A4+OB - Low Output Issue

Hey guys!

I’ve tried searching the forum for a solution, however I keep getting an internal error, so excuse me if this has already been asked/answered (would be grateful if you could provide me with a link too!). So here’s my issue:

I’ve always had the issue of my output not being loud enough when recording my gear, however with the saffire pro interface, as well as the physical volume button on the a4, I always had a way to make things louder without clipping. Now with the overbridge being here, I’ve run into an issue.

The volume master on the a4 is gone and the only way to make things louder is by raising each track’s volume to 127, but even that isn’t enough sometimes, and I have to raise the Ableton’s recording track to 6.0 in order to get a decent volume.

What am I doing wrong?

I’m fairly new to the entire process of recording, so any help as to how to get a perfect output from A4 with OB and Ableton would be greatly appreciated!

:joy:

It seems to me that you’re recording too loud…

Turn up your main volume on your speakers or interface and work with the levels coming out. You’ll get cleaner mixes that way.

Otherwise, just use Utility in Ableton and crank the gain but the A4 gives that head room on purpose.

Thanks for the reply! :slight_smile:

See, that’s the thing though, I can turn up my main speakers as much as I want to, but the end result of the recording (when exported from Ableton) is simply too low. On my iPod, I have to put the volume all the way up in order to hear the track properly, while other, even more ambient focused tracks, sound perfectly fine at 50%.

I guess I just totally suck at Ableton :confused:

I have the same problem and I’m not sure if I’m missing something obvious. Everything else being equal, the output of my AR sounds much louder than the output of my A4 using OB and Ableton.

For me the A4 volume is also too low, without effects, the signal peaks at -18 db or something.

Same here, I’ve been experiencing low output issues into Ableton with the A4. It’s not nearly loud enough and I have the tracks turned up all the way. It should be hotter than it is.

I find the a4s voices to be low. Yet when I run my sub 37 in through OB (into main L/R channel of OB) it is much louder.

I guess this is likely due to where the individual voices signal was able to be tapped digitally for OB, as mentioned though, the excess headroom is probably intentional in the A4 and likely makes sense in its circuitry.

However also as mentioned earlier, abletons utilty plugin on the individual OB tracks works well to replace the volume. As the signal is direct it should not be boosting any additional noise that would otherwise have been introduced if recorded via an interface…

used this way the exported audio should be loud. alternatively lower all other non a4 instruments to match the a4 levels, and just use a utility / compression / limiter or whatever other kind of boost on the master channel in live befpre exporting the audio.

What was with this topic?
I’m experiencing the same issue in offical OB version.
AF inputs are a lot lower than AR.
I’m curently solving that with ableton utility…