When mixing down before mastering

geraci89

geraci89

New member
Hey everyone, Im relatively new to mixing and am working on my bands first project.

I know that it is recommended to leave roughly -3 to -6 db of headroom when mixing down. On a few of these songs, the majority of the instruments stay within these boundaries but there will be the odd snare or kick hit that starts jumping into my headroom cushion and sometimes clips.

I have a good overall mix with some of these songs but again some parts are pushing the limits. Is it ok to just turn down the master fader to ensure nothing clips? or do I need to go back and turn every single fader down??

Thanks in advance :)
 
I'm assuming you're mixing on a DAW? If so, and if it's just a stray snare or kick hit, I would try to turn down just those couple of hits on the individual snare and kick tracks themselves. On DAW's this is typically done by using a volume envelope. Look up how to do it on your system.

If you're not on a DAW, then forget what I wrote. :)
 
I would leave a lot more headroom than 3 to-6db. The fact that ANYTHING is clipping means you're mixing too hot. Also, the fact that anything is clipping means you're not really leaving 3 to 6 db headroom. You're leaving as much headroom as your highest clip, which is zero headroom.

You could never leave too much headroom. My tracks PEAK at -10 to -12 usually. They average way lower than that. I'm not saying that just because I do that, you should too. But I've learned that there's no such thing as a track being too low before mastering.

In your case, if you like the mix other than the level, just turn all your faders down 6db or so. You'll have lots of headroom and won't have to worry about anything clipping.
 
RAMI said:
In your case, if you like the mix other than the level, just turn all your faders down 6db or so. You'll have lots of headroom and won't have to worry about anything clipping.
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If he's doing any group compression this will change how the compressor reacts. As long as it's a floating point DAW he can simply turn down the master fader.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
If he's doing any group compression this will change how the compressor reacts. As long as it's a floating point DAW he can simply turn down the master fader.
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Isn't an insert effect, like compression, usually pre-fader?
 
RAMI said:
Isn't an insert effect, like compression, usually pre-fader?
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Yes, but I'm referring to a compressor on a submix group bus which would be after the channel faders. If there isn't any group processing that's level dependent (eq would be okay) then lowering all the faders together would work.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Yes, but I'm referring to a compressor on a submix group bus which would be after the channel faders. If there isn't any group processing that's level dependent (eq would be okay) then lowering all the faders together would work.
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I see what you're saying. But even then, if we want to bring the whole mix down, we don't have to turn down all the individual faders in a group. We just have to turn down the fader for the group itself, right? So, whatever compression is on the group would be pre-fader and not be affected by bringing down that fader, no?
I hope that made some sense.
 
RAMI said:
I see what you're saying. But even then, if we want to bring the whole mix down, we don't have to turn down all the individual faders in a group. We just have to turn down the fader for the group itself, right? So, whatever compression is on the group would be pre-fader and not be affected by bringing down that fader, no?
I hope that made some sense.
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That would work. But again, just turning down the master fader would do it.
 
Thanks for the discussion everyone! So what Im getting out of all of this is that

1. I shouldn't consider my average peaks as my headroom, I should work off of the single highest peaks. and

2. Since Im not running any group compression, and that I have the mix level I like, turning down the master fader before mixdown is perfectly ok for the audio quality?
 
It'd be easy enough to reel in (volume automation, higher-ratio compression) just on those sources that are causing occasional issues if it still keeps the feel of the mix...

The single highest peaks will dictate the - uh - single highest peak - of the mix.

But if the occasional stray is peaking above the mix that far, unless you actually want it to be there, there's nothing illegal about adding a "layer of dynamics control" over it/them...
 
RAMI said:
I see what you're saying. But even then, if we want to bring the whole mix down, we don't have to turn down all the individual faders in a group. We just have to turn down the fader for the group itself, right? So, whatever compression is on the group would be pre-fader and not be affected by bringing down that fader, no?
I hope that made some sense.
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Or a step further back. Those kinds of peaks (often) well be hitting their sub bus just as hard as the master bus.

2. Since Im not running any group compression, and that I have the mix level I like, turning down the master fader before mixdown is perfectly ok for the audio quality?
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Yes.
And a short recap- how low (or not high) to avoid the sonic shit hitting the fan?
'Nominal is around -18 to 24dbfs average not peak- 18 to 24 above for peaks.
To be 'fer sure fer sure' if you like keep it even lower. But it doesn't seem like you're discribing a situation where you've 'slammed everything (presumably where the sonic problems we're wanting to avoid come from) and are now trying to sneak your way back out at the main fader. :D

I like leaving the master at zero and trimming like that at the master pre fader/pre master insert gain (AKA trim) but that's a work prefrence, and also more often than not I'm working my mixes very much like finals.
 
mixsit said:
Or a step further back. Those kinds of peaks (often) well be hitting their sub bus just as hard as the master bus.
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True. You have a point there. It's not always the case, but it could very well be.
 
mixsit said:
Or a step further back. Those kinds of peaks (often) well be hitting their sub bus just as hard as the master bus.
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In floating point it doesn't matter, except as a point of good practice or if hardware emulating plugins are used. The only level that matters is the last one before converting to fixed point.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
In floating point it doesn't matter, except as a point of good practice or if hardware emulating plugins are used. The only level that matters is the last one before converting to fixed point.
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Exactly. Which brings us full circle- and a question; Why/where does the idea of 'keep your peaks at -12ish' fit in?
I think at one time one of our good guys (Massive'? :) may have indicated that sort of falls in with 'better way low than even a bit too high'.
 
mixsit said:
Exactly. Which brings us full circle- and a question; Why/where does the idea of 'keep your peaks at -12ish' fit in?'.
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I think that, technically, if nothing is clipping, there's nothing wrong with it. But that's just on the digital side. The theory is that, if your mix is that hot, it means something on the analog side is being driven too hard befroe it gets to the A/D converter.
 
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RAMI said:
I think that, technically, if nothing is clipping, there's nothing wrong with it. But that's just on the digital side. The theory is that, if you're mix is that hot, it means something on the analog side is being driven too hard befroe it gets to the A/D converter.
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I get you there.
Hmm. How about if we use analoganalogy' (..new word :D)
The live sources come in to the mixer, trims set you up for nominal, '0vu. 0vu to tape. Mix, they come back- at 'nominal.
Back in for mix down ch. faders hang out in and around 0vu, and (what typically? I'm out of my element some here), in the internal mixer path it gets padded down some on the way to the busses? Master fader hangs out a 0' nominal right?
I don't know if our DAW's do that (compensation to the bus?). On my real mixer if I was too hot- for what ever reason, I'd have to pull all the faders down.
That's not necessarily saying things up stream were out'o whack. See where I'm going here? :)
 
RAMI said:
I think that, technically, if nothing is clipping, there's nothing wrong with it. But that's just on the digital side. The theory is that, if your mix is that hot, it means something on the analog side is being driven too hard befroe it gets to the A/D converter.
Click to expand...

Actually, I just realized I'm confusing things a bit here. What I'm talking about here is tracking. There's no "analog side" if we're talking about mixing ITB, generally. So, what I said about the analog side, etc.... doesn't really apply to what the original topic is.

Sorry. Second time in less than 24 hours that I stray from the main point of a thread. :(
 
If you all don't mind, I'd like to toss in a bit of a side question about this... Sorry for being a bit noobish.
When we're talking about levels, we're talking about what the meters say right? Which has nothing to do with where the fader is set, correct? So for example, If i have something peaking at -12 db, but the fader is all the way to the top, the fader position has nothing to do with head room..?

And also, is lowering the input gain (in Cubase's mixer for what i use) a good way to make sure things aren't clipping if they were recorded too hot in the first place?
 
Yes, and no. Input gain is only an ability of a full version of Cubase. The mixer is post recording, so if it is already clipped at input, there is nothing you can do really. The faders can be used to lower volume, but not the input level of a recorded track. It is not really possible to clip an audio file within Cubase, but you can definitely clip plugins by sending too hot of a signal to them.
 
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