so i bring all faders down.......before i start mixing

so as i raise tracks up its possible i hit 0 before even raising all tracks up.....so each time i hit 0 do i just lower them all the tracks together at same level? and then carry on from there again?

is that how you do it?

or do you have another method?

thanks

 

U can start with all faders up!!!!

 

whats the exact approach with all the faders up?

however i would also like to know about faders down

thanks guys!

 

Depending on project size, you can "aim" your tracks at around -12 to -18 dB AVERAGE for each
After all tracks are summed, you get around -6dB on master bus.

Of course, it is just a starting point.
But it avoid getting too much gain BEFORE master bus.

how many time i seen ppl with master bus near minimum ...

 

that´s what i mostly do, too.

and it is possible, because on the digital domain it is absolutely no problem to do the gain staging "too loud" and then correcting it by massively reducing leves at the master/buses.

however, depending on how you work, it can be cool to start with all faders down because then you see at once glance which tracks and mixer channels are already busy (or have been busy before) - and which are still unused and juvenile.

 

thats RMS or Peak? thanks!

 

the main advantage/reason for "all up" would be that you then see immediately how loud the recorded/loaded audio material is.

the main advantage/reason for "all down" has been proposed on my above post. it can help to see that a mixer channel has not yet been modified at the EQ or plug-ins and that the track doesnt had audio files yet or something.

"all up" is more how you work with analog gear, where usually recordings are at -20. to 0., "all down" might be more interesting when you use your DAW as creative sampling machine and like to play around with hundreds of tracks and effects, then it helps to organize things.

in my opinion it is either/or.

either you decide to mix to a level which roughly sums up to a peak of -1 when the master fader is set to 0 - or you do it the other way round and mix to your ears and then "correct" at the master.

 

Last edited: Apr 9, 2021

Faders up or down. Set your loudest element e.g usually kick in edm then level to that.

 

it isnt a Analog or a Digital thing but Preference (i would say)

I know a lot of people who mix all up until a certain point.
Then they start a Fader (+Volume) down on the drums- before/into drum Bus.
Or the guitars, Pads, main theme, Vocals.

All the talk about dbfs is only important if you also master in that (same) session.
i dont care, i just care about(not) clipping/distortion on the Master.
sometimes its sounds great on the channels but that is matter of taste.

 

Proper/healthy gain-staging and subtractive mixing (turning loud things down rather than turning weak things up) goes a long way. I haven't touched my master fader (set to unity gain) in years.

 

as most DAWs are 32bit float it really doesn't matter at all, just turn down your master fader so your peaks are below 0 dB when exporting

 

starting with the faders at 0 and use gain plugin (or adjust the individual track/clip volume to taste) and then bounce everything once is the best way I found useful (better after the static mix), after noticing the faders range are weird (or too sensitive) at the lower part of the scale.

 

Say what? Sorry, I must have missed the bit when you said you applied automation so it wasn't a "static mix".

 

already enough "movement" through my super dynamic instrument playing and managed to capture 100% of it. dont need that automation no more

 

? lol.
Uh, right. But please explain:

It doesn't make sense!
And equally you have answered with nothing to do with what I was implying! lol...

Yeah of course! Nobody needs automation of any kind, let alone volume! (joke!)
So...your mix IS a static mix!
Which is what I was questioning! lol.

 

oh, sorry about that, maybe it has to do with the way I mix. Don't know about how others doing it, the workflow.. well, may vary for each of us i believe.

I mix separately from where I create, or whenever I receive files from clients, I'll do tweaking at Live, because my client mostly sent unfinished (sometimes raw) stuff, they like my finishing touch, most of them are bands I been working with for a long time, they recorded somewhere else. (I'm just a mixer, half of the time someone else will master it, for those with low budget, I'll finish it.) Then when everyone is happy, I bounce it and move it to my mixing DAW (Reaper mostly, but now I'm trying Studio One and liking it). Balancing only done roughly without reference, most of the time it is too trebly or bassy.

At my mixing DAW, I start with balancing. I don't know what it means to you, but "static mix" means volume balancing all the tracks to me, the goal is to achieve the right/workable peak/rms value at master for me and the whole tracks musically, making sure the sound pressure at my comfortable working condition, set my monitor and above all, the tracks sound musically "right" to me. Maybe close to the reference track I always ask my clients to provide just as a benchmark of how it should sound before i start the actual mixing. Because of the reference track, the whole tracks balance will go out of the window, that is why i start with what I call static mix, and then bounce it.

I set all the faders to zero and adjust everything individually (volume wise) and then bounce everything and move it to another folder, so the first import untouched, if I ever need to go back (few times it proves to be useful, but 10% of the time something like that).

The reason for bouncing everything is it gives a "fresh start" feeling to move to another stage (mixing) and I like it.

also, what is automation has to do with it ? if there were any automation even, it was already bounced to WAV files by the clients, or if it is my own project, I'll already commit. For the later automation, of course it will be done after the static mix.

haha, I do a lot of weird automations, and there was this one client that asked to see what I did (because he is learning) then he said, his word (whaaatttt theee hell have you done to my song ?). hahaha I guess automation is a big part of mixing and it is one of the hardest part of mixing to create a good listening experience. My goal is always make the track repeatable, so it has to be good.

 

Last edited: Apr 10, 2021

I guess you are talking about ITB mixing. Considering that a good audio interface can have 120 Db of dynamics there is absolutely no need to come anywhere near zero when mixing.
Google for gain staging
or start here:
https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/gain-staging-what-it-is-and-how-to-do-it.html

 

Oh right! So I guess you were just saying "it is better after I have done the static mix"? Yeah?
And maybe you weren't implying you didn't do a static mix first sometimes? I don't know! lol.
If so, I kind of read that wrong or thought you were saying something else.
But since the analogue days a static mix needn't be gain-staged.
Just a mix that works. And is static. Better workflow for it to be gain-staged regards the master outs though, I admit.
Wow. So you don't automate eq or compression, and never automate volume then?
That's impressive.

Equally and if not more so important to me is that for the very same reason of being in the digital domain, if my mix is working at whatever low level on the master, I'm good if it's too quiet because all my channels were well within headroom when I set them up and I just need to raise everything relatively.
Or rather, bounce it down and master it on its own.
But then I'm not always making or mixing bass heavy dance stuff, in which case I would have to mix differently.

 

you are also good if its "too loud" (which is impossible) because your headroom is 770dB...... unless you are using analog emulation plugins that are designed for a specific input level but even there you can just turn down the gain before

 

Last edited: Apr 10, 2021

yeah, language barrier, my native language is upside down to english, not the first time. lol.

yeah, a lot has changed since that, but yeah, I just do what I feel comfortable with. Even my partner complaining how I'm so old-school in doing stuff. I mix bands music (mostly weird shit music), he mixes electronic music, so we don't really share the same workflow. Moving to a bigger place in a months or two, we'll see if the new environment will change that.

I do a lot of that (automation) both in production/creation stage and mixing stage. I personally think automation is the hardest part of music production and has to be delicate with it, a little of them in everything. It is different when I'm working on my own stuff, I always commit/bounce automation in production stage (just to train myself to be brave, lol). Which is different in mixing because your focus isn't about sound character but more to "listening experience".

Need to add that I learn this from looooong emails I've been getting from a mastering engineer that is now a good friend that part of his workflow is complaining to me of how shit my mix is, I've learned a lot from him and all he cares about is how I didn't automate things, he asks me to automate everything so that he can squeeze more awesomeness out from the song, and he is so damn good at it. It's funny when the final product getting a whole lot praise mixing-wise that I honestly believe all of his doing, I just take the credits (and new clients). lol.