Master volume levels?

[coolsoundman]

hey folks,
when you guys are mixing and your ready to do the mixdown of your tracks, where is your volume set at on the main mix channels? When I do a mixdown on my tracks, my master volume is set at 0 (zero). And at that volume, my song sounds a little on the soft side, but the meter doesnt go into the red, its all in the green zone. So I ask, where do you have your master volume slider set at and will it do any bad, as to get into the red zone, on the main mix slider?

[Massive Master]

No simple answer there, as it would be completely dependent on the levels of the individual tracks going to the master buss.

Try to keep your mix level peaking at around -6dBfs (NO clips!!!) and call it a day.

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by coolsoundman

hey folks,
when you guys are mixing and your ready to do the mixdown of your tracks, where is your volume set at on the main mix channels? When I do a mixdown on my tracks, my master volume is set at 0 (zero). And at that volume, my song sounds a little on the soft side, but the meter doesnt go into the red, its all in the green zone. So I ask, where do you have your master volume slider set at and will it do any bad, as to get into the red zone, on the main mix slider?

Is this an analog or digital console?

[coolsoundman]

I have a yamaha 16g recorder, and i guess that is digital, my mixer board is anolog and I'm using Sonar for my editing and mixing. I hope that helps.

[masteringhouse]

You want to try to keep settings at their "nominal" levels. For an analog console you will get a better signal to noise ratio if you keep the master fader at zero and bring up the track volumes so that you are reading 0 on the VU meter (analog VU meter).

For digital the noise ratio is less important and you can bring the master fader up, however it's still best to try to keep it at zero in order to avoid additional processing to the audio. At 0 it "should" remain untouched after summing. Again, you will need to raise the track volumes so that the overall volume is appropriate for the song.

With both, if recording to digital, try to keep the peaks way from 0 dBFS. The -6dbFS cushion that John speaks about is a good standard for 24 bit audio. If the average (RMS) level isn't as loud as it should be that's generally OK. For most material it should read somewhere around -18dBFS (this corresponds to 0 on most VU meters) with peaks obviously below 0 or around -6 dBFS. If the average level is much lower than -18dBFS, you will probably need to compress the tracks that are causing the peak volumes (usually kick and snare drums) a bit in order to get the average volume up. But again, if it's somewhere in the "nominal" range don't sweat it too much, that's for the mastering stage.