Public Mix Contest #12!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Bubba...What a limiter will do is, obviously, LIMIT the volume of a partical signal. So, in other words, the loudest parts of that signal will not go past a certain threshold. Then, by using what's called "make up" gain, you turn up the WHOLE signal. Thus, the lowest parts of that signal become louder. And since we limited the loudest parts of that signal, the lowest and loudest parts are now closer together (less dynamics). We can now turn up the whole signal, thus making it louder, while avoiding clipping (since we limited the loudest part of that signal). That's why people use the term "squashed" when reffering to a very heavily limited sugnal. We squashed it by making the lower volume part of that signal closer to the higher volume part of it.
That's the best I can come up with.
 
bigbubba said:
ecktronic - So by giving a negative value the limiter will first make the sound louder and then limit it at a specified place? I've heard what you said before also but I don't quite understand how a "limiter" instead of "limiting" is actually bring "up" the volume. - Thanks.
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Because a limiter has makeup gain. Once you limit the dynamic range of the track, then you bring up the level of the track. Loud parts are loud again, and soft parts are louder than they were before.

If you're not familiar with basic concepts of limiting, I would avoid it for this contest. You will screw up your mix bad. Just work on a clean mix with no clipping, use mild compression (low ratios) on the drums and bass. That will be a better learning experience than trying to max RMS on everything.

My power supply to my amp is down today while I look for a bad component, but I'll listen to your mix hopefully tomorrow. :(

While I can't hear your mixes right now, v4 looks much better than v2. Now that you have restored sanity, try compressing the drums, which are responsible for all those peaks way above the rest of the instruments. The drums should still peak (but not clip!), but the peaks should be more even. If you don't feel like the drums are loud enough, then you are either a drummer ;) or you need to work with EQ.

Sorry I can't hear your mix, this is really less than an ideal review :(
 
bigbubba said:
Ok, I have another version up and available. This one was a little more carefully planned. And therefore is less louder.

about 2.0db clipping on snares (max) and about 0.5db clipping on kick (max). Nothing else clips.

And still the snare sounds like it's not loud enough. The kick sounds like it's not loud enough but in some places sounds just fine.

Please let me know guys what you all think of this effort. :) Thanks.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1299
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Nothing should be clipping EVER!
Why not place a limiter on the kik and snare so they dont clip, or bring the master volume down?
 
RAMI said:
Bubba...What a limiter will do is, obviously, LIMIT the volume of a partical signal. So, in other words, the loudest parts of that signal will not go past a certain threshold. Then, by using what's called "make up" gain, you turn up the WHOLE signal. Thus, the lowest parts of that signal become louder. And since we limited the loudest parts of that signal, the lowest and loudest parts are now closer together (less dynamics). We can now turn up the whole signal, thus making it louder, while avoiding clipping (since we limited the loudest part of that signal). That's why people use the term "squashed" when reffering to a very heavily limited sugnal. We squashed it by making the lower volume part of that signal closer to the higher volume part of it.
That's the best I can come up with.
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Well it beats the crap out of my explanation anyway!
Eck
 
ecktronic said:
Nothing should be clipping EVER!
Why not place a limiter on the kik and snare so they dont clip, or bring the master volume down?
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What I did was to send everything to pretty much it's own bus. Except that I sent "all snares" to the snare bus. Well since multiple tracks contain snare as the predominant element and together they would clip at the bus. So I sent the loudest one to a different bus and now it doesn't clip. . Also it gives the choice of EQ'ing them differently and getting a nice derivative sound.

Now only the main clips by about 1.4db (left) and 0.xdb (right). I gotta fix that. Then we see how good I EQ'd out the space for different elements.

In all honestly, if I was playing live all I would care about was that a "band" was around banging their heads on the beat. If I could only hear my guitar(s) and little bass and an occassional cymbal, I would be jamming as if nothing was wrong with the combined sound. Who cares about a public that isn't there to listen to my b*tching solos. :)
 
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bigbubba said:
What I did was to send everything to pretty much it's own bus. Except that I sent "all snares" to the snare bus. Well since multiple tracks contain snare as the predominant element and together they would clip at the bus. So I sent the loudest one to a different bus and now it doesn't clip. . Also it gives the choice of EQ'ing them differently and getting a nice derivative sound.

Now only the main clips by about 1.4db (left) and 0.xdb (right). I gotta fix that. Then we see how good I EQ'd out the space for different elements.

In all honestly, if I was playing live all I would care about was that a "band" was around banging their heads on the beat. If I could only hear my guitar(s) and little bass and an occassional cymbal, I would be jamming as if nothing was wrong with the combined sound. Who cares about a public that isn't there to listen to my b*tching solos. :)
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Dont get why you have a bus for every track. It cant be simpler to get no clipping. Place a limiter on the kik, snare and tom tracks! No 48 busses needed!
Yeah any time.
 
Ok, another try. That's it for today I think. I'll give my ears a break before resuming work on this. What do you guys think. Oh, and I added the vox minus the growls. :) See how this sounds.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1302

mshilarious, ecktronic, Llarion, RAMI, , and all others:
Thanks all for all your help and helpful information bits. I'm learning quite a bit already. Kind of excited to record something new now. :)
 
ecktronic said:
Dont get why you have a bus for every track. It cant be simpler to get no clipping. Place a limiter on the kik, snare and tom tracks! No 48 busses needed!
Yeah any time.
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I started off putting all kicks into a bus. All snares into another bus. And all cymbals and hats into a third bus. And it made it really easy to apply general rules like EQ's and reverbs and so on. Also with 3 FX going into a bus you only see one block at the bottom of the FX window. Other wise you'll see 60 FX blocks or something. The project started out this way.

Now in ACID Pro 4, I generally don't use the same FX for more than either one instrument or instruments of one kind. Otherwise it will give me weird and sometimes noisy results. Also no two instruments thru the same FX if they're playing simultaneously or else it will give me extra noise that will be very annoying without being too audible. Took me a while to determine this initially.

So you see busses were not added just for the kick compression but also for all effect that will be applied to an instrument. :D I am so smart! S.M.R.T smart! - At the moment I have 19 busses. Sounds like a lot to me, to be serious for a minute about the point your brought up. :)
 
JazzMang, I like it. Interesting how it sounds with the growls and all. I left those out.

Interesting FX on the guitars. Very interesting sound from 0:44 to 00:58 where the guitars are double with another sound. A lot louder than mine, it seems. :)
 
bigbubba said:
JazzMang, I like it. Interesting how it sounds with the growls and all. I left those out.

Interesting FX on the guitars. Very interesting sound from 0:44 to 00:58 where the guitars are double with another sound. A lot louder than mine, it seems. :)
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thanks for listening to it, and thanks for the comments.

I still need to make it a bit clearer, and bring make the toms more consistant with some smooth compression.

I am listening to yours right now.
 
bigbubba said:
Thanks all for all your help and helpful information bits. I'm learning quite a bit already. Kind of excited to record something new now. :)
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Regarding bussing and mixing--it doesn't necessarily help to create submixes that don't clip, because the final mix could still clip. If you have two identical snare tracks, for example, and they are both -1dB, and you send those along with a bunch of unrelated tracks to two different busses, maybe those two busses are each still -1dB peak. But when you mix those together, those snare hits line up and are suddenly +2dB.
 
Ok, I listened to yours, bubba.
I think the kick could benefit from some low-mid cut and more click on the attack. Also, some compression on the kick couldn't hurt.

Snare sounds quite good, but might benefit slightly from a high-pass filter.

I really dig the creative musical style you've taken in this song. I would bring the vocals out more, whether by a simple volume increase and some compression, or, if you want to go a different route, by some innovative panning and thickening.

In the solo panning guitar sections, I would slow your panned fades a little bit. You want it to sound like a smooth aggression once the guitars pan from just one channel to being stereo again.

just my 2 cents.

Good job!
 
i used some busses to help keep my sanity :D

i ran each type of instrument into a bus..
with the drums i grouped them by drum and then again into a "Drums" group channel fader to control the overall drum level
 
mshilarious said:
Regarding bussing and mixing--it doesn't necessarily help to create submixes that don't clip, because the final mix could still clip. If you have two identical snare tracks, for example, and they are both -1dB, and you send those along with a bunch of unrelated tracks to two different busses, maybe those two busses are each still -1dB peak. But when you mix those together, those snare hits line up and are suddenly +2dB.
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But as long as the master mix doesn't show clipping, I'm thinking it's alright. Is that true?

JazzMang - I'm gonna use your suggestions on the mix next. I think the kick and snare are going to benefit from your suggestions. Also the panning is probably going to benefit. Currently I'm doing the panning blind basically. My home theater system doesn't lend well to hard pans. Stupid Walmart brand.

Regarding the vocals, I actually wanted to lower them to a "barely present" level. I wanted it loud enough to be intelligible (that's a word, right?) to the listener.

Right now my ears don't know left from right 'coz I've played song over and over about a good 50-80 times since morning. So mixing resumes tomorrow. :)

Thanks again, all.
 
bigbubba said:
But as long as the master mix doesn't show clipping, I'm thinking it's alright. Is that true?
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Yes, if the meter is fast & accurate!

PS Bussing the drums together is a sensible use of a bus, I was just reacting to splitting similar tracks to different busses solely to avoid clipping. That's just deferring the issue.
 
bigbubba said:
Ok, another try. That's it for today I think. I'll give my ears a break before resuming work on this. What do you guys think. Oh, and I added the vox minus the growls. :) See how this sounds.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1302

mshilarious, ecktronic, Llarion, RAMI, , and all others:
Thanks all for all your help and helpful information bits. I'm learning quite a bit already. Kind of excited to record something new now. :)
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My pleasure. As I said in Rami's thread; I make no pretense at being an expert, but everyone who has done this for awhile has valuable things to share! :)
 
mshilarious said:
Yes, if the meter is fast & accurate!

PS Bussing the drums together is a sensible use of a bus, I was just reacting to splitting similar tracks to different busses solely to avoid clipping. That's just deferring the issue.
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Agreed, but I think it's an innovative way to help keep your mind wrapped around so many tracks when you're trying to learn... It might make the clipping easier to spot/hear/manage for the inexperienced, perhpas...

Never would have occurred to me to do that. See? I learned something today, cool! :)
 
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