Output monitor - clipping indicators

[Pandas4prez]

Hi, this is a general question from a multi-tracking novice. I've got a song that I've been recording with Audacity. It will probably have at least 15 simultaneous tracks. During playback, I noticed the clipping indicator going off on the Output meter. I've tried to bring my levels down so this doesn't happen, but this is difficult for two reasons: a) my song is supposed to have a very pronounced change in dynamics throughout the song and b) when I try to lower my levels to avoid the clipping indicator going off, I can barely hear the audio through my headphones. I can go through my powered speakers, but I need to really crank them up.

My question is, does the clipping indicator really need to be heeded that strictly, as long as the resulting audio doesn't sound distorted to me. If I'm really overloading the signal, why in the heck is everything so quiet when monitoring? I feel rather amateurish asking such a general question, but I'm really interested in what others -- more experienced recording engineers, for instance -- have to comment on this topic.

Thanks in advance,
Michael

[kozikowski]

Something is wrong. Sound that does not clip should not drop off the map in your headphones. Can you hear the sound in all the CDs you own? If you have some old ones in there, they were recorded with the -17 audio standard. If they play OK, then you're doing something else weird with your live work.

Try this. Download any one of these three clips. Do they play in good volume? They are perfectly recorded piano trills. If you can't get them loud enough, then there may be something wrong with your monitors or headphones.

http://www.kozco.com/audacity/piano

Koz

[Pandas4prez]

I should clarify. It's not that the audio is dropping completely. It's just not loud enough for me to evaluate the mix comfortably. I've got the Output level in Audacity all the way up. I guess my concern is that when I go to Export to MP3, will the volume will be unusually low compared to your average music recording? (Guess there's one way to test that theory ) Still, I'm just confused. Honestly, I've ignored the clipping indicators before and never had many issues with my previous recordings. Although I did make sure there was no clipping on individual tracks.

[alatham]

Well, some signals can get away with a little bit of clipping, as long as they already sound pretty harsh. But it's always frowned upon from an engineer's perspective unless you want the distortion.

You might have your OS set to drop the volume of the output down quite a bit, outside of Audacity. You'd have to check your OS's settings to see if that's the case. The OS's output should be all the way up unless you're using headphones plugged directly into the computer (as opposed to plugging the headphones into your powered speakers).

On the other hand, the quiet part might just be really quiet. There's nothing wrong with that, but most people won't be expecting it. How big is this change in dynamics? If it's greater than about 20 decibels, it's going to be difficult to hear everything unless you're listening with really nice headphones or in a very quite environment no matter what you do (or if you don't mind the loud parts being REALLY LOUD). Most modern popular music is compressed so horribly that it rarely shifts more than about 6 dB throughout a song. Some tunes just stay pegged at the top the whole time (which is terrible for long term listening).