Hi guys, i've recently tired of just mixing tunes together and decided to switch over to live performance in ableton.
I'm currently using a launchpad and a nanokontrol for clip firing and fx.
The problem im having atm is that after i split up my tracks into stems [usually in groups of 16 to 32 bars]
I place them into groups of clips in the session view and start to play and it all sounds fine but i can see that the master is clipping quite a bit.
I have the tracks pretty well mastered inside the project before rendering out stems. Is this not the way to do it? Im pretty new to this so any advice would be great, thanks

Hi !

when you record your buses, is the master bus at 0 dB ? because if it is at +1 dB (for instance) it will add 1 dB to each bus.
I do the same thing (sample stems, use a launchpad and a controller, ...), but i always put my master at about -3/-4 dB when i record the buses (as i do to prepare my mastering). Then in my live session, all my buses go to another one with an instance of izotope ozone, but it could be a limiter and the idea would be the same ... and when i feel that it is not loud enough i just add some gain on all the stems.
Maybe not the best way but i'm happy with it. You basically just have to record your stems not too loud, because you always want to have space to add gain not the contrary (= clipping stems)

Thanks mate,
Yeah I have the master at 0 dB also I have a waves mastering chain on the master pushing it pretty hard. Have loads of dynamic range still but I get the clipping happening. (Track by itself does not clip).
Cheers for the advice I will give it a go tonight.
Really looking forward to playing my tunes in a live format have it set up so I can play all the drums and percussion for the tracks live. Most excited I've been about playing in ages

yes, this is your limiter that is the origin of your problem. So turn it off, be sure your sound is not clipping then record your stems !

Got it sounding a lot better now. Thanks man

check out these vids for a quick way to render your studio tracks - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRCzwpuk ... p_play_all

and also (shameless promo) - http://drkmttr.wordpress.com/2011/11/27 ... ckage-2-0/

Thanks very helpful

I ran into this a lot when I was changing productions over to a live setting. I decided not to master them at all, and just have them mixed as best as possible. Then when I put the stems into a live set, there is a limiter on the master. I then let the sound guy take care of getting it loud.