Hi, all FL users here.

Just want to know your setting or effects plugins used by you at Master Bus during production.

I mostly Use Classic limiter or psp vintage warmer .

 

Nothing until I'm done mixing.

If you're using a limiter that means that you worried about clipping, but your only tricking yourself into thinking that you're not clipping when you really are.

 

TT Dynamic Range Meter. only thing on my master bus during mixing. *yes*

 

actually a great info but limiter with 0db gain helps a lot during producing.

 

while i produce, master is always at -6dB and i use no limiter, so every thing is free and has nothing cutted, and all that for the final phase "mastering", i probably use some multiband compressor, such as MB from fabfilter, or vitamins from wave...

 

It helps ONLY if you mix too hot.
Try to never exceed -6 or -5 db on your master bus (as an overall volume for your whole project, not for the instruments particullary).

If you load a Limiter and the whole song is already clipping like 1 or 2 db, there's absolutely no headroom for extra processing (plugins) before the limiter. The headroom is actually for any mastering processing before the Limiter. If there's no headroom, then there's no room for enhancing your master. If you do load some plugins before the limiter while the limiter already started the gain reduction (against clipping) then i'm sure that all the plugins before the limiter you loaded are internally clipping as well. What that means, is that they don't work in their sweet spot of their processing algorithm and also a bus compressor would struggle too hard to tame everything instead of just gluing subtly with a GR of just 1 or 2db.

Just turn your monitors louder to compensate the fact that you're mixing on a lower peak level. In the 24/32bit of bit depth era, there's no need to mix hot. "Hot" mixing was available back in the days for 16bit depth recordings but even in that kind of situation, the sound engineer would've make sure he's not clipping at all.

Some guys would vouch for Sonalksis FreeG as a trimm plugin as a first instance in the mastering chain to trimm down the volume before hitting rest of the plugins including the limiter, but i personally don't use it.

Good luck my friend!

 

if the master fader is on anything but 0db, i'd suggest researching gain staging, and looking into unity gain to get a better understanding.

i agree with Evorax: only if you're mixing hot will you need to do the 'limiter on master' thing. how do i know? cuz i used to do the same thing, bro...LOL. nowadays, the signal on my master fader doesn't read above -10dB overall volume for mixes, and as i stated above, only thing on my master is the TT Dynamic Range meter.

i know everyone has their own methods for this art, but look at it like building a house: the design on the inside may be different from house to house, but NO house can be built properly without a foundation.

gain staging & understanding unity gain is the foundation. you won't need that limiter after that, my friend.

...and Mr Lyann Music, u won't have to put your fader at -6dB.

oh! and if you're insistent on using plugins on the master, i'd say create a submix bus & put comp/eq/limiter/etc on that, then route to the master, keeping it free and clear of any processing duties...which is kinda the point. good luck!

added 7-01-14: and research floating point as well! forgot abt that...MYC Beatz (comment below me) is right on the money.

 

Never lower the master to prevent clipping, always lower the channels, reducing the master creates artefacts due to floating point error.

In case you needed another reason to mix quietly, plugins have an optimal sweet spot which is between -10 and -20 db.

 

does anyone that posted suggestions about mixing quieter use Logic?


if so, are most of your faders so low that the meters hardly light-up?..

After using Ableton for quite awhile and switching over to Logic, I;ve noticed that issue... Having a kick (for a techno track) peak @ -13 db. means that it (and especially the other tracks), hardly even register on the meters. ALthough... its not that I solely mix with my eyes.. but still... somehow it annoys me to not see any lights and shit. Soooo.... I would expect that you guys don't even worry about it then?

Even if the kick is brought up to -10db... hardly makes a difference.

Its weird... this whole.. "mix low", and "don't put a limiter on your master" stuff... I'm sure we've all seen some tutorials (and I don't mean the random youtube bullshit... I mean people like Olav Baslovski, etc) where they are doing one or both of those things... either mixing hot, and/or using a Limiter.... what's up with that?

Check out... ummm.... there's a Dark Techno Sonic Academy on Audioz,... the one done by the porn star guy... dark hair, goatie, Australian... mixing right into the Fabfilter Pro-L.. with a few db. in GR


P.S. Dat' Ass-Cat!!! hilarious!!

 

I dont use logic, but every daw that I've used has meters going down to around -70db, some have an alternate metering scale setting which shows less range, you should check into that.

Only thing dumber than mixing into a limiter, mixing into a limiter and having actual gain reduction...

Think about it, lets say you're kick was muffled in a mix, so you boosted it 1db, because its feeding into the limiter 1db more now, the transients are getting squished more and your kick might even be worse off...

The problem with youtube tutorials is that any dumbass with a screencapture software can upload a "lesson".
Theyre good initially, because they introduce you to audio manipulation, but after a while its hard to distinguish the bad habits from the good ones.

 

I started using gain plugins on all tracks to get the input to -12 and no higher on each track... I never clip, I never distort... and mixing becomes a breeze with so much headroom... I actually took that advice from a magazine and it hasnt failed me yet...

 

first off... (should've said this "off the get-go") I agree with all the "nothing on master channel", and the "dont' let mix go higher than -6db, or -10db etc.

also... I mentioned that I was NOT referring to the random shit youtube tutorials in relation to bad habits... I was referring to the LEGIT tutorials with bad habits.



As far as issues with metering... I know there are the "exponentail" settings that some DAW's have in preferences... i'm sure that's what you're referring to.

i gotta question though...


Sometimes... while in Logic, after choosing drum sounds and arranging some sequences with Battery 4, I'll bounce down the individual sounds to audiotracks... to sort-of "set them in stone". When I do that, I will set the levels in Battery AND on the channel that Battery is on, so that it hits at -.01 db on the channel. Then, the bounce-down process applies a normalize function...

is any of this bad practice??

I mean... would I be better off bouncing down at -10 db??... and should I normalize or not?

though I am still wondering what anyone thinks about my post above, I looked into digital gain staging on the net, and, along with a few others, read a good article in SOS.

There was some advice about setting your levels low (as was spoken of above... -10, -13 etc.) but to still have your faders at or slightly below unity gain... since most DAW's allow for more detailed movement as one gets the fader closer to unity.

So... I'm thinkin, if I set my Kick fader to -3db. or so (since it is the loudest element in what I'm working on these days), meanwhile, the kick is hitting -13 db on the meters... I should be good to go really...??

Still not sure about bouncing tracks down though... for making samples/audio clips for a current project. As I mentioned in above post... If I went about creating a kick drum from a few mixed channels, or simply bouncing down a midi/instrument track to audio, to be used in an actual audio-track with a WAV/AIFF file, should the levels for that sound (in the midi/instrument track) only hit around -10 or so? Seems like that would make sense... Confused about the normalization then after that... bring it to 0.0 db, -0.1, what?

 

Except for certain special effects, I consider limiters a tool of last resort. In digital mixing, since there is no noise floor, I mix everything with faders and the the master down several db to avoid all digital clipping. You can always "normalize" the mix back to down .1 or 3db. and put in what compression or limiting you need then.