His goal is to mix the project, so what he’s trying to do is set all the tracks dry so he has the headroom to work with plugins and such. That’s why starting around -18 gives you that headroom. It’s digital doesn’t matter if it’s -24 or -10, it’s going to sound the same. What does matter is not having to adjust the faders so dramatically when it comes time to balance the mix otherwise stuff starts getting whacked out when you’re adding compression and everything.
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