mixing / overall loudness

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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Lost to the Void
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by Lost to the Void »

Prophän wrote:I have one question mix wise, is it really necessary to mix your kick at -14db and your whole mix at -6db, I mean is it necessary to stick to these values, because at the moment I just go for what sounds right to me without worrying that much about the levels, as long as it's not clipping

-14 is not a hard rule, it's just a good level that means as your track builds you won't constantly need to bring down the level of everything to stop your master channel from clipping over. It's more about efficiency than a hard technical rule.

-6 is just a good guideline. I generally peak to around -3, but I know my meters well and I am fully competent with controlling my dynamics.
Peak higher if you like but make sure your meters are accurate, because I get sent stuff all the time where the artist has labelled their track Track blah blah -3db premaster... And the thing is clipped all over the place and I have to get them to send another version with more headroom.
So again it's not a hard rule, just a safety belt.

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jordanneke
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by jordanneke »

Lost to the Void wrote:

Peak higher if you like but make sure your meters are accurate, because I get sent stuff all the time where the artist has labelled their track Track blah blah -3db premaster... And the thing is clipped all over the place and I have to get them to send another version with more headroom.
So again it's not a hard rule, just a safety belt.
I have a question, lets say you send something back to get more headroom, could the artist (for argument's sake), simply reduce each track by -2db equally ( for example) and end up with the required headroom?

Of course providing that none of the tracks are going into the red in the first place.

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Re: mixing / overall loudness

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jordanneke wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:

Peak higher if you like but make sure your meters are accurate, because I get sent stuff all the time where the artist has labelled their track Track blah blah -3db premaster... And the thing is clipped all over the place and I have to get them to send another version with more headroom.
So again it's not a hard rule, just a safety belt.
I have a question, lets say you send something back to get more headroom, could the artist (for argument's sake), simply reduce each track by -2db equally ( for example) and end up with the required headroom?

Of course providing that none of the tracks are going into the red in the first place.
Yes, dropping all Channels for more headroom would work perfectly
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Prophän
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by Prophän »

Okay so here I am dropping my kick bus to -14db any guideline to how should my other sounds be in relation to my kick should they be higher or lower than -14db sorry if I sound like a complete noob, I never gave much importance to that part of the process

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Lost to the Void
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by Lost to the Void »

Just mix around your kick
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over9000
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by over9000 »

kick should be the loudest part of the track. most other channels will be below -14.

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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by Prophän »

over9000 wrote:kick should be the loudest part of the track. most other channels will be below -14.
That's what I needed to know because at the moment it's not the case, so I still need to go back and fix that mix

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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by sergiobR1 »

omg, I've been reducing peaks (with EQ) on the master bus since EVER. (only on final mixdown)

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Hades
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by Hades »

jordanneke wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:

Peak higher if you like but make sure your meters are accurate, because I get sent stuff all the time where the artist has labelled their track Track blah blah -3db premaster... And the thing is clipped all over the place and I have to get them to send another version with more headroom.
So again it's not a hard rule, just a safety belt.
I have a question, lets say you send something back to get more headroom, could the artist (for argument's sake), simply reduce each track by -2db equally ( for example) and end up with the required headroom?

Of course providing that none of the tracks are going into the red in the first place.
It's what I do all the time :
if I see things get too loud, I simply reduce the volume of all channels by the same amount.
afaik, It's the easiest way out of possible future trouble. :)
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kostas
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by kostas »

Lost to the Void wrote:Just mix around your kick
what about pink noise mixing technique I really wanted to ask about this thing. and I surely have a lot of questions about this.
Like in what LUFS level you should calibrate the noise and in what stage of the mix it should be done. maybe it s a whole other
subject but since it came up , why not ?

As for the post itself my rule is this. I m trying to keep every signal at -18dbfs RMS with the peaks at -10dbfs to -6dbfs most.
You do that by trimming the input of the signal BEFORE any other process is applied. I m an ableton guy so I m using a third
party plug in to trim the input. Other DAWs have a build in function for that. -18dbfs RMS is the level of the digital to analogue
conversion of the signal. Avoiding to get into the math of that I just want to say that our DAWs are simulations of the old consoles
just like the plugins we use. So treat them like that. Most plugins are made to be fed with a -18dbfs RMS which simulates the input
of the analogue gear back when analogue was king. That is something that is working for me. Control your input not just your output.
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by Lost to the Void »

Fuck the pink noise technique, you learn nothing from it, and it really doesn't apply very well anyway.
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by kostas »

Lost to the Void wrote:Fuck the pink noise technique, you learn nothing from it, and it really doesn't apply very well anyway.
well I had a feeling that it s another ''magic'' trick that will make your mix sound better.
I guess the only thing that is solid is a hard learning curve on every step. thanks for clearing this out.
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Re: mixing / overall loudness

Post by Lost to the Void »

No it will make your mix flat. Giving equal spectral importance to every element. It's a short it to a flat mix.
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