Fairlight Audio meters don't match

Trying to wrap my brain around the audio meters and loudness meters in v17.2.2 and am curious why the yellow and red ranges are different from the track meter and the Main meter. It appears that the yellow for the track is between -18 to -9 dB and the Main meter is between -11 and -6 dB.

Why would they not be the same?

- Paul

Screen Shot 2021-07-26 at 10.53.03 PM.jpg (115.49 KiB) Viewed 1140 times

Not reproducing that behaviour on macOS with either Fixed or Flexi Bus Projects.

Any changes from the default Bus metering alignment settings?
Project Settings > Fairlight > Audio Metering

I am using the default project settings:

• Target loudness level = -23 LUFS
• Loudness scale = EBU +9 scale
• Bus meter alignment level = 0 dBFS
• Bus meter high level = -5 dBFS
• Bus meter low level = -10 dbFS
• Track meters = Post fader

Here's another conundrum. In some the projects that I create I am only allowed to add busses. In others I have Busses, Mains, Subs, etc. What triggers one or the other?

Screen Shot 2021-08-01 at 7.56.50 AM.jpg (29.22 KiB) Viewed 825 times

Screen Shot 2021-08-01 at 7.57.30 AM.jpg (26.39 KiB) Viewed 825 times

Thanks,

- Paul

[*]Bus meter high level = -5 dBFS
[*]Bus meter low level = -10 dbFS

The default should be -18dBFS (low level which matches lineup level) and -9dBFS (high level) as this matches the Track metering.

In some the projects that I create I am only allowed to add busses. In others I have Busses, Mains, Subs, etc. What triggers one or the other?

Resolve 17 enables Flexi Bus mode by default providing more flexible Buss to Buss routing.

With a blank Project prior to using the "Create New Timeline" command, enable the following preference to access the Fixed Bussing structure of Resolve 16 and prior:
Project Preferences > Fairlight > Audio Busing Mode

Refer to:
Resolve 17 Manual | Page 3163 | Chapter 168 | Setting Up Tracks, Buses, and Patching

Here's another conundrum. In some the projects that I create I am only allowed to add busses. In others I have Busses, Mains, Subs, etc. What triggers one or the other?

Thanks,

- Paul

The "Busses, Mains, Subs" is Legacy Busing - the way it used to be prior to the release of Resolve v17.

The new system added in v17 is called Flexbus and as the name suggests it's much more flexible. Quoting the manual:

Fairlight has a redesigned audio engine as of DaVinci Resolve 17 and has advanced capabilities in the bus structure within Fairlight. This new FlexBus structure offers complete user flexibility for bus types and signal routing, which changes the prior Main, Sub, and Auxiliary bus formats in older versions of DaVinci Resolve to now be completely user-definable. This new structure makes it possible to patch outputs and/or sends in any way you need, as dictated by your project. Each track can output to up to ten buses and sends with additional level and pan controls to a further ten buses. Buses can be sent to other buses up to six layers deep, facilitating complex stem building, processing, and allowing discrete deliverables.
User-definable buses allow for bus-to-bus, bus-to-track, or track-to-bus routing, with each bus having the ability to pass signals from mono to fully immersive formats, such as Dolby Atmos, at the user’s discretion. As with any and all of the tracks in Fairlight, these bus types can be changed at any time by the user, if needed.

I guess the old system was more like a hardware mixer with narrowly defined limitations, and the new system is more like a software DAW should be - route anything to anywhere without as many limits. Though there are still some routing limitations.

Check out Chapter 168 (starting page 3166) in the latest Resolve manual for more details on this.

The reason why you see a difference across your projects is that unfortunately it's not possible to migrate a project from legacy to Flexbus or vice versa. From the manual again:

Using Legacy Fixed Busing
If you want to work using the previous method of fixed bus mapping, you can do so for new projects by opening the Fairlight panel of the Project Settings, and turning on the “Use fixed bus mapping” checkbox. This checkbox can only be enabled in new projects in which no timelines have yet been created. Once you’ve created one or more timelines, this option is locked to whatever the project was set to. Older projects have this setting enabled by default to preserve the previous mix.

Yes, legacy projects... I just finished reading the Resolve Manual and excitedly came here to post what I discovered... but you beat me to it. Thanks for the response. I suppose it's time for BMD to make a new Fairlight audio tutorial video as the existing one uses legacy settings.