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Lossless volume control - how to turn down my volume.

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neptune

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Lossless volume control - how to turn down my volume.

PostSat Jan 08, 2022 10:15 am

Yesterday I purchased all new XLR cables for my setup, I was using a random bunch of RCA cables I had laying around and purchased at different times. One of them was actually used in an old record player system from my father which I'm sure is older than me at this point so it was time for an upgrade to quality cables.

After swapping in the XLR cables, the volume on my setup went very clear, and very loud, I'm guessing the XLR is just a hotter signal than what is typically run over RCA?

With the RCA setup, I used the large "Audio/Midi/Performance" control panel and set the trim to "-22" on pretty much all my organs. Everything else I left "as is".

But now that I have XLR, "-22" is far too loud and it only goes down to "-24" so clearly I need to find a new way to adjust the volume. There is the actual "volume" slider in that panel too but I always understood that to be way to quiet the sound temporarily, like if you wanted to not disturb a child sleeping or whatever. Did a search in the hauptwerk manual for "volume" but that keyword doesn't appear.

I went looking around and opened up the "Audio Mixer" window. In the bus settings, there are 2 places to adjust "level db", one under "Bus Audio Processing", and a second one right under that under "Audio Output (device) channel".

I'm currently using a Motu Ultralike Mk3 hybrid, which probably also has volume controls somewhere in it, maybe under "cue mix" but I find that program confusing as well and avoid it other than by setting my bass crossover (which already took me hours to figure out).

So that is 4, potentially 5 different spots I can adjust my volume, not including the speakers themselves (Adam F5/F7). The speaker gain controls are more of a fine tuning control, meant to balance a speaker in a room, as opposed to actually setting the volume.

What is the recommended way of turning down my output volume? Should I be trying to adjust the motu volume and leave stuff in HW alone? It's not that I can't find a way to turn it down, but I want to turn it down "without losing detail". Many software volume adjusters lose data/detail when you use them, at softer volumes the clarity goes down as well. I own a 2 channel Emotiva Big Ego DAC, which has a digitally controlled ladder network volume control; which means that the volume can be adjusted in software, but it doesn't lose that detail as you turn down the volume. I don't know much about it other than that it's a lossless volume control and apparently that is not that common as that feature was kind of hyped on the forum.

Any thoughts? This is kind of over my head to be honest. Just figured if I'm going through the trouble and expense of buying higher quality cables (which are amazing, already noticing the system is more quiet, got to love balanced connections) then I want to do whatever I can in terms of software too, to get the most out of my system.
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mdyde

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Re: Lossless volume control - how to turn down my volume.

PostSat Jan 08, 2022 12:12 pm

Hello netpune,

Here are some previous forum topics that cover setting audio levels:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13819#p102235
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11761&p=86814#p86809
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16198
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16479&p=123846#p123846
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14682&p=109264#p109264
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14402&p=106957#p106909
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13819&p=102520#p102220
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13819&p=102491#p102235
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=14253&p=105807#p105804
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=11834&p=87396

The 'Performance tuning: Setting the audio output level' section in the main Hauptwerk user guide (pages 272-273 in the current v6.0.2 version) covers how to set levels optimally within Hauptwerk itself. In particular, you should set the 'Trim dB' setting on Hauptwerk's 'Audio, MIDI and Performance' large control panel ('View | Large floating control panels ...' from the menu) so that Hauptwerk's audio level meter occasionally *just* goes into the yellow, but never into the red, when playing the current organ (e.g. St. Anne's) in Hauptwerk on 'full organ' (with the largest registration that you expect to use with it). That ensures that the highest possible quality audio signal is being sent to your audio interface.

Re. your XLR vs. RCA connections, see also this article on consumer vs. professional signal levels:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/pr ... -and-4-dbu
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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mnailor

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Re: Lossless volume control - how to turn down my volume.

PostSat Jan 08, 2022 12:16 pm

I set my mixer bus output levels all to -10dB first to avoid loud noises.

Then I set my speaker gain knobs very roughly to where they fill the room on full organ but aren't harsh or distorted to my ears, and have a good high-to-subwoofer balance, using a reference organ that I play a lot (Caen), with its trim at -10 dB and volume at 100. Some speaker models sound better in a different amp gain range, so I don't use gains to make them all balanced to the same sound level. Like you said, gain isn't a fine control, but with a lot of speakers, I don't need them at max.

Then I listen to different groups and pairs of speakers, changing rank routing as needed or muting channels on the audio interface, to fine balance them against each other using the mixer bus output levels. So I end up with a lot of different mixer bus output levels from the original -10 dB.

Finally, I set each organ's trim to work well with the levels I established above.

Of course, you can skip all this and just move the volume slider down on each organ to where it's comfortable, if you're happy with speaker balance. There's nothing special about using trim vs volume vs mixer bus output levels. The volume and trim are both saved on recent versions of HW, although I think HW 4 didn't save the volume slider between reloads.

Also, some amps have a high/low level switch you're supposed to set for RCA vs XLR/TRS inputs.
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neptune

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Re: Lossless volume control - how to turn down my volume.

PostSat Jan 08, 2022 1:40 pm

Ok thanks. So just to confirm then, it doesn't matter (in terms of audio quality) whether I use the organ trim, or the "level db" in the mixer/bus to change my volume; they both get added together?

And also the organ volume meter you mentioned, that is the "final" volume (which would include adjustments from organ trim, organ volume slider, bus/mixer line adjustments) which is then sent to my motu? I get that HW can't "see" the volume once it hits the motu, but just want to make sure the green/yellow/red organ volume meter accounts for all possible adjustments in HW itself.

I found out how to adjust my motu audio output levels inside cuemix fx (go the outputs tab and for each channel click the "monitor" button to make it turn blue. Then in top right corner, adjust the 'Monitor level" up/down).

So now inside HW I have the bus/mixer levels reset back to 0. My organ trim has been set to -10 for both samples I use. Motu volume is at -15.9 db (33%). Speakers are set to "0db". When I play FF on the organs, the meter stays at last green bar and I have my desired output level in the room.

If I understand everything correctly then, I am all set. Thanks to you both!
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mdyde

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Re: Lossless volume control - how to turn down my volume.

PostSat Jan 08, 2022 2:17 pm

Thanks, neptune. You're very welcome.

neptune wrote:So just to confirm then, it doesn't matter (in terms of audio quality) whether I use the organ trim, or the "level db" in the mixer/bus to change my volume; they both get added together?


Correct.

neptune wrote:And also the organ volume meter you mentioned, that is the "final" volume (which would include adjustments from organ trim, organ volume slider, bus/mixer line adjustments) which is then sent to my motu? I get that HW can't "see" the volume once it hits the motu, but just want to make sure the green/yellow/red organ volume meter accounts for all possible adjustments in HW itself.


Also correct.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.

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