Manual spike knock down

[PhilM]

Is runing along and knocking down a half dozen
or so big spikes by hand normal procedure, whether done before compression, after compression(missed spikes),
or if not using compression at all.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Define "normal procedure"

From what I can gather around here, there's not a whole lot of folks who do it.

Me personaly, though, I do it quite regularly, though every time I've mentioned it on here I've gotten a lot of the Internet's equivalent of "you gotta be crazy" looks from a lot of people . They just haven't tried it yet, I think...anything that can't be done by a cheap plugin is too much work for a lot of folks.

I don't often do it on individual tracks, but I find it very useful to apply to the mixdown. When done right it's completly colorless, and it's great for knocking down the most blatent of transients before applying compression. The result is that the compressor doesn't have to work as hard (you can set a smaller ratio) and doesn't artifact the sound as much. In fact, on some denser mixes with just a handful of nasty spikes it sometimes can obviate the need for compression altogether, though that only happens when the base tracks are pretty tamed to begin with.

G.

 

[PhilM]

Good!, cause I do it heaps, makes perfect sence to me.
Just wasn't sure if there was some hidden wrong in
doing it.

 

[PhilM]

Here's another one!
I tried to make it a seperate post but this forum won't
let me. It keeps telling me I've made a duplicate post
within 5 minutes, but I haven't. It's a different post and
it's been many hours since my last post.

Anyhow here tis.........

Good RMS on every track?

Should I be trying to get a good average RMS on every track no matter what it is.
I read that -10 or -11 is supposed to be the go.

Should I be "really" striving to get that Hi Hat track to -10,
or just the main focus tracks, say vocals and lead guitar.
Bass seems to be there in abundance even it is low av RMS.

Thanks

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Should I be trying to get a good average RMS on every track no matter what it is.
I read that -10 or -11 is supposed to be the go.

Phil,

This is the probably THE hot button issue on this board...and probably the most widely misunderstood (along with the related subject of compression in general.)

Just like with the EQ, *numbers* are all relative and dependant upon circumstances. How tight you can and should squish a mix to boost the RMS depends entirely upon the content of the music itself.

If you have an angst pagan metal recording that's 90% Gibson electric guitars with distortion sustained and feeding back ad nauseum, you are going to have two things going for you there. First it will be a "dense" recording (not a lot of white space or consistant lower amplitudes in the waveform) which by it's nature will be much easier to squeeze up to -10dBRMS. Second, that kind of music sounds better squeezed tight than many other types of music because it's more about the quantity of sound than it is about the quality of sound.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you have an orchestra performing Beethoven's Fifth, dynamics and pacing are as much a part of the composition as the notes themselves. It would be extremely difficult to squeeze anything even close to -10dBRMS out of that recording because of all the quiet passages dragging the RMS average down. And even if you did, it would sound absolutely horrible, practically unlistenable with all the dynamics squeezed out of it like blood out of a stone.

I do a lot of soul-pop, rock, jazz and blues stuff, and most of that stuff seems to hit a sweet spot for me in the -16 to -14dBRMS range (give or take a dB amongst friends ). But I try not to intentionally target a number when I start my mastering; I let the music and the recording dictate it for me.

The bottom line again and always is use your ears. Of course you want to get the maximum volume out of your recording, but you want to draw the line at the point when the sound quality starts going down. If you can hear the compression, you probably have too much.

G.

 

[mshilarious]

I use volume envelopes on peaks all the time. The RMS idea on individual tracks sounds like a really terrible idea. The various instruments will have very different peak-to-RMS levels--guitars will be usually be louder than drums, vocals will have long blank sections (which should be muted anyway), etc. But most important is that individual tracks should not peak at 0dBFS, that's just asking for overs during mixdown.

I wouldn't even look at RMS during tracking.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Yeah, mshilarious got something out of your question that I kinda missed. mshilarious is absolutely correct that looking at RMS on individual tracks is meaningless. It's only on the stereo mixdown that it has any real meaning, and even then, like I say, the meaning is only within the context of the content of the mixdown.

Good catch mshilarious.

G.

 

[DM1]

Should I be trying to get a good average RMS on every track no matter what it is.
I read that -10 or -11 is supposed to be the go.

That suggestion is usually offered in the context of the final mix.

For the individual tracks, you have two levels to consider: The input signal, and the track's output volume.

Your main concern with the input is that you get the signal hot enough that your equipment's noise floor isn't an issue, but not so hot that you're clipping. Don't aim for a specific RMS, though. Just make sure the loudest sound likely to come from the input won't clip.

Assuming you're working in 24 bit, once you've have the signal recorded, the output level of the individual tracks is irrelevent. You can mix with your peaks at -30dB if you want. As long as the mix sounds right, just use compression and gain on the final bus to bring the level up to -12dB.

 

[PhilM]

I use volume envelopes on peaks all the time.

What a volume envelope?

Right, that's some great answers there folks, thanks a
million.

That suggestion is usually offered in the context of the final mix:: just use compression and gain on the final bus to bring the level up to -12dB.

The following is an almost complete novice statement,
so please adjust your Television........

But wouldn't a little bit of ( individual, as in a suitable style of compression) gain on each track, work better than a big compression and gain on the final mix.
In as much as, the mix compress wouldn't need to be
so severe, and also, the individual track presence would
be greater. Remember, a novice statement

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What a volume envelope?

A "volume envelope" like mshilarious describes refers to a "rubber band-style" control in audio editing software that basically works like fader automation for each track. Search in your software help files for track volume, track automation, or track envelopes for details on how that works.

Mshilarious is describing just one of several methods that could be used to knock down peaks. No one method is necessarily superior to another; this is just one of those instances where there are several ways to skin that cat. So if you're knocking down your peaks a different way - say by highlighting the peak and then applying negative volume, or by re-drawing the peak with a pencil control - don't worry about it; they're all good.

But wouldn't a little bit of ( individual, as in a suitable style of compression) gain on each track, work better than a big compression and gain on the final mix.
In as much as, the mix compress wouldn't need to be
so severe, and also, the individual track presence would
be greater. Remember, a novice statement

Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with applying a little compression on individual instruments or tracks, it's done all the time.

However, the RMS measurement of the individual tracks is really quite unimportant. By the time you have set/reset track playback volumes, used volume automation envelopes (as described above) for mixing, applied other processing like EQ or reverb, and mixed goodness knows how many tracks together, any single track's original individual RMS measurement before mixing is totally lost.

G.