I use Ableton. Digital mixers (software at least) do not saturate "nicely". When I compose, whenever I introduce a new instrument I bring the fader to -inf and then bring the volume back up to whatever is needed. Since things are going to get louder thru the different stages of production and you do not have the luxury of going into the red in the digital realm it is best to begin with only the volume that is needed to let compressors, eq's etc affect volume or loudness better. Also keep the Master at 0db, if you reduce the master volume to compensate you will degrade the sound at the summing stage, better to tweak the individual channels. (http://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/01/25/ … er-at-0db/)
Even without studio monitors, there is a noticeable difference between the sound from just playing the completed track in ableton and the sound of the rendered .wav file. I don't know if this is an issue specifically to Ableton or common to other DAWs too. It doesn't worry me though as to my ears it sounds like a slight difference but not in a qualitative way.
Here is a series of videos that I have seen recently re: processing in Ableton:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL … ature=plcp
This one is interesting ... about upward compression:
I use Ableton. Digital mixers (software at least) do not saturate "nicely". When I compose, whenever I introduce a new instrument I bring the fader to -inf and then bring the volume back up to whatever is needed. Since things are going to get louder thru the different stages of production and you do not have the luxury of going into the red in the digital realm it is best to begin with only the volume that is needed to let compressors, eq's etc affect volume or loudness better. Also keep the Master at 0db, if you reduce the master volume to compensate you will degrade the sound at the summing stage, better to tweak the individual channels. (http://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/01/25/ … er-at-0db/)
Even without studio monitors, there is a noticeable difference between the sound from just playing the completed track in ableton and the sound of the rendered .wav file. I don't know if this is an issue specifically to Ableton or common to other DAWs too. It doesn't worry me though as to my ears it sounds like a slight difference but not in a qualitative way.
Here is a series of videos that I have seen recently re: processing in Ableton:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL … ature=plcp
This one is cool: upward compression:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/vswlm8iNACg[/youtube]