-18 dB mixer master level ?

lately i have been doing beats with setting of the master level in the mixer -18 dB.When tracking out of the mp to daw i turn the inputs of the my sound card so the whole mix in daw hit -6 dB.I feel like with setting of the mpc mixer to -18 dB i get better dynamics and more headroom to play with and the whole track feels like it breathe more .I had been making beats with the default 0db mixer setting and turn all mixer tracks half way down but it feels like when i layer kicks,snares they loose punch and low end it is like the sum of 3 kicks it peaks in the mp and.What is your thoughts on this ?

-18 is pretty low, but it depends on the processing you're doing after that. If you're hitting the compressor with a bunch of gain in your mix/master then cool. Makes more sense than tracking out at 0db though. At the end of the day, if you're hearing the right stuff and making good mixes, then you're doing the right thing.

yea i have never messed with this feature but yall have inspired me to check it out.

I see where you are going with this! My technique on tracking the mpc with enough headroom is a bit different though..

During the making of my beats I always balance everything out against each other in the mixer page of the MPC. But when tracking out my stuff I always go and make sure every sound is at full volume leaving the MPC. (changing everything back to full level) On my analog mixer I set/leave the individual channels and the master to unitygain (0db). Now when playing the beat I want to have it to reach as close to 0db. Sometimes I have to adjust the overall levels within the mpc by -6 or +6 for this. (If you dont have an analog mixer you could also do this with your DAW, but then let it peak at about -18dbfs which is the same as 0db on a analog mixer)

I do this to make sure nothing is clipping/distorting,inside the mpc but the signal is as hot as it can get when coming out without having to amp anything. Thus reducing noise etc.

After this I mostly record all the tracks individually to my DAW peaking close at -18dfs. After recording in my DAW I rawly balance everything again with the trim or gain. After that fine adjustments with the volumefaders to make it perfect. When I do it like this I have the most optimal signal in ratio to noise and it's not clipping. And in my DAW I have the signal at -18dbfs so that I have more than enough headroom to work with!

Sjeff that is nice to hear i will surely try that it makes more sense level wise thanks for sharing