Mines a bit quiet...

[pauldavid]

I have a virus ti2 desktop and version 3.03 of the os.

I am using it with the virus control plug in via usb and have the volume on the unit always set at 127 all the way right.

I am noticing that I just cannot seem to get a nice loud level out of it ??

I scan through all the patches and they all seem very quiet to me.

My fix for this is to always leave a compressor on my virus audio track. But want to know if I am doing somthing wrong here ??

I know obviosly its not a good idea to go into the red, but I cannot seem to get it anywhere near clipping even if I try.

Am I missing an important step ??

Thanks.

[Sonis]

Why do you want it that loud in the first place? Just turn everything else down and raise the levels with mastering in the end.

[feedingear]

Are you turning the patch volumes up in VC - they each have individual controls marked by a slider - also doesnt the main volume knob on the unit not function while in VC mode...?

Turn up the Virus TI channel in your sequencer as well if the overall levels too low - I find that normally it needs to be nudged up to about 3.00.

[luddy]

Originally Posted by pauldavid

I am noticing that I just cannot seem to get a nice loud level out of it ??

Lots of virus patches stay well below 0dBFS if there aren't played with lots of polyphony. I usually go after the Patch Volume setting if I want a little extra gain on a particular patch.

My fix for this is to always leave a compressor on my virus audio track. But want to know if I am doing somthing wrong here ??

A compressor is a gain reduction device, unless you apply more makeup gain than the compressor is taking away. In any case a simple gain plug probably makes more sense than a compressor, if you're going to leave something "always on" to set the volume of the virus output.

-Luddy

[peeradonn]

I do have this feeling too. every patches seems to be a bit quieter than needed. I always have to raise the patch volume all the way up which is very annoyed. Do anyone have better way to solve this? I'm using Snow with 3.0.5
________
Public Train

[Cantankerous]

I have found this since the day I got my Virus a year ago. Just how it is I guess.

[marc]

With everything in between 20-90 voices a synth needs headroom. Most virtual instruments are designed to work with much less headroom and therefore they are louder. In our opinion it should be the users decision, what he wants to do with the entire dynamic range. There is plug-ins which seem to limit the output (which results in more loudness and unfortunately artefacts as well) - when we designed Total Integration we decided against this notion.

If you feel that other plug-ins are louder, reduce the level of the other plug-ins. Most DAW mixers are floating point but even with 24 bits fix point, there is no disadvantage in reducing the level.

In my personal opinion, many people mix the wrong way on digital systems. i did this myself for years. I've used my first digital desk, a yamaha 02r, like an analogue mixer, driving every channel as hot as possible only to find out much later that the desk distorted internally and all my mixes sounded two dimensional and cold. The theory of achieving loud mixes by having a hot signal on every individual channel just doesn't work in the digital domain. Since there is no noise to battle, it's much easier to keep the headroom and control the loudness of the mix at the output/stem instead of crushing every individual channel. On top, once you got digital distortion in your master signal, you will not get it out easily. and even, if you don't hear it, techniques like multiband compression/limiting and especially psycho acoustic algorithms might emphasis the distortion and will present you with crackling and other artefacts.

hth, marc

[pauldavid]

Cool thanks everyone.

Yeah I know what you mean about compressor not being a "louderizer" but I normally put one on the track and increase the make up gain only as a temperary soilution for when browsing patches so I can hear them.

Then when I have one I want to work with, I remove the compressor and adjust the rest of my tracks etc.

Seems I have the solution now. I was ignoring the individual track levels inside the virus plugin (The ones on the left of the display that run all the way down) until it was mentioned here. Sorry, cant remember who said it first as I am in the reply section and cant see.

Guess it was kinda obvious really now I think about it

Thanks for the help.

[mtod]

SfLogicNinja, who does YouTube videos mostly about using Logic, did a masterclass sponsored by Remix magazine about making dance tracks in Logic, but there's also useful info in it even if you're not using Logic.

http://remixmag.com/remixhotel/sflogicninja_class1/

One of the first things he mentions is pulling all the faders down to -20dB to -12dB when you start out, so you have plenty of headroom. Concerns over loudness should be handled by the mastering engineer. It's easier to get a higher quality master out of something with more headroom than something that comes to the mastering engineer already squashed.

After seeing that video, I began reading Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science by Bob Katz, and the author agrees. As a mastering engineer, he wants to see mixes with a relatively low RMS volume and peaks no higher than -5dB. Basically, once you go above this, you are in danger of adding unwanted digital distortion to the mix. (This is assuming 24bit recording. I'm not sure, but I believe he's okay with peaks that go above -5dB if it's 16bit, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now.) What it comes down to is that you can always squash the life out of a mix, but once you do that, you can't really go back.

So yes, the Access Virus TI, when used as a plug-in instrument, tends to peak at about -18dBs in a DAW; however that is not a "flaw," for the reasons pointed out above by marc and others. The whole "everything must be at zero" thing is just a symptom of the Loudness Wars, which is a mastering thing and not a mixing thing. When you compose and mix a track, you want headroom; once that is done, you can worry about the total and absolute loudness. When you want to share a track on the internet or with your friends, yeah, you'll probably just want to take your final mix, the one with plenty of headroom, and then use compressors/limiters/multipressors/maximizers/finalizers etc... to do a quick and dirty "mastering" to "louden up" your track - but keep that unsquashed mix for the day that you can afford getting it mastered by a real mastering engineer and that will make a world of difference for the final output.

[marc]

Originally Posted by mtod

One of the first things he mentions is pulling all the faders down to -20dB to -12dB when you start out, so you have plenty of headroom.

i did this in my default song, because once you start working and add a couple of instruments chances are that you forget until it's to late. you can select all faders in logic at the same time and drag the down. the relative levels of the channels won't change by that method. unless you've already used volume automation (among other things).

hth, marc