Lol 
You must be underwater then? 
No disagreement with the above whatsoever 
I recall the Pearldivers mix-off last summer… when I imported the tracks and set all faders to unity and hit “Play”, everything sounded perfect – even the EQ seemed okay. I asked Jet about this and he sets his input level within the context of the rest of the tracks – a sort of “pre-mixing.”
I asked at another forum, an ostensibly professional-dominated forum, which shall remain nameless , and found a lot of the old-timers, the old analog guys, have done this their entire careers (including EQing on the way in)
In any case
Almost all digital gear, including prosumer stuff, is designed/calibrated such that 0 VU = -8dBFS (or -16dBFS in some cases – check your gear’s manual). There’s really no point in recording any hotter
Did it all the time during my analog era. There was no way I could afford good EQs and compressors etc for all the 8 tracks during mixdown. And because of the limitations of the tape, it was wise to compress and/or eq the the signal going onto tape anyway.
More like -15 to -20 dBFS. But you forget one thing: VU meters are NOT peak meters. If your VU meters are peaking around 0dB VU range, your peaks are something like +3 to +12 dB VU depending on the material. That’s why even modest analog gear (except magnetic tape) has headroom of 16 to 20 dB above 0 VU.
So if you have digital peaks at -18 dBFS, your far away from designed optimum performance range of your (perfectly calibrated) analog gear.
This is quite correct. I now see why we disagreed. I was talking about an average of around -18 or 0 on a vu meter calibrated to -18db. Depending on what is being recorded will result in peaks much higher on a peak meter. I like to keep peaks around -6dbfs. I find this gives me a safety net, especially when recording myself and am not able to watch the meters all the time.
Sorry if I didn’t explain properly.
Don’t you just record to what sounds right?
But that’s why all digital recording gear has Peak Meters, so you don’t go over or at least know that you have, if it just had VUs we’d be clipping the inputs all the time!
Twould be nice to be able to switch them though.
I’m well practiced in both metering types, my point remains. You are merely reduced to guessing where the peaks are with VU, although VUs are better for some things Peak are better at others.
Basically you could probably remove all metering in Cubase and just have a peak light on the inputs and outputs, then you would be forced into recording what sounds right
Although some would probably still set it to flash the peak lights!
Usual thing when talking about dBs: what’s the freaky reference?
No need to be sorry. Sorry if I misinterpreted you.
Exactly! While with properly calibrated system clipping your A/D when hovering your VU meters @ 0 requires quite extream transients … well … turd happens! On digital recording the digital peak meter is your friend.
All good stuff guys
Youngster with analog mixer reporting