dickiefunk
Joined: 17/06/05
Posts: 2004
Loc: Cornwall, UK
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Help setting levels on ISA - Saffire and Cubase 6?
#945877 - 07/10/11 02:35 PM
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Hi, I am having a few issues setting up correct levels going from my Focusrite
ISA One Digital into my Saffire interface and into Cubase. At the moment my ISA
One meter is going well into the red on loud sections but this gives me around -10db
signal on my Saffire meter and the signal going into Cubase is extremely weak? The wave
forms only slightly appear on loud sections? Any ideas as to what I'm doing
wrong?
-------------------- www.richardpenrose.com
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Hugh Robjohns
SOS Technical Editor
Joined: 25/07/03
Posts: 18541
Loc: Worcestershire
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Re: Help setting levels on ISA - Saffire and Cubase 6?
[Re: dickiefunk]
#945885 - 07/10/11 03:36 PM
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Quote dickiefunk:
At the moment
my ISA One meter is going well into the red on loud sections but this gives me around
-10db signal on my Saffire meter and the signal going into Cubase is extremely weak? The
wave forms only slightly appear on loud sections?
Any ideas as to what I'm
doing wrong?
You're not
doing anything wrong, other than not fully understanding the concept of headroom... or
perhaps we should better level that criticism at Steinberg and most other DAW
manufacturers.
Let me tell you a story 
Long, long ago, people started to use electronic systems to capture and manipulate audio
signals. They quickly learned that raw audio signals are very dynamic and that maintaining
a healthy 'headroom' above the average signal level accommodated these dynamic variations
very nicely, and made life considerably easier because they didn't have to worry about
overloads when things got a little bit noisier.
And lo, it evolved that the
nominal average signal level would be said to be +4dBu, and that a 20dB headroom margin
would be allowed to cater for dynamic variations. As a result, the clipping point in
analogue systems would henceforce be 24dBu (or thereabouts).
And then it came
to pass that digital was invented, but in its earliest forms it struggled to provide a
healthy signal-to-noise ratio and, for a few years, it's agenets would adjust signal
levels to peak as closely as any man would dare to 0dBFS so that the hiss would not come
to pass...
Verily, as digital equipment was made good the signal-to-noise
ratio became the same as that of the best analogue, and so it came to pass in the wisdom
of men that the great and good ways of headroom could be embraced and cherished once
again.
And lo, when it became necesasry to lie together the forms of analogue
and digital equipment, matching the +24dBu alignment of analogue clipping to the 0dBFS of
digital clipping causes the nominal average signal level in the digital environment to be
around 20dB lower, to account for the said headroom margin, and this the average nominal
signal level should be considered to be about -24dBFS.
In practice, and given
the 'peaky' nature of most digital metering system, aiming to keep the 'average' signal
level somewhere between -20 and -10dBFS is usually a good bet, with occasional transient
peaks striking up to about -6dBFS.
In the case of your ISA One, the standard
factory alignment for 0VU on its meter equates to +4dBu (but it can be adjusted), and the
0dBFS on its digital output LED meter is +22dBu.
THIS IS ALL ENTIERLY NORMAL
AND CORRECT.
So, back to your specific situation, I'd say that your recording
signal is not weak at all. In fact, it is perfectly formed, with a perfect headroom margin
for tracking and mixing. If you can not see the waveforms sufficiently in your DAW, then
find out where Cubase hides its waveform display zoom function and use that to make the
display clearer.
Don't be fooled by commerical material and plug-in
instruments and sampels being much louder than your raw tracks. Pre-recorded commercial
tracks will be MUCH louder because the headroom margin, which is unnecesary in a finished
product, has been removed. It's an entirely pointless exercise, but it became the norm in
CD mastering 28 years ago when the CD format was introduced and we've been stuck with it
ever since!
For some reason that I still don't understand, most soft-synth
manufacturers also design their things to be ludicrously loud too! It's far better to turn
their contributions down, though, than to reduce the headroom of live recorded tracks.
Hugh
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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound
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dickiefunk
Joined: 17/06/05
Posts: 2004
Loc: Cornwall, UK
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Re: Help setting levels on ISA - Saffire and Cubase 6?
[Re: Hugh Robjohns]
#945897 - 07/10/11 04:48 PM
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Thanks for the detailed reply Hugh! Very much appreciated!! It does sound like
I'm getting a little distortion on the extreme peaks so I'm gonna double check that my
converters are not clipping! I'm using the converters from my ISA One digital
and am wondering if the ADAT channel meters in the Saffire DSP mixer are displaying the
ISA One converters or the Saffire converters?
-------------------- www.richardpenrose.com
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Hugh Robjohns
SOS Technical Editor
Joined: 25/07/03
Posts: 18541
Loc: Worcestershire
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Re: Help setting levels on ISA - Saffire and Cubase 6?
[Re: dickiefunk]
#945900 - 07/10/11 05:09 PM
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The saffire meters should be showing whatever signal is passing through the box, so if
you're sending the ISA One's digital ouput to the saffire, the latter's meters should be
showinghte result of the Isa's conversion -- and both sets of digital meters whould be
showing the same levels.
Hugh
--------------------
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound
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dickiefunk
Joined: 17/06/05
Posts: 2004
Loc: Cornwall, UK
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Re: Help setting levels on ISA - Saffire and Cubase 6?
[Re: dickiefunk]
#945956 - 08/10/11 07:18 AM
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When you say both sets of digital meters do you mean there's a digital meter on the ISA?
-------------------- www.richardpenrose.com
Edited by Hugh Robjohns (09/10/11 04:06 PM)
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Hugh Robjohns
SOS Technical Editor
Joined: 25/07/03
Posts: 18541
Loc: Worcestershire
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Re: Help setting levels on ISA - Saffire and Cubase 6?
[Re: dickiefunk]
#946123 - 09/10/11 04:06 PM
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Yes... there's a big VU meter with a waggly needle, and there's an LED bargraph meter that
shows the level you can expect from the A-D converter.
The factory-default
alignment for the VU meter is that 0VU = +4dBu, while the '0' at the top of the 'digital'
bargraph meter beside it equates to +22dBu.
hugh
--------------------
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound
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Richie Royale
Joined: 12/09/06
Posts: 3459
Loc: Bristol, England.
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Re: Help setting levels on ISA - Saffire and Cubase 6?
[Re: dickiefunk]
#946211 - 10/10/11 07:46 AM
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The zoom function in Cubase is to the top right of the screen.
-------------------- http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale
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