Master Fader case

R

rodrigo21

New member
Iam mixing a song (electronic music) with a nice powerfull kick.
Initially I have the master fader of my Daw software in 0 db, but the kick is clipping so I have to choose between two options.


-Compress the kick or the drum track, but then I loose that nice boomy feeling (Iam am not a dynamics expert).

-Just lower the master fader volume at about -4db.


Supposing that the song is going to be profesionally mastered. Should I worry for rendering the final mixdown with the master fader some db's below cero?

With the master fader at -4db I get the sound I want.
Now I was hardly working to rise the master fader without loosing the powerfull kick. Is it worth it?
 
yeah, isnt the kick on its own track? lower that fader. and lower the rest of them accordingly so that the kick is still heavy and sticking out in the mix, because i know thats what you want ;)
 
rodrigo21 said:
Supposing that the song is going to be profesionally mastered. Should I worry for rendering the final mixdown with the master fader some db's below cero??
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I just noticed this, too. If you're going to get it professionally mastered, you SHOULD have your Master below zero....And probably even more than just -4db below zero. Let the pro Matering Engineer do his job by giving him sufficient headroom to work with.
 
Thanks for your answers...

A last question:

If you consider sending some songs to a label. Isn't bad to send your songs with too low volume?
 
Well, you're talking 2 different things. Sending your songs to a label and sending them to a Mastering House are not the same. I would think that if you're sending your songs to a label, you want them to be mastered first. In that case, they shouldn't be too low.
 
I concur with Rami on both points (though I disagree on his left wing political views as they apply in the US :) )

Another option is lowering all of the tracks and leaving the master fader at 0. There may be a very subtle improvement doing this since there should be less calculations being done to your audio and hence less quantization distortion. Also you're less likely to get overs on the master bus, but this really depends on the DAW your using and it's bit depth for bus processing. Personally I think the practice of proper gain staging is something that you should get familiar with anyway.
 
masteringhouse said:
I concur with Rami on both points (though I disagree on his left wing political views as they apply in the US :)
Click to expand...
Are my views that obvious even when I'm only talking about mastering? :p :D ....

Or are you CIA???

Excuse me, there are 2 men in black suits knocking at my door....be right back. :eek: :eek: :eek:
 
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