Gain staging and headroom

Topic kinda speaks for itself. Most of my patches horribly distort when I first run them on the MetaModule. Even when I put gains down on modules that have them and mixer levels way down (to like -12db per channel) I am getting a lot of clipping and distortion. What is the best way to do gain staging for the MetaModule?

i recommend share in the new patch gallery category here, an example .vc+yml patch files that demonstrates the problem. we all might be able to help u figure out a solution

Here is an example of one of the patches that has been causing a lot of distortion. But I am asking a different question. In VCV it seems like there is some internal signal attenuation to account for increases in overall gain when several channels are mixed together. In this patch below, when I run it in VCV, I never hear clipping, aliasing or distortion, but if I have all the mixer sliders at 0db when I run it on the MM there is A LOT of aliasing, clipping and general distortion. Obviously this patch can get very noisy just by itself but even when I have the effects very dry and the resonance low on the filters, it is still noisy on the MM. I think what I am asking is how is the default “automatic” gain control in VCV different to that of the MM implementation?

i wonder if mm is running at 16bit internally. i would think that could maybe cause clipping in the signal path.

also i noticed some bog audio modules caused clipping for me. the bog umix one has a soft/hard/none clip setting in vcv, if you right click on the module in vcv(i dont believe the alt settings for modules are available to choose on the mm itself).

but im guessing maybe your clipping is coming from somewhere else in the patch.

No, MM is running 32-bit floats internally. Same as VCV.

We are systematically going through all Bogaudio modules right now, there are a few modules with issues…

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excellent new! since i tend to lean heavy on the bog ones, i look forward to testing them out again in more depth when you all are done there.