Having a safety feature that is either a mute or a brickwall limiter to prevent any audio going over a pre determined threshold. THe Brickwall stops at zero, but having it go up to 6 db or so would help. (this should be transparent below the threshold, nothing is done to the audio below it)
Having this a project set up, or system setup default would be good too! So just set a maximum level, say 6db, and that will prevent any sound ever going over that level.
Many ways of doing this. BW limiter, automute, system wideâŚ
It is for safety only to prevent a rogue plugin with feedback or pops. The safety should be 100% transparent, does nothing, until you go over a certain threshhold. Similar to a brick wall, but allowing the signal to go past zero. 6db is arbitrary, but allows some signal through but not enough to destroy speakers or my ears! CHeck out the plugin that I linked to, it does what I suggest should be standard in Cubase as it is good practice for everyone to do this.
âZeroâ what though? There is no such thing as âpast zeroâ for conversion is what Iâm saying. 0dBFS is the maximum your converter can use. If you try to âgo past zeroâ youâre just going to clip your converters and that clipping will be the absolute limit.
You just have to mind your gain structure for monitoring and then you can use the included Brickwall Limiter if you want a âsafetyâ somewhere.
Itâs not for mixdown, it is for writing and mixing. Weâre have more than 16 bit to mix with. We can go past zero before the mixdown. Yes, I gainstage every track to -10 db or so, yes, my bus is staged below -6 db. But, sometimes you add a plugin that feedback and blasts your speakers. When I mix, I donât want to clip at 0db, I want to know if the signal is peaking past 0 db, I want to know what the peak might be, maybe its +3db so I know I need to pull back at least 3 db on my mix.
The whole idea is to be able to mix freely without any interference from a plug in until it hits a certain volume that will destroy my speakers and hearing. Check out the plugin that I referenced - Ice9 above. This should be a standard feature in Cubase. (you can also check out nugen audio protect)
It doesnât matter what itâs for if your concern is that the speakers would get blasted. You just pick whatever threshold is appropriate in your limiter and use that on your Control Room insert. That will take care of too loud peaks reaching your speakers.
As for knowing just how much above zero something is you can see that on the master mix meter, in Control Room, and on individual channels. You also have additional plugins like Supervision that gives you even more information if you need it.
I think this should be visible on the individual track meters. Just set the appropriately.
With the plugin in Control Room you should be able to mix freely and only your monitoring will be affected by this limiter. If you want your summed mix to be affected just move the plugin to the main mix youâre using (or do both).
If you think Iâm still not understanding please tell us exactly where you would want this plugin located.
This plugin could be standard in Cubase for everyone to protect their gear and themselves. It is a simple plugin with one function. It can also just be a global setting that nothing will ever get past a certain volume. Either plugin or global setting.
But your monitoring can not go above 0dBFS. Ever. So if you put any plugin on your Control Room inserts and you set it to +6dBFS for example you will not just have your signal limited at +6dBFS, it will be limited at 0dBFS by the converter.
Just follow the signal chain (hypothetical example):
Audio tracks feed a master output bus.
The master output bus peaks at +12dBFS.
The master output feeds Control Room monitor source.
Control Room insert Brickwall Limiter set to +6dBFS.
Signal after Limiter now peaks at +6dBFS instead of +12dBFS.
â at least until this point your signal has been floating point processing at 32 or 64 bits, which is why you were allowed to go past 0dBFS â
Conversion takes place at 24 bits fixed point processing with a 0dBFS ceiling.
Signal now clips at 0dBFS and is sent out at whatever reference electric level the converter is built for.
See how your signal thatâs limited at +6dBFS only exists in floating point and how it then is further limited by the conversion process?
Your âbottleneckâ is the converter as long as youâre talking about monitoring, not the limiter plugin. So you will have your monitoring âaffected by a limiterâ, itâs just that in practice the limiter will be your converter. This is why if you want to protect speakers and ears you need to limit at or below 0dBFS, not above it.
I donâ't think this would be a good addition as a standard feature. The better way would be to create such a plugin. Maybe you can address any of the developers of free VST plugins and have them make such a plugin?
It should be a fairly easy algorithm as it checks the peak level of the audio and if anything is above 0dB it will output a silent sample instead. It should also have a graphical notification, possibly a red ligth and a counter, how many samples were silenced. Plus a reset button.
Yes, I do know the difference. What you wrote is a workaround, and similar to what other have said. It does not actually do what I am asking. But thank you for your responses.
Yes, a plugin would be preferable. It could be a stock Cubase plugin with the features you suggest. There is already the plugin available that I posted above, but it is no longer updated and is stuck at vst2 which means at some point it will be obsolete. It is a âsimplerâ plugin, none of them are easy , but maybe itâs a good idea to talk to some of the smaller personal companies. It could even be a few bucks, not an issue.
I wasnât offering a workaround, my point is that what youâre asking for doesnât seem technically possible. Thatâs what Iâm trying to explainâŚ
Ask yourself this:
A. Can a signal thatâs being converted be above 0dBFS at the point of conversion?
B. If it canât, then why would you need to limit the signal above that in order to protect monitoring when itâs just going to be automatically limited lower anyway?
, but maybe itâs a good idea to talk to some of the smaller personal companies. It could even be a few bucks, not an issue.