Brick Wall limiter / meter error?

Cubase
1

Hi there

With a Pan Law setting of -3dB I am playing a mono audio track (narration) through the master channel. I adjust the track’s level to reach a max. level indication of 'round -6dB on the master meter. The resulting bounce is correctly leveled to 'round max. -3dB - or said in other words: 3dB more than indicated - due to the Pan Law settings. Now here comes my question:

  • I add a brick wall limiter to the master channel at -6dB, and the resulting bounced file shows max levels of -2dB (?)
  • when pushing the audio track’s level even more, so that the playback almost continuously exceeds the -6db level, the bounced file shows a limited level at -2dB, however some peaks go up to -1dB… (?)
  • when repeating the steps before with a sine wave sample file instead of the narration. the bounced files always show an exact level of -3dB as expected.

Is there a bug in the level metering system, or in the on board limiter? Why are the results so different? Am I doing something wrong with regard to understanding levels withing Cubase?

Thanks for your help and suggestions

Thomas

2

Maybe there are holes in the bricks. Sorry if that sounds facetious. I do not know but it sounds like the ‘Brick Wall’ setting is not working. Is the attack setting on 0?

3

Maybe there are holes in the bricks.

:slight_smile: LOL
Yeah, attack is on 0 - don’t understand what’s going on here…

4

The audio mixdown (I suppose that is what you mean with “bounce”…? since that´s something different in cubase) is a mono downmix from stereo bus…? And the -3 dB FS are shown where…? What are the meters set to?

The limiter is inserted where on the master channel? And what are the settings, and which limiter is it?

5

The audio mixdown (I suppose that is what you mean with “bounce”…? since that´s something different in cubase) is a mono downmix from stereo bus…? And the -3 dB FS are shown where…? What are the meters set to?

It’s an audio mixdown, you’re right. The -3 dBFS are shown in other DAWs lide Audition, Protools or Logic as well as in Snapper. Even if I import the file to Cubase the Audio Statistics show -3dB

The limiter is inserted where on the master channel? And what are the settings, and which limiter is it?

The limiter (Cubase internal Brickwall OR Waves L1) is inserted in the last slot of the master channel.

6

Now as asked already- what is the format of the downmix …? And what are the meters set to?

7

what is the format of the downmix …?

The downmix format is mono (WAV, 16bit, 44kHz) and the meter setting is Digital scale…

8

Not sure about your metering, but combining two mono channels will add 6dB to the level, in a centered track.
If the mono combiner is after a -3dB brick wall, the output will be +3dB (over).