Does “living in the red” sound better or is it just louder?

[DC11GTR]

I decided to add a 2nd delay to a preset I’m loving the sound of, but in parallel, and the volume boost sounded even better. I checked the “Preset Leveling” and it was almost always in the red. Sort of the opposite of the usual where it dips into red on lower notes, but instead it dips into not being in the red, if that makes sense.

I don’t hear any stress on my monitors like I occasionally did when the volumes are pushed to far. So it seems like it should be okay, but I don’t want to risk blowing anything up.

 

[GlennO]

Red in that meter doesn't mean anything is clipping or "stressed" or "too far". A peak of 0 dB in that meter means you have a full 12 dB of headroom available. Considering how often people are misled by that, it would probably help if it was another color, like yellow, instead of red.

 

[chris]

Louder sounds better in most contexts.

 

[DC11GTR]

Red in that meter doesn't mean anything is clipping or "stressed" or "too far". A peak of 0 dB in that meter means you have a full 12 dB of headroom available. Considering how often people are misled by that, it would probably help if it was another color, like yellow, instead of red.

That's good to know. And I absolutely agree! I'm used to the Pro Tools color scheme.

Louder sounds better in most contexts.

Now that I know it's safe, I'm going to do some "research" to find out if it's actually better or just louder. Nothing like loving a tone then loving it more out of the blue lol

 

[Chromatizm]

Here's your research
https://youtube.com/@productionadvice

 

[zedeloc]

Maybe in the analog era where recording hot could lead to desirable results (pleasing compression and distortion... lower noise floor). With digital, it's clean until it's damaged. There are some cases where clipping is intentional (converter clipping to maximize loudness).

To get to the bottom of it, you could use the looper block to play a simple riff, record the "in the red" version and a lower level version. Level match these two versions in your DAW and A/B them. Randomize the A/B process if you really want an honest opinion. Even better, you could level match them, line them up on 2 separate tracks, and flip the phase on one of the tracks. If they null when played together, one in phase and one out, it's literally the same signal. I bet you'll find that the volume increase is what is making it sound better. Like Chris said, volume makes almost everything sound better... even if it is worse when volume matched.

A common (and dishonest) practice I see audio plug-in developers do is provide Before and After comparisons. The After result is, of course, almost always noticeably louder and NEVER EVER ever never quieter. I'm looking at you, plugin-alliance...