Bob.

rharv is right - RB won't normalize anything unless instructed to do so. If you want to normalize a track, or part of a track, you can highlight it and go to EDIT - AUDIO EFFECTS - GAIN CHANGE.

The output of each track is determined by two things - the level of the recording and the channel fader setting. In other words, a hot track with the fader half down will be similar to a quiet track with the fader up full. This principle holds good for both analog and digital.

The trick when mixing is to use the channel faders in conjunction with the meters to ensure that the signal going to the master buss isn't overloading and you can do this regardless of how hot the tracks are. If it's a complex mix we use the sub-groups to make it easier to take sections of the mix up and down. In RB, if the mix is getting too loud you can use the main sub-group (A1) to reduce the overall level.

Having spent over thirty years working with tape, where signal level was our main weapon against noise, I still don't like to see things recorded way down, even though with digital it isn't quite as important. Any decent desk will handle 24 tracks of tape-saturated sound if you watch your gain controls and meters.

There seems to be a lot of dis-information on the internet about levels and mixing, but good principles have always been the same - record as good a signal as possible and keep an eye on the meters when mixing.

ROG.

EDIT - the first studio I helped out in as a boy in the 60s was recording straight into a Ferrograph stereo half-track. The desk had tubes in and a chassis which looked like it had been made out of a railway bridge. The faders more resembled power boat throttles, but it did have a VU meter on every channel. On the control room window was a sign which read - WATCH THE METERS NOT THE PERFORMERS.

Last edited by ROG; 10/25/12 01:47 AM.
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