Master fader messing with the general volume?

I accidentally turned my master fader to the max. Not a catastrophe by itself, but when I turned it back down to 0db, it suddenly made my whole project much lower than it was (the other faders haven’t changed their position). The master out used to peak at around -5db, now it peaks at -12db! Have anyone experienced this before and knows that may have caused this, and how to fix it? :frowning: I’m using Cubase Pro 8 on a Mac Mini 10.11.2 (El Capitan). All helpful answers are appreciated!

Sounds like the master fader does exactly what one would expect: when lowering it the mix has a lower level :wink:

In project settings you can choose to have all faders’ max at + 6 db or + 12 db. Sounds like it’s set to + 6 in your project. Bringing the master down to zero lowers the exact same mix by the given amount = roughly the attenuation you report.

Or did I just not get the question?

Thank you for answering, but I think you misunderstood what I meant (or I didn’t formulate my problem good enough). But what I meant is that before touching the master fader, the peak was at -5db. After maxing it, the peak was +2db. But after lowering it back to 0db, suddenly the peak was only -12db. So it kind of took away the double of what it gained. And afterwards, the project has been behaving odd: if I close the project and reopens it, suddenly some of the tracks have regain the lost db, but the faders are at the same positions as before. So I have to re adjust them all the time. I have no idea what’s going on.
I’m done with the mixdown now anyways, but I’ll be extra careful not to touch the master out again… :unamused:

There is no problem with touching the master fader. It’s there to be touched! There could be various explanations for what is happening but you haven’t described it in much detail.

When you say that the peak was different, what exactly do you mean? The peak number that is displayed numerically? Or the peak that you estimate visually from the meters? Are you aware that when you move a fader, the numerical peak value is reset?

  • the peaks are measured from the time played, so playing halfway your project a piece gives the maximum of that time period, playing the whole song gives you the highest peak of your project, this is used for example when gain staging with trim controls.