I started teaching myself a new workflow on Mixbus

[Studio Saturn]

Man I'm not trying to criticise this pink noise thing but I will be crazy if I start using that way. Why not mix in mono? Anything you balance in mono translate in stereo perfectly. Plus on your way you can be able to detect phase issue one instrument masking another one e.t.c

[Domino]

Select the regions you want to set, right click the selection and in the popup menu do "Selected Regions -> Gain -> Normalise". You can then adjust to a peak or rms level with the target per region or across the selection. It's non destructive as it doesn't alter the source data, it just adjusts the region gains.

But it pulls up the noise floor before it hits a compressor or anything, too, so the compressor will emphasize the noise even further... and channels sum up... and a hiss might become audible because its now in the "good" 16 bits. After someone here explained that to me I tend to rather pull down louder tracks and add gain/normalisation at export time...

MMM

That assumes the normalise is turning things up.. Which depends on the peak / rms value you choose. Considering my complaint is the waveforms are displayed too small with this workflow I think I err on the turning down side (I used peaks at -18db when I originally posted - Harrison recommend recording to peak at -15db) and if noise floor is an issue, there's always gates..

So the advice you are following is not to use trim or region gain / envelopes at all but to do that sort of adjustment later in the routing after compression? If I was recording I'd aim for that too (probably as some ideal unobtainable standard), but when dealing with a bunch of tracks all recorded in different home studios I just accept I've got some work to do and find ways to do it quicker..

When I'm dealing with tracks recorded at rough mix levels and a consistent noise floor I don't use this approach, but in some circumstances it's a handy trick up my sleeve.

[the C.L.A.]

That was my thoughts too. And not long after I posted about it Harrison kindly added an RMS option to my workflow for it

Select the regions you want to set, right click the selection and in the popup menu do "Selected Regions -> Gain -> Normalise". You can then adjust to a peak or rms level with the target per region or across the selection. It's non destructive as it doesn't alter the source data, it just adjusts the region gains.

I played with RMS normalize several weeks ago and found it to not really be much of use as it is now. It also takes areas into the calculation where there is nothing being played at all - so more empty/silent/quiet space in regions results in higher region boost.

I chatted with Robin about that and we had some ideas to improve the situation, but there is only so much time in a day... So I guess it will take a little more (probably after MB4 release) until this will be adressed.

[madmaxmiller]

That assumes the normalise is turning things up.. Which depends on the peak / rms value you choose.

Your point sir

So the advice you are following is not to use trim or region gain / envelopes at all but to do that sort of adjustment later in the routing after compression?

Oh no... I meant to say that when I adjust region gain I often pull the louder regions down instead of the quieter regions up.

For the optical size... logarithmic helps a bit but other than that you have to temporarily adjust the track height...

CTRL+scroll = horizontal zoom
ALT+scroll=vertical zoom
SHIFT+scroll=horizontal scroll
Scroll=vertical scroll

I personally live very comfortable with that, it's fast enough for me in conjunction with region/marker jump keys (cursor left/right, q/w)

Can't wait for 4!

MMM

[Domino]

I played with RMS normalize several weeks ago and found it to not really be much of use as it is now. It also takes areas into the calculation where there is nothing being played at all - so more empty/silent/quiet space in regions results in higher region boost.

I chatted with Robin about that and we had some ideas to improve the situation, but there is only so much time in a day... So I guess it will take a little more (probably after MB4 release) until this will be adressed.

I'd not got around to trying it with RMS, I did wonder if that would be a problem.

I've kinda got used to the wrongness of using peaks as it can give a quick heads up on where compression is needed. But the waveform display mostly means I don't use this as much as I'd like to - roll on the day when I can set the display height separately to region gain... logarithmic just looks wrong to me..