N Track recording levels

[rod swollen]

to be honest, i dont know anything about db's or dynamic range. when i record a track using n track, my personal scientific formula is made up of looking at the three colors on the view meters. red = bad, yellow = i hope its not too loud, and green = im safe but is it loud enough? i was wondering if anyone could shed some light on a more precise method of enterpreting sound levels. it becomes kind of difficult when you are trying to get two instruments, a vocal, and a drum machine to match levels and one is recorded slightly higher, leaving you to have to readjust on top of figuring out what level it should naturally be at.
what also bothers me is... say i finish recording a song which in my opinion is almost too loud, and after burning it playing it on my home cd player it is still much lower than any other cd that was proffesionally mixed. my only guess is that in a studio they can buff out all the high and low frequencies and still keep the high sound level.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

There's really no secret tricks to this or anything, you want to keep your levels as hot as possible without clipping. To set your levels, start wailing away as loud as you can, and adjust your gain until the VU meters are peaking just below the red. This should eliminate any chance of clipping, while maximizing the signal. A red flash every now and then often won't hurt anything, but it does indicate overflow and the sample(s) that went over 0db are now in error. If it's just a few samples you might not hear it and you can save the track. Any more than that and you get clipping, which in the digital realm means "really nasty sound."

When mixing, NEVER allow your VU meters to hit the red. In this case, there's no excuse for it because you can always turn down. Sometimes this can be a difficult task, especially when you're using a bunch of compressors. That is, depending on where you start your playback, you might get a peak in the red here and there, but when you play from the beginning you might not get any clip. It's basically a practice makes perfect type situation.

The rest of your question seems to relate specifically to mixing. Listen, you just asked the question, "how do I make a good mix." This is what we're all here for. There is so much to learn it is going to make your head explode. People spend entire lifetimes dedicated to creating better mixes. "Buffing out the high and low frequencies" is not what's going on, but certainly EQ is involved, and compression, and racks and racks full of various processors & effects.

Basically, there's no answer to your question. You'll have to be more specific. Try posing a mix to the clinic and you'll get plenty of specific advice.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Soulman13]

Rod,

The n-track help guide says to keep your levels peaked in and around -6 to -3. That's right about in the yellow(remember your traffic courses? Yellow is a warning, but still safe. Unless you are in Boston, in which case it means to punch it). Also remember you are in the digital domain, and with any decent wav editor you can take your track and give it a little boost.

As for your stuff vs. professiona CDs. The long and detailed answers are yours for the taking all around the BBS. The short answer is that the pros have gobs of gear, time, money and most importantly talent and experience in being able to ring every last drop of juice from a track/mix/master. But, before you try to learn those tricks, test your ear. Listen to Led Zeppelin III. Then pop in a modern album. You will notice the newer stuff is cut "hotter", but has less dynamics. There was a great discussion on this in one of the other boards. Go read it. Then read it again. Then listen to some music, and read it one more time. It'll all click in time.

 

[LI Slim]

I don't disagree with anything that's been said, but I think that when tracking with N-track it's safe to have your higher peaks at about 0 rather than -3. I think it actually has about 2 extra dBs of room, and that occasional brief clipping creates absolutely no distortion.

Don't worry about the relative volume of the tracks until you're close to ready to mix down; any eq or effects you're adding are going to affect the volume anyway.

After you're done with everything else, to bring up the overall volume, the last "link in the chain" would be a limiter. A limiter is like a specially designed compressor (a regular compressor will NOT work for this) that squashes down all the peaks while bringing up everything else. You just have to be careful not to overdo it or you'll lose all your dynamics and "space". N-track does not make a limiter, so you'll need to get the plug-in somewhere else. I got it from db-Audioware http://www.db-audioware.com/ -- it's inexpensive and it works great. I also think that their compressor is better than N-track's compressor. They have like four different plug-ins, including the limiter and compressor, that cost, as I recall, $39 each or $99 for all four.