people telling me it’s good to start off with low db levels… is this true?
Does this mean that, when I start making a track, I have to sett all trackvolumes down to -10db in renoise?
Depends on who those people are. As for the second question, it partly depends on which playback standards your trying to reach because it will have a say so in setting up your workflow. Live, Film, TV, Radio, Web, Cellphone, etc. Confusion is abundant in the music industry because compared to film, the music industry lacks a universal standard, well, that’s my current understanding.
Personally I’ve been using Loudness Meters with true peak levels (dBTP). For a complete read, check out http://tech.ebu.ch/loudness (Documentations on the right)
Loudness Meter I’m currently using: http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-ebuloudness/
I found the price approachable for my budget. As far as its accuracy, to be honest, I’m not that knowledgeable in this subject to make further ill advised comments. There are other Loudness Meter Vst’s but not a whole lot. I mentioned accuracy because the documents above mention something about gating methods for measurement…
Free Loudness Meter: https://www.audiocation.de/plugin (AC-R128)
Shows a slightly lower reading than the above meter, possibly because of gating method ?
Something I posted earlier, which is just a collection of Loudness Meter YT videos: https://forum.renoise.com/t/metering-porn/31953
I usually start at -0db, if there is a kick drum.
Nah, just set the pre-volume on the master track, that should be sufficient. Or set the post-faders on all the tracks to -10db and then save it as a template.
I’ve read a lot on this subject. There are some who even work their mix program material to average at -24dB RMS. Certainly you’ve got a heck of a lot of resolution at 24bit + bit depths, a lot of the time with effects now doing 64bit internal float processing and above.
If you’re entirely in the digital domain, all you have to do is avoid clipping. That’s pretty easy if you put the effort in. Some folks aren’t even into worrying about clipping, so it’s entirely up to you.
is it bad to track at 0dB and then put a gainer -6dB on the master track? I find renoise faders hard to use at low levels.
Can you define “hard to use”? If you’re struggling to make precise adjustments to any slider, keep in mind that you can hold down LCtrl while dragging to make smaller changes. You can also simply click on the text value readout for any parameter and type an exact value directly in there.
Anyway, it’s not “bad” if you use a gainer to lower the master output. Whether you lower the master volume post fader by -6dB, or whether you do it with a gainer set to -6dB, the end result will be the same.
Speaking about my own personal workflow, I prefer not to touch the master volume too much once I have it set at a comfortable level. If I need to do any kind of master volume automation like fading out at the end of my song, then I find it more comfortable to use a gainer for this.
u need enough room for every instrument
this is why u need low levels. i always use master fader at 0.0dB coz it is digital fader , digital faders use bit change for volumes. multiple volume on master is the a wrong thing .
volume bars and daw master always at 0.0 use monitor level to lower your volume, the best is a simple Nanopatch Knob with no electronic not mixer no sound change.
so if your drumz go to 0db and your vocal too and the bass too and u use gainer to lower the master volume there will be a soft cliping or saturation, and if there are a compressor in the master chain your mix will change the instrument sound where the most on it. and u hear something wrong with the drumz or the vocals in different section in your mix.!!!.
dont understand why u need a gainer for the master. only if u want some makeup not a makedown… 
hope it helps.
What makes you think that? Due to floating point calculations you can boost your signal far, far above 0dB (I made and posted an example with about a dozen Gainers to take the signal to I think it was +192dB) and then back to 0dB and you get no clipping. The only point you will get clipping is right at the end of the audio chain, where it is either sent to the sound card or to file, with Renoise.
A good rule of thumb about db levels; you can always amplify, but clipped audio will always be clipped audio.
I consider -6db average peak lvl to be just high enough, but im always happy to see rendered output at -12db or lower.
Cuz amplification is as easy as loading into audacity and amplifying, if its necessary. But again, its not possible to unclip a clipped waveform (i guess audacity clipfix would go some ways to help it sound less clipped). Sometimes its intentional, clipping; for example a clipped sinewave becomes a square wave, a sawtooth becomes something between a saw and a square, etc, which can be fun.
I find it hard to clip even transients that are less than a few samples’ length, so i find it hard to master my own works 
Im too kind. Ive become less kind though as I realized that clipping is fine if its nano- or even microseconds long, as is the case often in my work. Ive conditioned myself to avoid clipping at all costs lie the plague which is the reason im too kind to my own audio.
AND HOLY GODHELLSATANSPAWN WTF @ Kazakore and +192 db! THATS Like INSTANT HEARING LOSS!! In theory. If you listened to audio that loud, it would break eardrums, and world records, and require a goddamnhelluva powerful amplifier jet engines are around 120 -140 db iirc, the Bloop paranormal audio event was 150db, and idk if its LEGAL to play audio that loud lol but interesting that its possible
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