and work at track level first. Keep them in the green, and you'll soon see the master bus climb into the amber and on towards the red as you add tracks. Then you have to decide if you've enough headroom left on the master for all the tracks you want to add. Then the fun starts-

Regarding track level, it can go into the orange area, just as long as it doesn't go red. My question is if the master can go into orange, without there being a problem. I was told that even if it is orange, as long as it doesn't go red, its ok, while someone else told it shouldn't even be orange and should stay green so that the sound is clean.

It does get a bit complicated, but no point worrying about all that until you get there when you first get started. Later - there will be all sorts of complications to get your head around. I'm assuming you're quite new to it - so apologies if that's not right. Finding the right level to pitch in at can be a minefield in this game. It'll be ok in the amber, and even peaking into the red now and again as long as it doesn't stay there too long or peak through the red ceiling. If it does that, the meters should tell you by displaying 'Clip' in red above the meter display - or some such lasting clue that the roof has been exceeded. The reason for staying lower, is so that you have room for other things later on which may increased the master levels here and there unpredictably. The can be reverbs, flangers, delays etc. You may not know which if any, of these processes you might want to add in later, at the beginning. My approach would be to go ahead and experiment - you are highly unlikely to break anything. At worst you'll just make awful noises. The thing to remember is - all of us are on a learning curve with this - just at different points, and the learning never stops.

[Wonks]

Low end of the orange should be OK, but if you have a plug-in that generates test tones, then you could use that on a clean project, with track and main output faders at 0dB gain (I suggest using a 1kHz sine wave) at different outputs to see where the meters end up for different output levels (set within the plug-in). I’d aim for peaks at the -6dBFS position.

But if you are worried about clean recordings, now might be the time to swap to a DAW with much better features and proper level meters.

Once you get to grips with a full-on DAW, then you can always go back to Garageband for quick projects as you’ll understand the concepts behind it so much better.

[Wonks]

It'll be ok in the amber, and even peaking into the red now and again as long as it doesn't stay there too long or peak through the red ceiling.

No, no, no! Remember we are talking about the master output track here.

It’s not a VU meter, nor is it a LUFS or K-meter where you can set the working zero level below 0dBFS. It’s a peak meter and going into the red means that you will get clipping when playing back through the DAC. Even just below the red will
mean that some inter-sample peaks will clip.

[James_AvA]

Keep the tracks in the green 'cos when you add them together (i.e. mix them to the master track) the sum of those tracks will be louder and probably take the master track into the yellow. This will be fine but it mustn't go into the red (but that assumes that the GB meters go red at 0dBFS and since they don't give any details of meter calibration the only safe thing to do is stay out of the red).

Yeah, what I noticed is that the tracks can go orange and not be green necessarily and still not let the master track go red. So.....
Im going to try avoid going yellow in the tracks as much as possible, and really make sure the master track never goes red. I'll also try keep the yellow in the master track as low as I can.
I suppose you answered my question when you said that the master track can go yellow, while still being clean. unless I am missing something here.

[James_AvA]

Not a user of that DAW - but generally I'd say leave the master bus on zero and work at track level first. Keep them in the green, and you'll soon see the master bus climb into the amber and on towards the red as you add tracks. Then you have to decide if you've enough headroom left on the master for all the tracks you want to add. Then the fun starts-

Regarding track level, it can go into the orange area, just as long as it doesn't go red. My question is if the master can go into orange, without there being a problem. I was told that even if it is orange, as long as it doesn't go red, its ok, while someone else told it shouldn't even be orange and should stay green so that the sound is clean.

It does get a bit complicated, but no point worrying about all that until you get there when you first get started. Later - there will be all sorts of complications to get your head around. I'm assuming you're quite new to it - so apologies if that's not right. Finding the right level to pitch in at can be a minefield in this game. It'll be ok in the amber, and even peaking into the red now and again as long as it doesn't stay there too long or peak through the red ceiling. If it does that, the meters should tell you by displaying 'Clip' in red above the meter display - or some such lasting clue that the roof has been exceeded. The reason for staying lower, is so that you have room for other things later on which may increased the master levels here and there unpredictably. The can be reverbs, flangers, delays etc. You may not know which if any, of these processes you might want to add in later, at the beginning. My approach would be to go ahead and experiment - you are highly unlikely to break anything. At worst you'll just make awful noises. The thing to remember is - all of us are on a learning curve with this - just at different points, and the learning never stops.

Hi. I am aware of this and the fact of it being more complicated. I suppose my looking at it is in a simplistic manner. Just to clarify, when you say it can go orange, and peak into the red, you are referring to the master track, correct?
It doesn't make sense with me because in my song, it was doing that, it was just touching the red mark, barely, but when I put the mv meter, it was going beyond 0, which is digital distortion, which is why Im going to bring it down. Having said that, even if it was going beyond 0 in the mv meter, I still could not hear any distortion.
Also, garage-band does not tell you if it is clipped, you just see the red area.

[amanise]

...Having said that, even if it was going beyond 0 in the mv meter, I still could not hear any distortion.
Also, garage-band does not tell you if it is clipped, you just see the red area.

OK - well if you check your previous posts for Wonks' one you get a different view on whether you should allow your meter levels to even be in the red zone. I'd go with that really. What I should have said is that I've never experienced any system damage on any of my kit. My DAW shows red clip marks which are easy to see. What I'd do is go on the side of caution with everything and keep everything as far down towards the green as you can. You'll get absolute tons of headroom that way! Not very helpful to not flag clips for you though...

[Wonks]

It's not a view, it's a fact.

There are a lot or areas of recording where its a matter of personal taste. but there are others where it's basic scientific fact about how things work, and that is one of them.

If you want to keep the recording 'clean' with no distortion when played back, the master needs to have no true peaks hitting 0dB. Ideally you'd keep it to -0.5dB, and if you want to compress to an mp3 or equivalent, then you'd need to go lower than that to avoid clipping during the audio compression process.

I'm aware that there are some commercial releases out there with instances of digital clipping (mainly in an attempt to be 'louder' than any other recording), but these sound bad and are hard work to listen to for any length of time.

But as GarageBand doesn't have meters with that sort of detail, you need to play safe (unless there are plug-in meters that you can use).

There are hundreds of technical features on digital recording, ADCs, DACs and gain staging on the SOS website, so it's well worth going through those.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I was told that it is ok if the Master track goes into orange, so long it doesn't go red. Where as, I was also told that it should always be green, and should not be orange because if so, it won't sound clean. (I'm using garage-band). I'm still trying to figure this all out. pls advise.

Garage Band's meters are un-scaled which is very unhelpful... but the change from green to yellow occurs at around -12dBFS, and for tracking and mixing purposes that's a very good target to aim for when setting peak levels. It will leave a reasonable headroom margin for brief transients that the meters aren't showing you but still be loud enough to audition without problems.

You can allow levels to rise into the orange area and they will still be clean — you only get distortion when you hit the (red) end-stops — but you are obviously at greater risk of accidental overloads if transient peaks occur.

Personally, I would aim for the green/yellow boundary and not worry too much if transient peaks push up into the yellows... but if I saw a lot of orange I'd definitely back things off a bit!

Also... bear in mind that there is no universal standard of colour coding for audio meters. Where one system's meters turn red, another's might still be yellow... so don't rely on colour descriptions. Only absolute numerical values (in dBFS or dBTP) have any validity in this context.

On most of the equipment I use (recorders, converters, DAWs etc) I customise my meters to show green up to -18dBFS, yellow up to -10dBFS, and red from -9dBFS upwards. I expect to see average levels around the green/yellow interface, with transients well into the yellows. I dont panic if there's an occasional red or two, but more than that and I usually turn the level down!

[RichardT]

Basically, as others have said, red on the master track (assuming red means > 0 dBFS in GarageBand) is an absolute no-no unless you’re are deliberately trying to clip your audio.

When it comes to finalising your tracks, you could try putting a limiter on the master bus. Limiters will give you a proper display of your signal levels, and they will also show you how ‘loud’ your track is and then allow you to adjust the loudness and the maximum peak levels.

The limiter will then ensure the peak level never exceeds the level you have set.

[James_AvA]

Thanks everyone for your helpful replies.
So, I have an update. In the song, the master track goes slightly in the red - as though touching it. I put on an mv meter in the master track, and it was going beyond 0, into the distortion area.
What happened was, a buddy of mine who is also a composer and songwriter, and a music producer (not that I am), came to my house to hear the song, to tell me if there is distortion. I'm so familiar with the song because I wrote it and heard it so many times, that I needed another person who is not familiar with the track at all to tell me if it is distorting, or if it sounds distorted.
When I first played it to him, he said he couldn't hear any distortion. And I had the volume of the track quite high as well, from my interface and monitor speakers, so that the song can be heard well.
Then he told me to just hear the music tracks, without the vocals, and when he heard it, he said there is no distortion. Then, I had him listen to the song again, with music and vocals, and he said there is no distortion.
It kinda brings to mind when people have told me that although it may show in the daw that it is clipping and is distorted, if it sounds good and you can't hear any distortion then it's good. Several people have told me this.
It does puzzle me his response, not because of the master track slightly touching the red area, but because of the mv meter going beyond 0 which automatically means digital distortion.
I think I will continue with the song and master it and then finish it. My only concerns are that once I export the song to disk and hear it on from my Mac computer, maybe there will be distortion then. My other concern is when mastering, when I will use the limiter for instance, to raise the entire volume of the track, there may be distortion there. Pls let me know your thoughts. God bless you all.

[James_AvA]

Something I forgot to add is that I asked my buddy if he thinks when using the limiter for instance, to raise the volume of the song, if it will be distorted, and he said he doesn't think so.

[RichardT]

Sometimes distortion is not obvious. It’s best to avoid it though, so I’d reduce the gain to keep the signal out of the red in the master bus.

Limiters avoid clipping distortion, so if you use one the signal won’t be distorted in that way.

[amanise]

.. also don't forget the advice you got earlier about playback format. I.e - you will need to leave room at the top for lossy formats like MP3. If you cut it too close to the red for a lossless format like WAV (I know that's probably swearing) you might tip over when it gets rendered down to MP3. It just happens that way. One word you will hear a LOT in all of this over time is "compromise".

[Sam Spoons]

Same advice here, keep the master out of the red, there is no sensible reason not to. You can always raise the level when you master but if it's going to .mp3 or other compressed format you need to master at least a couple of dB below 0dBFS (and we are having to make the assumption that the red illuminates at 0dBFS in GB).

[James_AvA]

Sometimes distortion is not obvious. It’s best to avoid it though, so I’d reduce the gain to keep the signal out of the red in the master bus.

Limiters avoid clipping distortion, so if you use one the signal won’t be distorted in that way.

That's good news for me, what you said about the limiter. From now on in my future recordings, of course I will avoid it, you live and learn I suppose.
It still baffles me how in the mv meter, it goes beyond 0 and that is the sign for distortion, and there is no distortion to be heard. I suppose that may have to do with what you said about the distortion not being obvious. I couldn't hear it either before my friend heard it, but I wanted to get a second opinion and it was that there is no distortion.

[James_AvA]

.. also don't forget the advice you got earlier about playback format. I.e - you will need to leave room at the top for lossy formats like MP3. If you cut it too close to the red for a lossless format like WAV (I know that's probably swearing) you might tip over when it gets rendered down to MP3. It just happens that way. One word you will hear a LOT in all of this over time is "compromise".

I was always planning on making it a WAV file because of the higher quality. Would that be ok then?
I don't need to go lower in that regard because I don't want it to be an mp3.
Also, as a heads-up, the master track I have it -0.3db. It's a good position to be.

[Wonks]

A bit of distortion will be subtle, it’s just the very peaks of the loudest transients that will get clipped at first. But it’s not a good way to work and you don’t need to work like that. Keep some headroom.

You need to look at true peak values, not just the sample peak values.