preparing for master

[James HE]

How close to zero can/should I push the meters on mix considering that there will be matering done and mixing to .wav files? How should I mix with the final master in mind? For instance, I'm working with Cubase, should I simply turn down the master fader to where there are no peaks throughout the song, increasing the level and add compression in mastering? Should I be compressing the mix any? Or maybe ride the master fader a bit? I have simply plugged in Waves RCL on the master buss, just turning the defalt setting on to get the limitimg. The limiting did work, I didn't have to squash the volume. But I wonder if I should not use ant effect on the master buss at all.

I may be mastering the project myself, or it will be sent elsewhere, Depends on what kind of budget the band come up with.

-jhe

 

[Shailat]

If your sending it to a mastering house then don't compress and leave the peaks
about -6 and -3dB.

If you tend on doing it yourself then compress lightly using a 1.2:1-3:1 ratio
with a Threshold around 20-3-dB below the peak of your mix.
If you have RMS, then use it and not peak mode.
If you have a stereo link button use it as well.
Try to set a fast attack around 15-25ms and a slow release time of 1-2 sec.

If you have compressed but still feel a need for more then compress again lightly. DONT compress once using a high ration. It is smoother to compress twice using a light compression.

As for Freq related compression, I would need to hear to give any advice.

You can use a limiter to make your signal hotter.

All this said and done IMHO better to send it to a mastering house if you can come up with the cash. These home tips are just that - "HOME Tips"......

You could send Ed an email as he has done for several people on the BBS some mastering work and could very well give you a price that could fit your budget.

 

[James HE]

Thanks Shailat!

The "budget" isn't mine, I'm doing my first project for someone else. They will be deciding who gets the mastering chores, I'd rather not do it, cuz I don't know what I'm doing for mastering really, and I'd be doing it basically for free .

"If your sending it to a mastering house then don't compress and leave the peaks about -6 and -3dB."

Isn't there a point where I don't want the average to be though? I weary of my average being like -12 just cuz of some freak transient from the snare (which is what is happening) and compressing/ limiting the snare kills the snare sound. Maybe I'll try some multiband compression on the snare, If I can find that freak transient! It's like the snare dosen't seem any louder, but the meter just absolutly peaks on a few hit's! Can I get away with having just one or two peaks in the red? On some of the mixes I've done that is happening, but I don't notice any clipping when I play the mix back. It sounds good, but I know it hit's zero so therefore it's not. Or is it?

back to the mixing board... err...... DAW

-jhe

 

[Shailat]

I hope I understand your problem.
Are you saying that the total (master fader) tracks are low but the snare has high peaks and so when you compress hard to bring up the tracks, your snare is killed ?

Have you compressed the snare in the mix? if so you should be able to control it with out losing it's power. Are you letting the initial attack of the snare through before the compression starts ?


My first question is how do you know what the average is.

Second -I'm pretty sure you are have a wrong mixing concept there.
If you have several tracks with energy and the faders up you will clip
so were has your energy gone? Why are your total tracks so weak.

If the faders are down due to a blend you might want to hear, you are most probably making a mixing mistake. It could be anything from compression to eq to many other things.

Third - If you want you can send me in snail mail a CD with your song on Cubase and I'll take a look. (This would take up to a week and a half)

 

[James HE]

hmmm...

The sound of this particular snare is very tricky to deal with. He used a piccolo snare with a marching snare drum head, the head is cranked and so are the snares, so it's like a big "thak" and not a "thwack", sometimes it sounds good, sometimes it's a big turd. I was working on the mixes today and got it worked out a bit. I have four drum tracks, kick, snare, and a stereo mix of the overhead and close toms. The kick and snare go to a buss, the stereo mix to a different buss with a stereo eq and that is sent to the buss with the kick and snare. I am compressing the snare on the channel insert already quite a bit. The snare is very dynamic, it's either barly audible or it's quite loud, so I have a lot of makeup gain on the snare compressor like 6db in order to get the quiter passages up to level, on the loud hits it hits the limiter quite hard, one hit it will be killer, very in your face and powerfull, the next hit it's a big pop and absolutely slams the limiter. I've tried to compensate by turning down the fader on those hits, but that isn't a good solution, it still sound like turds cuz it's slamming the limiter too hard. hmmm... explaning my own problem I see a solution... I need to turn down the volume on those hits in the audio editor using the dynamic lane pointer thingys... go right to the source instead of piling on compressors.

I think I can get that problem worked out, I just need to chase my tail some more. (and not be so lazy about it) For what these guys are paying me, I should'nt be concerned with all these little minute details, but I defintly don't want the product (the first out of my studio) to sound like shite!

I'm still not so sure where my average level should be. how low is too low?

-jhe

 

[Emeric]

Why not just zoom in on the snare track, highlight the one or two hits that peak and reduce the gain on it via software or cut/paste a better drum hit for those parts.

 

[Shailat]

To be honest James,
That kind of snare is very hard to work with. I wouldn't call it a sucssefully played snare....

Emeric gave the best suggetion.

If you know how to midi gate -trigger a new samlpe youre even better off.
If you can achive a more strudy snare, then you will be able to compress with results.

You might try to compress with a slow attack and let more snare get through

 

[James HE]

yeah that damn snare... the snare is quirky at best, the cymbals he was using were horrible too, all he had was a spash and a torn crash, and a decent china. That slpash has been another problem, it's soo much louder than the other cymbals and it's used way too much (he now has better cymbals, but whats done is done) Live and learn.. I would have miced the kit differently if I had seen that I was going to have problems.

On some of the tracks I went through and added sort of a "triggered" snare track. I gated the original snare track, played it back through a speaker that was placed on top of a different snare, miced the bottom, and recorded that. There really isn't a "snare" sound on the originals, so it's nice to have that to add in.

I guess I just have to realize that it's not going to sound the way i'd like it to really...

-jhe

 

[scraggs]

Hey, I have a related question for you guys:

My current project was recorded to 1/2" analog. Rather than mixdown to 2 track as I have in the past, I transferred all the tracks into my computer using Cubase. Since I don't find Cubase all that friendly, i then reassemble all the tracks in a "montage" in Wavelab. Works great, everything's lined up perfect, and it's a lot easier to edit in Wavelab than Cubase. My question is this: because I try to transfer everything into the computer as hot as possible, once everythings' reassembled, the peaks are at about +6, so I have to reduce the volume somewhere. Either I lower the volumes of all the tracks and leave the master fader at zero, or vice versa: leave all the tracks around zero (wherever the balance seems right) and drop the master fader 6 or 7 db. Is there any quality difference to either approach? I'm of course not using the DSP to change the gain of anything, just adjusting the volume envelopes. Everything is at 44.1/24 bit, and like James said, stuff will be peaking all the time and it sounds fine. If I was going to master it myself this would be no problem because I could just run the "montage" thru the limiter to take care of the peaks, but I really wanna get it mastered for real. Just don't wanna pay for it
Thanks a bunch
-scraggs