Hey Producers

I Want to know very simple thing....i.e Recently I Finshed a project and got much headroom on master channel (-8db), But the faders Level Of Individual channels are very low..Synths is near -16db and bass is near -13db and sub bass is -19db and fx is at -18db and drum is near -7db...its sounds low...i want to know is it ok...can i start mix ?


And what can i do in a mix ? Any Special Tip (Genre : House)

any help would be appreciated

Thanx -

 

there are no rules telling you not to mix at low levels as long they are not the oposite way (clipping). If it's low turn your speakers volume up, at last a limiter on the Matering will make the loud part.

 

@ James Producer,

Why don't increase the individual 'Volumes' of your (low) different Tracks/Channels (without 'clipping' these as rightly said by 'Shake_puig' ), then simply use the 'Master Channel' Fader to try to get what you're looking for (either less 'Headroom', or a contrario more 'Headroom') as this is the 'Final Stage' before to output your Audio Material... *yes*

 

All those are perfectly good levels for a mix and it helps to make a better sounding master as opposed to clipped crap many peole tend to send for mastering. Better to have too low a level than clipped.

A good practice, well - it's my practice, is to have a VU meter calibrated to -18dBFS or -14dBFS [try and see which suits your style of music/mixing best] VU-RMS on the master and watch that the audio never goes too much into the red, or even better never goes into red. That should give you digital peaks to about -6dBFS to -3dBFS at the most, depending on the dynamics and style of the track which is perfect for mastering. Problems with levels and clipping solved forever, and you can forget about the master fader. Just keep it at zero.

http://sleepytimedsp.com/downloads There you have great VU-meters for your master channel that use next to no CPU and work fluently and precisely for free. You can use either Mono or Stereo channel as Mono channel is also actually stereo. Stereo channel is there because it has some different functions and two VU-meters instead of one. Choose whichever one suits you best. I usually use mono channel and keep all the values on defaults, or even more often I use the VU-meter on my TC BMC-2, but the results are the same.

Cheers!

 

if you are running all ITB just mix with your ears, don't focus on levels, peak meter, Vu meters and stuff like that. Once you have finish just select all the channels. and low the faders like -10 or -12 db. Et voilà ready for the mastering engineer ;)

 

First off - it's dB, not db. Alexander Graham Bell.

If you have one track with a sine peaking at 0dB you get a master at 0dB peak.

If you add a duplicate track (sine peaking at 0dB), you get a master peak of +6dB (double amplitude). So you have to lower each track -6dB to get a master peak at 0dB.
Yes, confusing.

If you have 100 tracks with the same sine peaking at 0dB, well you have to lower each track a whole lot more for the master to peak at 0dB.

It's quite simple when you get it - "Many streams...", logarithmic scale, etc.

edit: If your master is hot pre-fader/pre-FX inserts, you might want to read up on gain-staging. If you are ITB it actually helps to check signal gain structure, and not just "mix with your ears".

 

Baxter you are right, gain-stagging is important. But in the end is all about what everyone is looking for.
I produce the same genre as the OP and i like the master with slightly distortion, i also insert some Ozone on the master just to get same saturation/distortion. the OP can just lower the faders as i said if he want to be sure to not to clip the signal, but he had to be carefull about routings,pre-fx and pre-faders...

I use pre-faders all the time so i had to be carefull where to lower the fader and where to load a gain plugin to do the exact same thing. Is not a big problem, it's just take my 3 minutes to get things done in the right way without any clipping...

mine was just a suggestion based on experience and then the OP can decide if he want to mix by ear or using his eyes. At the end is all about personal choice and workflow...

 

I wouldn't put anything but the VU-meter on the master channel... *yes* Maybe just an easy on CPU clipper that just prevents you from burning the [probably expensive] speakers, and when you keep the levels at -18dB to -14dB VU-RMS it won't influence the sound at all as there will be no peaks at 0dBFS for sure, whatever kind of music you make. [btw I'm into EDM and Industrial and EBM so very high in distortion and dynamics]

If you need a "particular sound" [limited, distorted] just do it on the track or on the buss. Keep the levels of it at, or below usually, unison gain [-18 to -14dBFS VU-RMS] on the master. That's why I say use a VU-meter on the master. Besides, not every DA converter sounds the same when driven into 0 dBFS. So it's better to keep it lower to be able to hear the true sound of your mix. Some DAs start to distort far earlier than you think they do at as low as -6dBFS. Keep that in mind. Mine doesn't, but I still love to keep the levels at analogue levels for mixing which is generally between -18dBFS to -14dBFS VU-RMS on the digital [FS, full scale] scale.

I'm not proposing anything but mixing by the ear, too. But you have to hear the audio properly to do it properly.

Thank you Mr. Bell! *yes*

 

Anything to avoid the red blip. Digital mixing has no noise floor. If you normalize something to -3db or -.1db later, everything maintains the same relationship and dynamics.