Looking for advice on Mixdown ...

[madhtr]

A rather newbie question, hehe ...

In cakewalk, all my tracks sound good individually ... But when I export audio, It seems like I get a little clipping or distortion on the whole mix ESPECIALLY on drums and cymbals. I am mixing down to 16 bit 44000 from 24-bit 48000.

I am operating under the assumption that processor and RAM limitations have nothing to do with the actual mixing down to a WAV file, since the algorithms should be able to take as much time as they need because they do not have to play sound.

I have put an EQ (and generally increased the bass) on:

Kick
Snare
Tom Rack

I have also EQ’d the cymbals to increase the treble, as well as distorted guitar.


One interesting thing that I have noticed ... If I have 10 tracks that are not clipping individually, the bus that they all run through clips. (even when it is set to neutral trim and volume) I do not understand this mathematically, it seems as though the combination of 10 gains should not exceed that of the track with the highest peak?

Can someone recommend some good techniques to record and mix down for optimum sound quality? thanx


Windows 2000
PIII 800
384 Megs RAM
Delta 1010
Game surround fortissimo

1 Alesis 3630 compressor

48000 HZ
24-bit

[dachay2tnr]

When you mix down, you are "summing" the tracks. Therefore, even if there is no clipping on individual tracks, you can get clipping on the overall mix. This should be easily solved by backing off the volume on the Master Bus (you could also lower the individual tracks to achieve the same results, however, you will have to rebalance the mix if you take this approach).

[madhtr]

That's an excellent suggestion. I tried that and still the same problem ... I must be doing something else wrong. I have just read that the exported file is identical to what is heard during monitoring. To prove it, It was reccomended that I drag my exported WAV into an extra track, reverse its polarity, and the wav should cancel out all other trax, I'll try it tonight

I also have a BBE maximizer .... my current procedure is to mix down individual trax (with individual choruses , eq's, etc ...) to a wave file, and then import each rendered wav file into a "mastering" project where I apply the BBE and / or a final EQ ... does this make sense or is it dumb?

[Track Rat]

Originally Posted by madhtr

I also have a BBE maximizer .... my current procedure is to mix down individual trax (with individual choruses , eq's, etc ...) to a wave file, and then import each rendered wav file into a "mastering" project where I apply the BBE and / or a final EQ ... does this make sense or is it dumb?

To me this seems VERY dumb (no offense friend ). I would avoid the BBE at all costs. In my experience, they create more damage than good.

[madhtr]

hehe no offense taken, thats why I asked I have noticed that it is REALLY easy to mess stuff up with it. What is a better matsering plan?

PS I found a Cakewalk Link that might be related to my issue about 24 - 16 bit dithering. Kind of technical, (I'm a bit head) but some people explained it fairly well for those that do not have programming experience. I think what I may be experiencing is kind of resolution loss of casting 23 bit floating points to 16 bit ints. still researching ...