Newbie needs help mixing in Pro Tools!

[policenauts03]

Hey all, so I used my Mbox to record a friend's band this week with my Powerbook and Pro Tools LE. The prelimenary results were actually really surprising, it's definitely not studio quality, but much better than a lot of crappy recordings I've heard. I have a few questions as to how to make this sound as best as possible:

1. How can I get the final mix to be the same volume as all the other songs/mp3s on my computer?

2. What techniques can I use to make the drums sound... better?

3. Question 2, but with vocals (screaming).

4. What's the best way to make individual tracks louder and to find a good mix of sound? I've been just adding some gain, but I'm wondering if there is a better way.

5. Should I double certain tracks?

Thanks so much, sorry for the newbie questions!

 

[BrettB]

Wow.
It's not a problem you post newbie questions, but they are really .. vague. You can vrite books about every answer, so don't expect miracles. Lots of practise and reading to do! But I'll try to answer them quickly.

1. That's a job for the mastering. To make a final mix louder you can apply mastering effects on it, like a multiband compressor. Compressing your endmix gives you the ability to put everything louder without having clipping peaks. don't drown your dynamics though!

2. This is really to broad... What do you want, what is the genre, what are your experiences with your recordings now.. Listen to your favorite recordings, learn to listen, use your EQ on a correct way, gate when you have to (punchy bd snare..) and use tastevell verbs. Do a bit of a search, I'm not planning of typing 20 pages about it

3. Same as two Regarding screaming, I would say to use quite a lot of compression and even some slight analoge overdrive (the lo-fi plug in in Pro Tools works great for that, when used sparingly) might do the trick.

4. I really don't udnerstand what you are trying with this one. Do you mean your signal was to weak during recording?

5. Depends on genre.. heavy rock: double those guitars baby.

Hope I helped

Brett

 

[policenauts03]

Wow.
It's not a problem you post newbie questions, but they are really .. vague. You can vrite books about every answer, so don't expect miracles. Lots of practise and reading to do! But I'll try to answer them quickly.

1. That's a job for the mastering. To make a final mix louder you can apply mastering effects on it, like a multiband compressor. Compressing your endmix gives you the ability to put everything louder without having clipping peaks. don't drown your dynamics though!

2. This is really to broad... What do you want, what is the genre, what are your experiences with your recordings now.. Listen to your favorite recordings, learn to listen, use your EQ on a correct way, gate when you have to (punchy bd snare..) and use tastevell verbs. Do a bit of a search, I'm not planning of typing 20 pages about it

3. Same as two Regarding screaming, I would say to use quite a lot of compression and even some slight analoge overdrive (the lo-fi plug in in Pro Tools works great for that, when used sparingly) might do the trick.

4. I really don't udnerstand what you are trying with this one. Do you mean your signal was to weak during recording?

5. Depends on genre.. heavy rock: double those guitars baby.

Hope I helped

Brett

Hi Brett, thanks a lot for the response. Regarding question 4, yeah the signal was just a little weak during the recording so I was wondering how to make it louder to match up with the other tracks. So to master it, I would just select all the tracks, and apply a multiband compressor to it? Also, when I am using PT, how loud should the waveforms be, ideally? I've been having most of my tracks pretty loud, where it almost clips, and this seems to be working, because anything else and it's too soft in the mix... thanks again!