Help?

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pikupsoldier

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Im not completely sure if this is the right section to post in, but anyway.

Im able to achieve a nice fat cracking snare while mixing but when im mastering the mix, it just gets lost in the mix and the 'crack' or the fat sound goes completely and I have this stupid trash can sounding lifeless snare:(. Now i know the probable explanation is my snare peaks too much and the limiters shave off what Im looking for, but i dont really know how to go about this to solve it.

My mix peaks around -3.5db and I run it through the waves L2 + L3 Multimaximiser after all the indvidual compressors/eqs/blah blah. Im a n00b still so I need all the mixing mastering advice possible.

I also read somewhere, it could be that my guitar tracks are coming in the snares way and i should knock off those frequencies from my guitar tracks. Is this right? If yes, how to go about it? (put a frequency analyzer?where? how?:confused:)

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated..Thanks!

P.S : I compress the snare parallely, eq and a transient plugin. Oh and the genre is Metal so I need a fat crack snare sound.

P.P.S : Im a n00b, please explain in detail. :D
 
When you say you can get a good sound while mixing, are you getting your sound solo'd or while it's in the mix?
 
What i meant was, the mix sounds good and all that but when i proceed to master it (includes the loudness wars:p..well not that loud but something you wont have to reach out and turn up your volume if you were listening to music on your player/car), the crack of the snare just goes out completely.

Yeah, the snare does sound fat and cracking in the mix.
 
The L2 and L3 and many other BW limiters eat snares and many other transient sounds once you go for any gain reduction over 1db. This is good to listen for if you do equal loudness a/b before and after the limiter. The crack of the snare and attack of the kick drum disappear if you limit to much. If I use a limiter, I rarely go for more than one db of gain reduction and usually go for bit's of level from other places including the analog chain.
 
Thanks for the help Tom, appreciate it.

Ill remember the advice on the limiter usage. What do you think i should do to get the mix to be averagely loud?(though the average has gone real high these days!) Compress everything to get it louder? As Ive read and experienced, it kinda kills the dynamics too much and also, my meters start to peak a crap load over 0db. Any advice on how to go about this?

P.S : It'd be great if the other senior members gave their advice as well..
 
I'd recommend twp things:

- don't try to push your mix any harder than it wants to go; at some point you'll start sacrificing quality for loudness, whether you like it or not. You gotta decide for yourself how much of one you want to give up for the other.

- you can often push that breaking point higher by taking smaller bites; i.e. don't just try slamming everything against the wall at once, but instead increase the volume in stages by adding a *little* compression, then adjusting eq *if* necessary to get rid of any adverse sounds that the compression emphasizes. Repeat if necessary until you get to the point where as a final stage you are only limiting a dB or two as Tom describes.

G.
 
I've gotten around that a different way and I too used the L2 trying out -3, -5, -7 threshold settings.
(I prefer the sound of the lower, -3 setting).

Anyway...before I ever got to the mastering and applying any L2...I already lowered the individual peak levels on a note/hit basis...manually...in the DAW.
Doing that allows me to keep the *crack* while lowering the level of the *crack*....but it is a very tedious and time consuming process.
Then...when I run the L2...it doesn't eat up all my *crack/punch*.
 
isn't a mix at -3 before mastering a bit too hot? That's not a lot of headroom (assuming your recordings are computer-based....)
 
i think you missunderstood glenn here

he was saying in stages like wen ur mix is done you eq then use the L2. then try some compression then a lil more of the L2. then some more eq to mayb get more into your track the a lil more L2 (hopefully im on theright path here with u glenn).

your master should sound nice and full because you used the L2 in stages as you went along thus your output should be nice loud and full as well as keeping your snare cracking til you get ear fatigue lol
 
joeym said:
isn't a mix at -3 before mastering a bit too hot? That's not a lot of headroom (assuming your recordings are computer-based....)
Click to expand...

Not really.

Only when you hit "OVER" is it too hot for digital. :)

The "threshold" setting of -3 is only letting the L2 react on peaks that cross over that, and the L2 prevents anything from ever hitting "0" or "OVER"...it's just a question of how much the L2 going to compress the peaks and expand the rest of the content toward the maximum.

So...with my mixes, I only have occasional peaks crossing the -3 threshold, which means the L2 will not be too aggressive. If I lowered the L2 threshold to -10 or less....then the L2 would be aggressively acting on just about everything.
 
joeym said:
isn't a mix at -3 before mastering a bit too hot? That's not a lot of headroom (assuming your recordings are computer-based....)
Click to expand...
Well, peaks at -3 aren't unheard of. It's maybe a little higher than "average", but if the recordings have a large crest factor, -3 is not unheard of.

Though for metal, which the OP is working with, yeah, -3 is probably a bit high for the pre-master mix, because there's probably not going to be a lot of crest there.

And this could possibly (though not certainly) be an indicator of a root problem behind his mastering woes; if he has the gain structure running too hot somewhere in the tracking and mixing, that can be adding a lot of mud to the mix that may not rear it's ugly head until the smashing.
illsoulprod said:
he was saying in stages like wen ur mix is done you eq then use the L2. then try some compression then a lil more of the L2. then some more eq to mayb get more into your track the a lil more L2 (hopefully im on theright path here with u glenn).
Click to expand...
Yes and no. You have the staging thing down fine, but I don't know that I'd brick wall limit with an L2 or similar in the intermediate stages. I'm talking more gentle compression in stages with a more natural compressor, something like an LA-2A or PRO VLA (or similar-acting plug), and saving the brick wall until the very end, instead of limiting hard in one leap

That's just one approach. IMHO YMMV UCLA ETC.

G.
 
Thank you all for replying!

Yes im doing it all digitally and the mix peaks at -3.5 after compression on the drums and its the snare which is cause it to peak so high. Cause if I mute the snare, its quite a bit lesser. (dont remember the exact value)
Maybe Im mixing the snare wrong to get the fat crack sound?

(n00b alert)
Today, I also put the entire kit onto a separate bus and compressed that slightly as well which did fatten the sound but the same snare peaking issues remain. If I bring the snare volume down too much, it gets lost in the mix completely.

I know its stupid to ask so much without any of you being able to hear what Im actually doing but any help/techniques are welcome.
 
the obvious answer my friend...

keep the volume levels the same and just bring the volume levels of every thing down at the same time. if ur using pro tools click the "all" button in the group window and bring all the faders down till ur mix levels are lower to ur standards. mastering can always retain your mix and snare sound u wanted :D
 
pikupsoldier said:
I know its stupid to ask so much without any of you being able to hear what Im actually doing but any help/techniques are welcome.
Click to expand...
May I suggest a technique that you don't already believe is stupid?

Go to the MP3 clinic and have the school nurses there have a look at your mix.

G.
 
just use compression with a slow attack instead of limiting. done.
 
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