GearFest Mixing Contest

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chater-La
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Here's my submission. I wrote some notes on the soundcloud page describing some of the stuff I did. This was all done on the PC, on a budget! Adobe Audition, and effects that came with it, or that were free.

 
jporter12 said:
Here's my submission. I wrote some notes on the soundcloud page describing some of the stuff I did. This was all done on the PC, on a budget! Adobe Audition, and effects that came with it, or that were free.

Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for sharing your mix - just thought I'd make a couple of comments:

The most notable thing to me was the buildup in the low mids, bringing quite a bit of "muddiness/boomy-ness" to proceedings. Around 200-300hz is the area where this builds up in a lot of different elements - especially the bass & kick drum. Try to sweep around with eq & find the problem areas in each element & cut them. Sometimes, if an element is not essential to support the low end of the mix, a high pass filter will do the trick. For example, often the overhead mics can be high passed quite savagely, & this can often "clean up/tighten up" the sound of the mix markedly, because in a live room, any compression on those mics will "dredge up" the unattractive boomy/muddy room ambiance.

I noticed also that the snare is getting a little overshadowed in the overall mix - this could be a simple volume adjustment, but it's presence could also benefit from the "eq clean-up" exercise I mentioned above.
 
AndyGallas said:
What is digital saturation? Clipping?

The vocals sounds actually quite cool to me. Resonances can also be caused by the singers head or scull. Especially when it gets from soft to very loud, overtones or resonances can become obvious.
Click to expand...

Yeah I mean the saturation you get when you push above 0dBFS; use a trim tool, push it until you saturate your DAW and hear distortion, then use another trim tool to compensate for the increased volume. With Liza's vocals that already has some saturation going on, digital saturation adds a little something... Why not trying.
 
soupiraille said:
Yeah I mean the saturation you get when you push above 0dBFS; use a trim tool, push it until you saturate your DAW and hear distortion, then use another trim tool to compensate for the increased volume. With Liza's vocals that already has some saturation going on, digital saturation adds a little something... Why not trying.
Click to expand...

You can't push anything above 0dBFS. That's the limit. That's what FS stands for. Full Scale. All bits are '1'.
 
Haven't ever seen your channel meters go over 0dBFS?
I think you got my point, right? ;)
 
Last edited:
hydroflare said:
You can't push anything above 0dBFS. That's the limit. That's what FS stands for. Full Scale. All bits are '1'.
Click to expand...

In analog reproduction of digital You can. With intersample peaks. Basically limit the song with a lot of soft clipping without intersample detector. You can go +3db in analog reproduction. But You are then at converters mercy :). The FS remains 0Db of course, that we cannot beat.
 
Doesn't matter what you channel meters say, the DAW output full scale is the maximum output. You can amplify it all you like once it is converted to analogue, but in the DAW FS is the limit.
 
hydroflare said:
Doesn't matter what you channel meters say, the DAW output full scale is the maximum output. You can amplify it all you like once it is converted to analogue, but in the DAW FS is the limit.
Click to expand...

I said that too. 0 DBFS can't be beaten and that's all. But we ca squezze up to +3db from converters DA generating intersample peaks, with digital meters reading 0dbfs. This is a process that happens in analog reproduction-reconstruction of digital files. this days You can control that if You want so, of course. It is not necessarily a desired effect, but with converters evolution this days and with clever algorythms, some can squezze tracks a little louder, but as I said, they are at converters mercy. Like if You hit a converter with poor analog stage, it will distort ugly, not all are Apogees or other expensive kind to sound good when pushed hard.
This effect is generally happening when limiting with soft clipping as final stage, digital hitting 0dbfs. Basically Yes, You can push Cubase internal mixer very hard without distorting. If You are at +5db with Cubase and You export the file, the extra 5db will be cut -distortion- ( 0dbfs ). If You put a soft clipping algorythm (triggered at 0dbFs) on masterbuss, the extra 5db will be soft clipped. Without a clever limiter algorythm, soft clipping will result in +1, +1,5Db in analog reconstruction. If You work with ProTools, it does not work like that at all, ProTools mixer distorts far earlier than Cubase's or Nuendo's mixer. That's it's internal engine. ProTools 10 I read it's 32bit floating point now, so it should behave similar with Cubase or Nuendo i think.
 
soupiraille said:
If you wanna get more fancy on that subject, I recommend reading this document by Avid
Click to expand...

I do not want to get more fancy. Too much written and that sheet it is old. Pro Tools 10 goes to 32bit float internal engine, that means around 1600Db dynamic range, much more mixer internal headroom and more precision during signal processing. They are saying that on Avid page. In our "limited perception" world, the engineer counts much more than those numbers. But I can't say I do not like a better machine for helping me to reach my goal :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top