[MrDetermination]

Hello helpful Head Fi people,

I have a problem with my (Iron Dreamer modified) 1212m sounding "hot". It isn't terrible, and it is controllable... it sounds great, but it isn't "loud". And by golly, every once in a while I want it LOUD.

It was really bad before this summer's Nashville Head Fi meet, where DevilDog burned his sessions for me. He also used the advanced limiter in Foobar. There are four "volume" controls in this DSP session. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to tell me, in layman's terms, what each of these do and which are least likely to introduce noise (and which are cutting stuff out I want to hear).

High Quality image without arrows

 

[Rempert]

Are you using any DSPs with foobar? If you aren't using any, you shouldn't get any audible clipping with all levels zero'd. If you are using crossfeed, I think the softclipping limiter should be added afterwards. If you are using EQ or something, it gets trickier.

I would remove the trim pot (top one), zero the ASIO strip (bottom left), zero the main mix (bottom center), and raise the monitor value as high as you need it (up to zero of course). If this doesn't get you enough volume, you may just need to suck it up and get an amp.

 

[MrDetermination]

I have an amp. RCA out to a Headroom Little.

No crossfeed. No EQ.

 

[xantus]

i'd take his advice. zero out everything cause youve got some wierdness goin on there

 

[MaMMa]

quick question, I've read about everyone keeping their trim pot level under/around 20. I can't figure out how to do this, mine stays in the red area most of the time, can someone help me. I notice in the picture its around that area


Edit: nevermind, I just found out

 

[MrDetermination]

I tried to zero everything like you said but it still sounds "hot".

Can somebody splain for me *what* these different things *do*? Please.

Just basics.

 

[DevilDog]

The problem with removing the trim pot and zeroing everything out is that it indicates that it is clipping all the time. There has to be a drop somewhere. I don't know what the best place is to put it. Is it better to turn down the mix volume? The monitor volume has no effect on the clipping so it has to be somewhere else.

 

[Rempert]

Given how simple this chain is (basically nothing happening in between any of the volume controls), I don't see that it would make a great difference which one you lower. By the same token, I don't see how it could possibly do any good to have a trim pot at -5db and then a volume control at +5db right after it. You would just be reintroducing the same problems. You would have to change volume at the amp gain or volume, it seems, to get the loudness back. With that in mind, I'm not sure if MrDetermination can fix his problem at the software level, or if it is really a hardware problem.

Regarding the software aspect of this, I have a question for all Emu owners. Here is a situation in which I have never seen the main mix clipping meter go off (red dot lights up) so far: 44.1k/-10 session, all volume controls at zero, no trim pots, no other sounds or special affects going through Emu at the same time, foobar with no DSPs (including resampler), redbook audio played straight off CD with digital audio extraction. If I turn on crossfeed, it goes off. If I turn on resampler, it goes off. If I play an .mp3, it goes off. I have not tried lossless files, but that would be a very interesting thing to check. (By the way, the soft clipping limiter is an option to solve some of these problems.)

So my question is, given the conditions I mentioned above, does anyone still get clipping from their CDs?