What am I not doing?

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Fims

Fims

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Whenever I mixdown my songs they end up looking like this.
350pdw7.webp
http://i49.tinypic.com/350pdw7.jpg

The Kick and the snare peak way more than the other instruments.


Now I understand that a peaking meter shows peaks of a certain sound while the RMS meter shows the average level of a sound.

So lets say i have a kick thats RMS is at -6db in Ableton, but peaking a 4db or something. How do I eliminate the peaking or control it? Compression? Limiting?

Here's the song im working on.


https://soundcloud.com/wishful-sinking/2n


Again... I'm completely lost because in Ableton I never let the drums go past -6db but they peak at 4db when i'm looking at the peaking meter.
 
I listened for only a few seconds, but yeah, I would turn the kick and snare down.
 
What they're saying, Fims, is you mix with your ears, not your eyes....

And if things are too loud in the mix, you turn them down.
 
Fims said:
So lets say i have a kick thats RMS is at -6db in Ableton, but peaking a 4dbr.
Click to expand...
I know you're just throwing out a "for example", but I really hope you don't have anything averaging -6 and peaking at 4db.Turn everything down about 10db if you are.
 
I listened to the track and I think you want the kick and snare to be fairly dominant, I would lower the kick and snare track and use compression to bring them forward in the mix, Thats what I do when I want a dominant snare and kick without eating up headroom, also proper eq might do the trick. And as Rami says nothing should be averaging -6db. If it is then turn it down. The GENERAL level I aim for on my drum bus is anywhere between -14db to -9db, these are peak levels and thats after compression and eq, So try and send all your drum tracks to a drum bus after you process them individually and then set the level using the bus fader to somewhere between -14db and -9db then bring the other instruments in relative to the drum bus. Then when all your tracks are playing make sure your master level doesn't PEAK over -6db. Hope that mite help.
 
You can tell just by looking at it that a percussion instrument is overpowering the song. Lower the offending percussion instrument a bit and then raise everything else some. That big bass punch sound is done in mastering.
 
Hey Fims, I havent listen to the track and I know everyone else has given good and correct information my take is more what massive said "what does it sound like". Fims and all other young eng's mixing is not just levels, panning, and "by the book" techniques. ALOT I repeat ALOT of engineering is being AN ARTIST! Yep being creative. We are artist just with nobs & faders sometimes what we feel, what we hear, what we are trying to bring out WILL NOT BE BY THE BOOK! Thats what makes our job exciting thats what keeps up us new and reinventing our world of engineering. So by all means learn the by the book techniques but please do not be afraid to be creative and jus fucked it up sometime you might just invent a master piece.
 
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Big Label Sound said:
You can tell just by looking at it that a percussion instrument is overpowering the song. Lower the offending percussion instrument a bit and then raise everything else some. That big bass punch sound is done in mastering.
Click to expand...
I don't mean to wholeheartedly disagree with this, but I have to wholeheartedly disagree with this.

You *can* assume by looking at it that the percussion is much louder than everything else -- But if that's the way the mix is supposed to sound ("how does it SOUND?"), then it sounds exactly how it's supposed to. And (again, IMO/E) that "big bass punch" shouldn't wait for the mastering phase...
 
Massive Master said:
I don't mean to wholeheartedly disagree with this, but I have to wholeheartedly disagree with this.

You *can* assume by looking at it that the percussion is much louder than everything else -- But if that's the way the mix is supposed to sound ("how does it SOUND?"), then it sounds exactly how it's supposed to. And (again, IMO/E) that "big bass punch" shouldn't wait for the mastering phase...
Click to expand...

I wholeheartedly agree with this, You can't assume anything by looking at a wav file, hell what if its a jazz song with sax as lead striking a loud one note :eek:
Relying on mastering for bass punch is not accurate at all. Only thing mastering is going to do is make louder whatever was in the mix. So if you dont have punch in your bass in the mix you won't have it in the master.

(Lol, sorry just the funniest thing when several people are giving constructive feedback on a post and a statement comes in from someone that is basically "piggy backing" the previous *correct* comments but their own comment is WAY OFF! & in correct LMAO the guy makes a blonde statement and everyone goes LMAO
 
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