Hello guys

Do someone gain stagging before mixing? Well I saw different vids on youtube...and I am a little bit confused about the peak where it should be...and I want to know whats your peak on every track and your master output. I leave my peak by minus 6 db on every track and on the master round minus 10 db or minus 12 db. Is it good headroom before I do mastering.

thx in advance.

Lao

 

-6 to -4DB Is the Best Output. Talking about Individual Tracks These depends upon the sound you use.

 

yes. i often use mixtool in S1 on the master so the peak doesnt go higher than the volume slider. i even record audio pretty low, and of course in 24bits.

 

Minus 10 or 12 is the good way to go and totally exeptable.

Gain staging in the digital realm of your daw is theoretically not required,
because most daws have 32-bit floating point under their hood.

 

Hi, You're on the right track when you use to much headroom then to little but how do you go from a single track peaking at -6db to a masterchannel peaking around -10db? That seems weird to me.
All ways of gain staging are part of mixing. From eliminating noise floor, to record as loud as possible. Using external gear that is.
When you have done the recording part and go on with mixing you would go from like 'inaudible' to louder.
So, yes. Please do level things out before you do exotic routings.. Volume -> Panning -> EQ should do it. (in this order)
Lowering faders is only recommended at the single or group -channel stage. The master-fader should always be at -0db and not to be touched.

I alway send my mix-downs peaking between -7db and -3db. It depends on what your after. (this could also be a request from the label)
Generally speaking, the more headroom you give a mastering engineer the more possibilities he gets, witch could influence your sound more then you would like. But could make it juicy as well/hell.
I know producers who almost clip there mix-downs intentionally so the pro engineer can't polish there track to much. (but you'll need to have an awesome mix to do this, and is not recommended)
Knowing you are a DIY guy, I guess in this case it's all about making it loud. Then having steady peaks on your master at -7db should be fine. Thats plenty enough room for maximization for instance.
To get there, I level my group channels between -9db and -15db. Where as example the kick peaks at -9db, bass(es) below that and everything else towards -15db.
When bussed up together this will make sense,
I hope I make sense at all. lol :P

Cheers

 

What is the advantage of recording at low volume?

 

You mean mixing at low volume right? Headroom. Mastering is when you would really bring the volume up, having extra headroom is always a good thing. If you mean during recording, it's to prevent clipping.

 

What Catalyst said. Mix everything way back. Digital mixing has no noise floor, except what is in your files. Over compression will raise whatever background noises exist in those files. You can always normalize the signal later in the edit mode.-------- Subtractive mixing is counter-intuitive, but the way to think..........

 

wrong. check the VU meter on waves la2a or ik la2a how they change depending on the input signal's strength . makes big difference how hard you hit those "proceccors"

 

Mixing at low volume I do get (and use). user Pro tools 10 wrote recording, which I don't understand or know. Some trick for us? I think recording should be done at the highest level possible without distorting or peaking into clipping. You get way more gain and volume shifts, so you don't have to add "digital-gain noise".

About low volume mixing, dear Bob Katz told somewhere that low mixing volume allows you to mix overall more clearly, as "everything loud" hardens discrimination of relative volumes.

Deniz Koyu gave an interesting tip (jeeeeeeeez the name dropping, sorry for that) regarding relative mixing in mono: for the main genres in electronic music, kick should be peaking at 0 db and the bass at -5 db, the rest is up to taste, and mixed from there.

 

In order to do gain staging you need to understand the typical signal flow of daws.

every time theres a knob/fader to adjust the volume thats a gain stage.

if you start gain staging at the mixer fader, you're starting too late, you'll only prevent your master from clipping.

with your mixer faders at 0dbfs you should have headroom on every channel. It would be great if your master has headroom too but not mandatory because now you have clean signals coming to another gain stage. After youve mixed, grab all your faders and adjust so that your master has headroom.

 

Ken scott says in the digital domain don't do what a lot of people do and approach it as if your using noisy analogue gear, and to keep a mastering engineering happy, give them a least 6 db minimum to play with.

 

I've posted this before, but I think it's worth reading it even more than once. These articles from Sound On Sound offer lots of insight (literally) on the ins and out of gain staging, especially given the fact that a lot of us still hold the wrong thinking that we need to record as hot as the meters allow before clipping. This practice was ok in the 80s, before 24-bit depth. I think these links should be added to the AudioSex Academy (Cat!!!):

GAIN STAGING IN YOUR DAW SOFTWARE
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep13/articles/level-headed.htm

DO I REALLY NEED 24-BIT RECORDING?
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun08/articles/qa0608_2.htm

I hope you find them as useful as I have. Peace, dudes.

 

Outch, I see many things mixed up here,
but lets take it in relation to a practical implementation.

Beforehand:
- VU meter in my case is the VUMT by Klanghelm,
it has a trim knob and is calibrated to -18dbfs by default.

- vsti example below counts for any kind of recordings.


Insert a vsti of choice, place the VU meter right after it,
then go through the presets and watch VU metering.

I bet, almost all patches are going into a deep deep red and the needle is about to explode ...

Trim a patch of choice down to 0dbu which equals to -18dbfs.

What have you done ?
You gain staged the INPUT of a recording to a -18dbfs common reference standard of analog consoles.

Render your patch to an audio track and place a compressor after it.
Adjust to taste and do a read out with another VU meter, adjust to 0dbu again.

What have you done ?
You gain staged the OUTPUT of a recording to a -18dbfs common reference standard of analog consoles.

Now, the input and output are calibrated to a -18dbfs common reference standard of analog consoles.

In that sense, although not exactly technically correct, you have gain staged before mixing,
which was your question.

Now, the calibrated input and output are NOT related to a peak read out of a daw channel meter:
put your audio channel fader all the way down, so it is silenced, place a VU meter into the channel.

You will find still a read out of the VU meter, but not a peak read out of the daw channel meter.

Congrats, you have gain staged the signal and you can start mixing with the daw channel fader ...
well not yet ...

Place a VU meter into the send of your daw master channel, so it is placed at the very end of the signal flow.

Start mixing with the daw channel fader and always keep the entire mix referenced against the 0dbu read out of the VU meter.

Congrats, your signals are gain staged before mixing, at the end your entire mix as well
and your mastering engineer wants to have children with you ...