Hi there,
I’m hoping someone can help me understand what I’m looking at in the attached image. Above is the audio track, and below is the audio editor. I don’t understand why the waveform on the audio track seems to be in the red, while the one in the editor is a no danger of getting anywhere near zero. I must be misunderstanding Something.
Also, what’s up with the aurora borealis, in the audio track, those Streaky vertical lines That shadow the image of the waveform?
The audio track is probably zoomed in:
I just noticed that there are two kinds of vertical zoom. There’s the one in the bottom right corner of the timeline, and then there’s one which is controlled with the mouse wheel. The former controls width of the track, and the latter controls The width of the waveform. I didn’t realize that. So yes, I think you were right. I had the “mouse wheel zoom” zoomed in.
Now, if I want to know if my recorded signal is too hot, should I use the audio editor?
A little more experimenting, and I see that my theory isn’t quite right, the mouse wheel is not just zooming in it’s also raising the volume somehow but I’m not sure what that is. But it does distort if I raise it too high.
In digital audio “too hot” means clipping. Anything else could just be lowered in volume.
You can simply select the event, then go to menu Audio → Statistics nad look at the maximum peak level. If it is below 0.0dB you’re good.
It’s an option in the Cubase preferences - Background Color Modulation:
