mixing down

[westg8]

I am currently learning about pc recording so my band can record a few songs. We recorded one already using Cool Edit Pro. In the multitrack view, all the tracks are all below the peak. However, when i mix all of these tracks down, virtually the entire wave form is hitting the peak? Can anyone tell me how i can fix this or what i'm doin wrong? This was just a trial recording, so we can just record the song again if necessary. Any help would be appreciated.

Here is a link to picture of how the mix down looks if that would help: http://www.squirt.webprovider.com/images/cooledit.gif (this might not work)

 

[drstawl]

Yeah- it looks mighty clipped; how did it sound?
How many tracks? And how far below the peak? Digital mixing is an additive process so the more tracks you have the lower each one has to be to get the mixdown within the 0 dB max.
You have to especially watch for peaks that occur on multiple tracks at the same time. For instance a drum hit that is timed to coincide exactly with a bass note, a guitar chord and a hard vocal consonant.
Each one might be 10 dB off the peak on its own track and still clip the mixdown horribly.
For editorial accuracy I just did this in Vegas Pro. I took a stereo track that was pretty nicely normalized to 0 dB and duped it three times. I lowered the volume of each to -10 dB and mixed down the four stereo pairs to one and it still clipped, despite the fact that each one was far from the peak on its own. Of course this is somewhat of an exaggeration of the effect I'm talking about because these were exact copies of each other instead of separate instruments on 4 tracks, but the basic idea is the same.
Just keep lowering the volume on the individual tracks until the mix doesn't clip.

 

[westg8]

Thanks for the advice. I tried it and it looks a lot better. Now, to normalize, should i go to 100% ? I heard that this isn't a good thing, and, if anything, you should make it quieter. But the current wave form is already really soft, even when normalizing to 100%. And i still hear little clicks (this might be my speakers too) Any suggestions or comments? Thanks again.

fyi, i had about 6 tracks going all throughout the song, and one used at a certain 20 sec increment