_Practical Mixing ?

[Cyrokk]

I put the faders at unity on my analog mixer, get the trims to where they register as close to peak as possible (without listening to the mix, just watching the meter at the loudest peak of the wave form), then pull all the faders down before I even start mixing. Then I turn on my speakers and concentrate almost exclusively on the channel and master faders for balancing the mix, only adjusting the trim if the fader clip lights up (which never does). If there were parametric eq adjustments, then before I make last few final passes at the mix, I will make one more static adjustment to the trims.

I have no idea if I'm breaking some sort of mixing law, but my mixes are warmer and have better stereo separation as a result. I always figured I was using my mixer at its optimum operating level.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I put the faders at unity on my analog mixer, get the trims to where they register as close to peak as possible (without listening to the mix, just watching the meter at the loudest peak of the wave form), then pull all the faders down before I even start mixing. Then I turn on my speakers and concentrate almost exclusively on the channel and master faders for balancing the mix, only adjusting the trim if the fader clip lights up (which never does). If there were parametric eq adjustments, then before I make last few final passes at the mix, I will make one more static adjustment to the trims.

I have no idea if I'm breaking some sort of mixing law, but my mixes are warmer and have better stereo separation as a result. I always figured I was using my mixer at its optimum operating level.

No laws broken at all, at least not in my jurisdiction . In fact I think you succinctly summed it up correctly and very nicely .

G.

 

[Cyrokk]

No laws broken at all, at least not in my jurisdiction . In fact I think you succinctly summed it up correctly and very nicely .

G.

Thanks . We must live in the same jurisdiction, because when I said the same thing here , I was met with a near complete consensus that I am doing things completely wrong as far as gain staging is concerned.

Could've been the same miscommunication issue, though. My mixer's trims are labeled as "gain", which everyone may have misread as "fader".

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What we have heeere is faileeer to communikate!

Then we must live in the same jurisdiction, because when I said the same thing here , I was met with a near complete consensus that I am doing things completely wrong as far as gain staging.

Ok, I remember that thread.

Yeah, I think that thread and this one wound up talking about two different things altogther, or at least different assumptions were made by different parties. I think first there are a couple of lines to be drawn somewhat between the two threads; the first line is the line between the analog and the digital domains. the second line is the line between setting gain staging levels in a mixer and setting final output levels for digital mastering. Or something like that.

The other thread I think was referring mostly to ITB mixing and digital mastering, whereas this one we're talking about gain staging within an analog mixer.

When you used this quote:

Having finished tracking, now you come to the point where you will start to “set-out” your mix. In an ideal scenario, which never ever happens, you would have all your faders, including your masters, at 0dB. Your objective is to turn out a mix with 0dB levels.

it's my guess that they're actually referring to 0dBVU in an analog mixer, not 0dBFS in multitrack editing software. I think that may be the major source of the confusion.

If the gain staging is all set correctly, setting the trim/input/gain on the channel strip so that 0dBVU for that track equates to the maximum signal coming coming out of an analog mixer's channel when that channels' output fader is set to unity gain, and then setting the buss or main out faders so that the maximum signal level coming out of the mixer is around 0dBVU, this should result in buss/submix tracks coming through the converters (assuming they are also gain staged correctly) and into the digital "box" at somewhere around -16 to -18dBFS (give or take.)

That should hopefully make everybody happy. (I hope ).

G.

 

[Cyrokk]

Thanks for the clarification. I suspected those were the main points of confusion. I only use the computer as a multitracking unit for my analog mixer and I tend to forget that most people are probably mixing in the box.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I only use the computer as a multitracking unit for my analog mixer and I tend to forget that most people are probably mixing in the box.

Yep, and I think it often works the other way on this board too, where there is so much ITB stuff going on in the HR world that they make the assumption that's what every body else is always talking about, even when they use the word "mixer."

That's why those two little letter pairs ("VU" and "FS") are so important.

G.

 

[blueroommusic]

sorry to chime in so late, but I just wanted to add something...

every engineer does things their own way...some set faders at unity, and adjust the trim to set levels, some don't.

personally, I was under the impression that the whole idea of gain staging (at least on an analog console) centered around the fact that your VCA channel faders were set at unity, thus creating the least amount of resistance to the signal. When I have mixed on the big boys (SSL's, Neve's, Amek's, API's) this is the method that I always used.

If I wanted to automate gain, I would draw envelopes in PT, keeping the faders at unity.

correct me if i'm wrong about the VCA's though....