Hi,
I have few questions in mind regarding gain staging in Pro tools.
There was a session which was recorded in REAPER and for mixing them I imported the wave files into Pro Tools. When I rendered each file separetely from REAPER, I made sure that the loudest peak of a track should not cross over -6dB. So everything was under -6dB when played separately but when played together I knew that it would clip on the Master Channel and it did! It was ok! Now came the "gain staging" part!
Q1.How to gain stage every instrument so that it stays under -6dB? (and also not too low!)
Q2. The snare always goes beyond -6dB and if I turn it down, it loses the snap and gets a bit lost in the mix. How to overcome this?

 

Ha ha. This is why I try to think of mixing in subtractive ways whenever possible. I don't know why everybody wants to push things in digital mixing, since the only noise floor is in the analog stages/devices. You can always "normalize" (and gate if needed) levels where you want them later. As an old analog guy, all this was very counter-intuitive to me, because we were always trying to get the best S/N ratio, because of the dynamic limitations of tape and analog devices. About the only thing you can do is start over, because even if you get in there and reduce every track by a standard ratio in relation to each other, it will still come out sounding different. How to mix the snare? Hundred different approaches there. Again, my first approach would be subtractive. What's crowding it that I can move, or EQ (subtractive). But if starting over, you probably start with snare and bottom anyway. Mixing is an art and a craft with rules and then rules to be broken. Experience does apply, but every mix has it's own issues that never end to a perfectionist or someone with audiophile disease. Somewhere you have to decide to let go of your baby and move on. Sometimes I move on, and come back when I have a fresher perspective. Here it is again, I still have not stopped learning from this series: http://therecordingrevolution.com/5minutes/