Using the mixdown feature

B

BaltJack

New member
hi everyone. Another dumb question by Baltjack. =^)

I'm recording with a "clockspeed challenged" machine...(aka a dinosaur). So I'm mixing down all the time to reduce the number of tracks and get acceptable performance out of my poor machine.

But, whenever I mix down, I'm always surprised by the volume of the resulting track. I've got the levels where I want them, but when I mixdown a few of the tracks, the resulting track seems to come back at arbitrary levels. Is there something I'm missing here? Am I losing data/sound when mixing down or something?

Also I saw an option in the program somewhere to reduce the volume of the master channel with each new track added. Should I be using this?

Thanks in advance,
Balt
 
Hmmm...

Reducing the master volume as you add tracks just keeps the over all volume from getting out of hand as you add more tracks. I tend to leave that option off and do it by hand just so that it isn't random.

Make sure that you aren't processing the master channel when you mixdown- until your final mix. If the level is set lower on the master channel (i.e. to keep all those 0dB normalized tracks from clipping) that might account for the quieter mixed tracks. I think it is a check box in the advanced settings part of n-Tracks mixdown dialouge.

What settings are you using in the mixdown window? Are you mixing tracks from 16 bit to 16 bit? 24 bit? Are you using the dither option?

Take care,
Chris
 
aha.

I WAS processing the master channel. Why didn't I think of that? duh. So that mystery is solved. but now I have a new question.

When I'm mixing down, I'm using the default settings (ie. use soundcard settings). what happens when if I decide to use 24 or 16 bits? and also, what is dithering?

Sorry I'm so dense...as my profile says, I really am a newbie.

Balt
 
I'm no pro, but.......

As I understand it, you should never dither until the final final final mixdown. It does something like add (a tiny bit of) noise in order to fill in some blanks to make it sound more realistic.


When doing a partial mixdown, use the 32 bit floating rate, which is N-track's internal rate and prevents loss of quality.

BTW, I believe the N-track manual explains all the above.
 
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