Hey audiosex!

I have been producing house music for about a year now. I recently noticed that there are things that I have no clue about so I was hoping you guys would help me out. I use ableton.

When I make a track I hit +6db where the audio bar goes red. When I try to mixdown my tracks they sound terrible.() here's an example. I read from some of my favorite artists that they just mixdown their tracks and then upload it without mastering, but when I mixdown I lower the volume of my individual sounds so I stay at -6db, because that's what I thought mixing was. If I were to upload it it would be way to quiet. So what do they mean?

Also, I have always wondered about EQ'ing. If I EQ my track will it get louder or is it just to avoid clipping?
If I have a big kick do I need to cut the highs of the kick when I have high hz synths and cut the lows of my synths? If I want to keep the lows & highs what would I have to do?

 

Not an expert by a long way. So just how I hear it?

U using a load of compression? Sounds way over-compressed in parts to me like at 1.00 leading to massive dynamic change.

U can use EQ as cut or Boost, no reason why it has to change overall DB but of course can do depending on what u do.

Don't think it's terrible apart from the thing that sounds a bit like a duck at the beginning.

Depends what u mean by "Big Kick?"

You don't have to always cut the highs/lows of specific instruments but is true that you want to avoid interference & conflicting frequencies messing around with each other. Therefore analyse your signal to get an indication of the relative frequencies and see what could be rubbing out other bits here and there an then adjust accordingly.

Have a look at what u got on your master also.

All the dynamics seem wrong & think it needs completely re-working. Would start at the beginning and focus on the basics.

Like i said am no expert and others here will be able to give u a more constructive answer than myself.

There some good tutorials here on mixing & stuff that u would possibly find helpful.

Like I said don't think overall that bad but just needs re-working from the beginning.

Stick with it & best of luck

 

Thanks alot for the reply. I really appreciate it! I will definately look into mixing & mastering, multi band compression etc.

 

I was also wondering,when I make a track, I have a sound right, I don't really like the way it sounds dry, when I later add some fx and eq it the sound bar goes red although it sounds the way I want it to sound, is this something I have to worry about or will it work out later in the mixdown?

 

I hate it when people say things are too quiet.
if it's too quiet turn up your speakers dammit!

and as a reply to "Wacker" sound bar you mean fader. and just turn it down. stick a limiter on the channel if you have too.
if its hitting red it'll start to distort, and when it comes down to exporting it'll cause problems.

 

yes it is, clipping sound bad in 16 bit wav and mp3 and won't be appreciated by listeners,


there are many things you could do, like adding a limiter on the master. but maybe this would work counterproductive for learning and understanding the way things work because it's tempting to feed it a to hot signal.

a good starting point from my point of view is try to match the eq and fx effects in terms of volume, some come with a auto gain included .
Bypassing the effect back and forth, can really help you hear what u are doing, because the volume diffrence doesn't blur your perception

 

You should have learned about gain-staging a year ago, before you tried to "make it loud". Someone should have told you about it, before I did today.
Check it out:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep13/articles/level-headed.htm

 

Up until recently, I was recording/normalizing all my audio tracks at 0 dB, which I assumed was the ideal. I managed to mix down to stereo between -14 dB RMS/-10 dB RMS with my mastering chain, which is more or less the ideal. But my mixed-down tracks never sounded right, no matter what else I did. As it turns out, having your audio tracks peaking out at 0 dB is wrong -- it's way too loud. It affects all of your inserts, especially compressors (which are all overly compressing your already-loud tracks) and EQs, which are clipping when you run a hotter signal through them. Some people recommend recording your audio to peak at -12 dB, which seems nowhere near loud enough, so I'm compromising and recording/normalizing them to -6 dB, then making up the -6 dB difference with the faders (almost all DAWs are designed to boost an audio tracks signal to +6 dB if necessary, so it makes sense to me).

As I understand it, the reason for all this goes back to analog recording, where the ideal signal strength per audio track lay somewhere between -24 dB (?!?) and -12 dB RMS. Since DAWs and plugs were all designed -- and in some cases, directly -- to emulate analog gear, running hotter signals through it will create problems. It certainly won't sound like a "real" recording. To test this out, duplicate one of your projects, reduce or normalize the waveforms of all your audio tracks to -6 dB and make up the difference with each individual tracks' fader. You'll probably hear a huge difference with how your plug inserts are dealing with your audio. You'll also want to make sure your mix is likewise peaking at around -6 dB before your mastering chain (and that your master fader is set to -0 dB or unity), so you may have to pull down your individual tracks' faders to get there.

Remember, just taking your current mix and turning down the faders won't be enough. If your individual audio files have been recorded too hot, the insert plugs on those tracks will still be affected and they'll still sound bad.

The "loudness" you're looking for is usually achieved with your mastering chain. Once you have a mix that sounds good at a lower volume, you can then try putting a compressor/limiter plug, maybe something like Ozone, on your master fader, which will boost the overall levels where you need them to be. While this part could be the topic for a Bible-sized manual instead of a message board post, all I'll say here is, you don't want to go overboard, and you don't want to rely on the plugs on your master fader to compensate on fixing what you didn't do with your mix. Focus on getting a decent-sounding mix, then worry about putting something on it to increase the mix's level so it sounds comparable to whatever commercial track you're comparing it to.

 

Last edited: Jul 26, 2015

I have posted this many times. I still think it is one of the best tutorials condensed in a logical and easy to understand way. Stuff that took me years to learn before this kind of thing was available. http://therecordingrevolution.com/5minutes/