Hi,
I have a newbie question. When I attempted to mix stuff in the past, and when I wanted to lower the volume of everything, I often noticed that doing so would slightly change the balance between the tracks. For example, Track A is -2db, Track B is -9db. If I lower everything by 3 db, the end result is that both tracks are lowered equally. However, relative to the entire volume spectrum and to Track A, Track B ends up being way lower than it was before. I can't put this in words correctly. I'm sure the more advanced users understand what I mean?

Now, do I understand this correctly: If I want to lower the volume for all tracks (or for a group of tracks) so that the lowered volume has exactly the same relation to each other, then I can put all of the tracks into a VCA channel, and it will lower or raise them relative to each other correctly. Is this correct? I tried this in Studio One, and I noticed that the faders move at different speeds, and it sounds like I can lower and raise things properly with it. I basically wanted to ask if there's a catch to this, because I don't want to mess up my project. Thanks!

 

Adjusting levels by means of grouped faders or using a vca has exactly the same result.

The relative balance between faders shouldn't change....

The perceived unbalance between channels may occur if u have the signals bussed together and going into further processing (compression, saturation etc), or if there is further processing further down the chain (master channel plugins etc) . Otherwise it shouldn't change.

 

Last edited: Jan 19, 2020

I kind of know what you mean. I have seen this in some daws, even Logic!
Depending on daw, there are less divisions as we take a fader down. So if a particular channel was @ -2.2db and another @ -2.0, and you took them both down -0.5db, maybe no change relatively (-2.7 & -2.5)....but if you take all channels down by -17.00db, the first might have been rounded to -19.5db and the second one will be -19.0.
Do you mean that?
Because I thought VCA eliminates that.

 

Putitng many tracks into a bus channel and lowering them from there is fine, shift-clicking tracks and lowering also works.

But there's perhaps another thing to keep in mind - although human hearing is fairly linear across the different freq ranges when the signal is loud, as soon as you start making the signal softer, the actual perception curve of the ear changes dramatically and it starts gapping out in certain ranges. Roughly, the mids and vocal ranges are going to seem louder even at lower volume because the ear is designed to be hyper-sensitive to those, whilst the highs and lows dip out of the picture quickly and can no longer be heard properly.

So, if you expected an equal drop in volume across many tracks to leave the mix balance unchanged perception-wise, you can be in for a big surprise there. To fix it, you'd need to compensate with a Fletcher-Munson style EQ curve applied to all those tracks, but of course when they're loud again the EQ will throw things out of intended proportion. I usually look for a sweet middle ground spot when mastering, where due to the EQ the track doesn't sound TOO different at different volumes as far as the balance of elements, while at loud volumes it is still great sounding.

The Tokyo Dawns Labs mastering EQ has a useful built in Fletcher-Munson curve for this purpose, letting you play with it quickly. But the bottom line is that it's normal for things to sound oddly different balance-wise when you lower them together. The DAW is outputting things exactly as it should, but the human ear itself starts hearing it different.

 

Oh. I thought op was talking about fader readings. Sorry.

 

As @Who Me correctly said take care not to change one signal more often than another. For instance one in the track and a group, another one only in the track.
Secondly don't alter send returns like reverb or parallel compression channels.

The different speed of the faders is due to the resolution. There's maybe 1cm from 0 to -1dB but only 0,5cm from -10 to -12dB.

Of course what @Satai said is also correct, see equal loudness curves Robinson-Dadson.
But this phenomena also occurs if you just lower the volume of your soundcard, so you should've noticed it already.

You can also route every channel into a last pre-master channel and only this one into the master/main out. This way all other channels remain at their position if you change the overall volume.

 

Thank you for the responses. That is very interesting, I had no idea about different perception at lower volumes. That could perhaps explain it. Because I would always shift click in the mixer windows and select all tracks I want to lower the volume of, and sometimes it seemed like things would sounds different after I had done so. Since using a VCA would move the faders at different speeds relative to each other, I thought that I might have been doing it wrong, and that using a VCA is the only way to prevent imbalances from piling up. But it looks like this is not the case. (Why does moving the VCA fader move the fader of the included channels at different speeds though, then?).

Also I adjust the volume of stuff all the time. Still pretty clueless at mixing overall, and this was one of the things I wondered about. Thank you for taking the time to respond to me here. Cheers.

 

A VCA fader often controls a group of individual (channel-)faders, while keeping their relative position.
If a certain fader is half way up, the VCA only has to control that half distance, which takes less time then adjusting a channel fader that is all the way up. But that is only a visual representation, the individual levels are not changed slower or faster.