Mixing to Mastering Questions

[bluedaffy]

I am producing an album through every stage in the process, recording, mixing & mastering of the band I'm in. It just sounded like a fun project to try, and it really has turned out to be a blast. We are a jammy, funky, bluesy band and we don't really have a large fan-base but we thought it would be fun to get down these songs that we've written the past few years. So in case someone is going to throw down some "get it professionally done kid" I just wanted to make it clear that I'm doing this whole process to learn and have fun, commercial quality is not a big concern of ours .

Having said that, I have a couple newb questions.

1. When making sure the mix is ready for mastering, is one of these methods better?
A) The tracks are turned down so there is no clipping at the master fader set at 0.
or....
B) The tracks are turned up and the master is turned down to prevent clipping.

2. When initially recording the songs I experimented with different settings, some are at 44.1 and 24 bit, some are at 88.2 and 24 bit and some are 32 bit. How will this affect the mastering process? I'm working in Studio One Pro so the mastering suite is built in. Should I create the mastering project at the highest denominator (88.2 & 32 bit)?

Thanks

 

[Jay C]

I'm looking forward to reading some comments on this. also a newb here, i was under the impression that leaving your master at unity gain is the right thing to do. i'm sure i remember reading record at 24bit and export at 16bit. again i'll be following this tread to see what others have to say. this is a very helpful place.

 

[Massive Master]

1) It's much better form to make sure the master buss isn't clipping from the start. It really shouldn't even be close -- Although as long as the mix "naturally" doesn't clip (that is, no limiting or excessive buss compression), it's fine.

Proper calibration of the chains / proper recording levels = Rarely ever such a problem at any step.

Me? I'd bring the tracks down -- Although I wouldn't need to, because there wouldn't be any risk of clipping in the first place.

2) Sort of up to you... Word lengths aren't going to be an issue. Sample rates might. Assuming your upsampling is better than your downsampling, you could export at the higher rate. That said, that sort of hammers you into having to downsample everything at some point anyway...

i'm sure i remember reading record at 24bit and export at 16bit.

Everything at 24-bit until the actual production master is being authored. I even capture at 24-bit. The master EDL is in 24-bit. Only when a DDP or disc is about to be written is the file dithered to 16-bit.

 

[bluedaffy]

Thanks for the replies, especially on the clipping and track levels during the different stages. It helps a lot!