Logic Pro X - Pre-Fader vs. Post-Fader Metering Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to this Logic Pro 10 video
tutorial on pre fader vs. post fader
metering so what is this well basically
if you go up to the mix tab up here and
you choose pre-fader metering it turns
on pre-fader metering when this is
unchecked it turns on post fader
metering which is the default in logic
so let me just show you a quick example
here I'm just going to solo out one of
the acoustic guitars here I'm going to
Center the pan here and I'm going to
play the track and I'm going to move the
fader around and the volume fader around
and look and look at what happens to the
the meter so as you move the fader up
the meter goes up if you go down the
meter goes down well what's the problem
with that well it's it's the default in
logic well it can sort of low us into a
false sense of security that we don't
have any clipping going on in our mix if
you use a if you have to mix again and
turn on your pre-fader metering if I
move that fader around
even though we hear the volume change
the meter is actually showing us the
volume level at the output of the track
after all of the plugins that the audio
has run through but before the fader the
before the attenuation that the fader
applies so again what's the big deal
well if we're working in a situation
where let's say we want to add some
pretty heavy compression to this let's
add some heavy compression we're really
slamming the threshold and the ratio and
adding a bunch of make up gain this can
result in something that in post fader
mode with our volume down down a bit
can result in something that isn't
clipping the problem with that is it's
not that it's not that the signal isn't
clipping the signal actually is clipping
if I set this back to unity gain and
play this back it's going to be really
loud and it's going to clip so I
clipping by you know 9 DB because
because of all the extra added game
we've got going on in in the compressor
plugin so the problem is that the
plug-in is clipping the output of the
track so if you're unfamiliar with with
mixing or mixing it's sort of like a new
thing to you when you pull the fader
down that doesn't get rid of the
clipping all you're doing is you're
pulling down the clip level so let me
give you a diagram just to sort of
explain this a little bit better so
here's like let's say this is our
completely unclipped waveform no
processing let's say that we add that
compressor plug-in and we add the the
output gain a little bit too high so the
audio clips so it sort of truncates on
the top and the bottom so we end up with
not as clear or defined of a transient
we end up with sort of this rounded off
truncated transient if we simply just
pull the fader down to compensate for
that that really doesn't do anything for
us because all we're doing is we're
taking that clip level and lowering it
down we're not preserving the transient
in any way so that becomes a problem
because especially in post fader mode
because we we sort of are lolled into
this false sense of security that the
track isn't clipping but in in actuality
the audio on output is clipping we're
just attenuating a clipped signal which
is bad and this is something i obviously
didn't mention in my mixing tutorial
series which I should have but I for
some reason just it just slipped my mind
so when I mix I actually like to work in
pre fader mode because no matter where
the fader is
even if the faders all the way down
it'll tell me that hey you know your
your this track is clipping because of
some plugin that you've added here so
instead of like toying with the fader to
get rid of the clipping toy with the
plug-in to get rid of the clipping maybe
pull down that that output game that
we've got going on so that we don't clip
and then set this to whatever level you
want it to be at so we're constantly
seeing the pre fader level we're seeing
the level before the fader is actually
attenuating the signal and therefore we
can preserve our transients and in the
end we can end up with a mix where the
the punchy instruments like snare drum
and kick drum in our case acoustic
guitar the instruments that really need
that punch can really come through in
the mix because we're not accidentally
truncating those signals so it's a bit
of a confusing topic especially if
you're new to this so I hope you guys
enjoyed the video and thanks for
watching