Why does the NYSTHI Master Recorder 2 write WAV files that are hotter than the audio signals I send it?
The NYSTHI Master Record always renders WAV files that are very hot, unless I turn on one of the gain reduction switches.
I can - and do - just turn on the -6dB Input Attenuation in the Master recorder.
Lately I’ve been trying to use the UAD Precision Limiter on the master output. The metering in this VST is very precise, and when I set a limiting value - usually -1dB for my mastering - it will render files that peak precisely at -1.0.
But if I feed the output of the UAD Precision Limiter into Master Recorder 2 the resulting recordings are clipped at 0dBFS. I have to either turn on -6dB Input Attenuation, or lower the Precision Limiter output threshold to -7. -6dBFS on the UAD still redlines the NYSTHI recorder.
So there appears to be some mis-calibration somewhere either in Rack or the recorder module.
put a minmax mode checker BEFORE entering the master recorder, to check the incoming signal (the minmax is included in multivoltimetro)
the MR2 (and the other recorders too) considers a 0dB signal in a range [-5v,5v]
if you don’t touch any parameters on it, no xformations are done
and attenuation is 1.
The issue I’m seeing is coming from using the UAD-2 Precision Limiter VST inside VCV Host. The TL;DR version of what I write below is this: For the output of the Host module, 0dBFS is in the range -10 to 10. For the VCV recorders (including MR2) 0dBFS is in the range -5 to 5.
So it makes sense to attenuate the MR2 input by -6dB, which is logarhythmically 1/2 as loud (and half the voltage).
THE LONG WAY TO THE SAME CONCLUSION
If you look at this labeled MultiVoltiMentro, Kontakt is putting out signals -10 to 10. The LA2A output is turned down to be in the -2 to 2 range to give the Mindmeld Mixer headroom. The Mindmeld Mixer is in the -2 to 2 range on the output, combining the attentuated piano with effect outputs.
The Precision Limiter gets levels back up to roughly -10 to 10 range, as it applies gain before limiting. I uses my eyes and ears to turn up the limiter input until it getsthe RMS level I want to see, and it ends up roughly -8 to 8.
Turning on -6dB input attentuation pulls the voltage range down to -5 to 5 (roughly).
