+1 getting rid of that nonsense!
completely impractical for all the reasons folks mentioned. plus i think it’s more confusing than helpful, especially for new users - just doesn’t make sense. and there’s a good chance the routine of increasing the volume again after rendering downgrades the sound: stuff like quantization-noise will increase too, normalizing the sample introduces inter-sample-peaks, …
getting levels straight and understanding dynamics is a lesson every musician/mixer has to learn anyway to get a good sound so why bother with false ‘helping hands’.
and btw, the whole ‘babysitting’-aproach seems to fail imo - pretty much every renoise-vid i’ve seen has the master channel yanked all the way up and is obviously clipping because folks over-compensate the low volumes…
my2cents
+1 for 1:1 gain, exactly like dblue said.
Agreed! 0db should be -6db as little as C major should be A major.
Another vote for dBlue’s 1:1 idea. It was like this years ago, although I can see this introducing a problem where some people’s songs will clip with the newer implementation. I tend to aim for a -6dB peak in my mixes (or less), so going back to 1:1 would cut it fine in many cases.
I am also for the deactivation of the -6DB solution. I think for a “newbie” is the “right” mixing of all sounds one of the first steps. The first terrible mixed tracks are good for learning. 
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i agree, not very fond of the -6db approach.
not fond of the -6dbv either. 100% with dblue
Theoretically I’m also in favor of Dblue’s 1:1 idea.
but maybe it’s better to let everybody experience the difference in practice in some next beta.
only the devs know how big the clipping problem is if the tracks are true 0db.
Also brings me to the question how sample players in other DAWs are handled.
Well, as soon as you are playing back more than one sample, you will get clipping in 98.971% of all cases - assuming your samples are fully maximized.
Many samplers have a setting for this. Something like default sample/instrument headroom volume. Guess we should try the same then.
Others do it just like we do (I think Ableton Live does, for example).
You can also quickly try out how things behave without the headroom, by using a template which has a gainer with 6db on each track.
good point, while I m for the change, I have never used another DAW so I don’t know what is common practice…
if other DAWs do it as well, there may be a valid reason…could one not just put +6db gainer on Master to try it out? Or am I off base for some reason?
There was this same debate on the Loopy Fruits forum as that does the same thing - reduces the Db when you render audio and then drag it to a new sampler channel. The dev challenged anyone to find a sampler that did not do this and played back at 0Db by default but no one could - seems this is the standard as it allows headroom when you import a sample.
There is a difference with rendering to audio tracks though as these will render to and replay at at the same volume in all apps as far as I’m aware.
Still, I’d prefer 0Db or to at least make it optional.
But back to the original topic (Render To Sample -6Db Solution):
With or without this “headroom” option, we could solve the render volume drop, by:
- always ignoring master FX (thus also master volume gain) with render selection. master FX never make sense when rendering selections.
- set rendered samples volume to +6dB (in the sample properties - NOT applied destructively to the sample)
This way the rendered sample will play at exactly the same volume as the original - always. When we have such a global headroom option, this one simply gets applied to the sample volume as compensation: no headroom, no compensation. -6dB headroom +6dB compensation.
Only drawback is that you can this way not fix clipped renderings with the master volume anymore. We could either solve this by rendering in two passes: first, analyze, then, when clipped, render with a lower volume. Or by allowing only taking in the master volume into account as soon as its lower than 0 dB. This way you can fix clipping manually.
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drives me nuts!! I have to manually disable everything to get a clean render in this case…good point taktik
I was going to suggest the same thing (I know it’s been discussed in the past also). This sounds like a good idea to me. It has always bothered me that the master volume/fx is applied to render-to-sample, and it has never made much sense to me personally. I think the only time the master fx should be applied to render-to-sample, is if I specifically make a selection that includes the master track as well. Otherwise, if I’ve only selected some notes within tracks 1 and 2, then only those specific tracks should be rendered.
If changing the actual track behaviour (ie. making it possible to set a track to true 0dB) is too much hassle for now, then this would indeed be a nice compromise, and it will do more or less the same job. I could live with this 
Ok, so the -6 db applied to the tracks is really necessary it seems.
maybe dumb, but can’t the rendered sample feature not simply use the audio feed before the -6db reduction?
I think the only time the master fx should be applied to render-to-sample, is if I specifically make a selection that includes the master track as well.
Good point… the option to render with master fx should exist, as there are times when automated master bus fx are integral to the passage.
It’s not really necessary (if I have understood things correctly). The only important consideration here is to avoid clipping.
Right now, each track tries to help you avoid clipping by having this -6dB gain reduction hard-coded into it, so that when all the track signals are combined they probably won’t clip. In reality, any number of things (DSP fx, etc) can still cause your track to clip, so it’s really kind of pointless.
In my opinion the tracks should output at 0dB (if you want them to), and then if things start to clip then you can simply lower the master volume. You can achieve the same end results, but in a way that I think makes a lot more sense.
Edit: Even if it was possible to have each track at 0dB, I still think some safety measures could be in place for newbie users, like having a default volume that is -6dB. This system does work very well to prevent clipping and other nasty surprises, but as an advanced user I would like to be able to disable such safety measures when I want to. That’s all this really boils down to for me at the end of the day.
interesting you bring that up…there is a debate on this subject…
mastering engineers say you should avoid clipping(unless desired)in every stage…pre vst/post vst or dsp etc…
I am aware renoise uses 32 bit float processesing, thus avoiding clipping at the track output stage(though this will not avoid clipping if you sent too hot a signal into a vst/dsp etc early in the chain)…soooo
there was a thread on this started by byte-smasher some time ago…i believe…and there was idea to do a waveform null test to see if there really was a difference between -6db on tracks or just on the master…however, don’t think the test was ever performed…
will see if I can find the thread…
edit: the thread was about 96khz rendering…however i m sure i have seen a debate on this forum that ended with the proposition of a null test regarding the aforementioned gain staging…just can’t find it!!