Need help with finishing touches on my tracks

M

mattkw80

New member
I used Adobe Audition with a M-Audio MobilePre. (Which works great). I am new to home recording but I am devoting as much time to it as possible, as I know practice is the only way to get better.

Anyway, what I need to know is : Once my tracks are all recorded, mixed to my liking, and I do a "mixdown" what is the usual routine after that ?

I have been :

1. Adding a bit of reverb to the mixdown
2. Doing my amplify/fade in and fade outs
3. Amplify / Hardlimiting to -3 db
4. Saving my finished track as "songtitle.wav" (PCM wave file)

I have recorded many songs and saved them in a folder to eventually put on a lo-fi home recorded album.

My biggest question is : Is there something else I should be doing after mixdown than the 4 things I listed.

Any filters I should run ?
Mastering ?
ANYTHING ?

Please Help
 
1. Adding a bit of reverb to the mixdown
sure...but, only if it needs it...
2. Doing my amplify/fade in and fade outs
sure...why not......
3. Amplify / Hardlimiting to -3 db
ummm...no.....that's too low....try -.25 db...get the loudest mix you possiblly can without clipping...
4. Saving my finished track as "songtitle.wav" (PCM wave file)
yes....and after do a "save as" an MP3 so that you can post it on the net and we can listen......

other than that you might want a slight curve thrown on the whole mix....but, only if you really need it...
The way I figure it is that once you are ready to hit the mix......that should be it....no clue as to mastering man...but mastering is really for more than one song...it's what they do to make all the tracks on a CD be at the same levels....and placed in a certain order...ya know?

later,
Joe
 
Okay,

That helps alot. I will start hard limiting to .25
instead of -3. (I noticed most tracks off of CD go beyond
0 and even clip in Adobe Audition).


Is there a compressor filter I should run ?

Any other tips ?


(Your comments so far are really helping, thanks again).
 
well...I am far from an expert man....as a matter of fact..I suck at this stuff....

but, compression, or any other effect, is usually done track by track and again...only as needed/wanted....then mix....

there is no recipe to follow...it's sort of trial and error...
learn as you go kind of thing...

once you find EQ curves that you like for a certain instrument/voice/mic....then save it with the "add" button...

then you'll have a reference point to start from on future projects using the same kind of application.....

make sense?

hope so...

later,
Joe

P.S.
Just because a mix hits the red zone doesn't mean that it is clipped....dissonance is clipping....a bad distorted kind of sound....
being in the red just means that it's loud.....ya know?
Joe
 
what is this crap and lies? ugh.

anyways
you should definately load .cda files from cd's theres no way they would clip.

RonC
 
He said - .25 that's NOT over "0"...

I usually set the hard limiter to - .50 myself, giving the song 1/2 a decibel of head room, of course the amount of input gain/boost that you apply will vary from song to song, it usually takes me a few attempts at it to find the right amount, too much boost will leave undesirable artifacts like pumping and breathing and even distortion on your audio file.

Also, I do the hard limiting last, otherwise any EQ, or pan/expand effects applications might clip the file.
 
Thanks for the info.

Another newbie question...

When I am finished, should my green wave on the screen look a certain way ? Off CD's they look almost like solid blocks, but mine still look like waves.

Also, Is there any other effects or filters that you guys are really like in Adobe Audition ?



Again, I appreciate the info.
 
Yeah, definitely check out the mixing forum.

Oh, and hitting the red in Adobe Audition doesn't mean a ton. The meters are about .3db "hot" (kind of a dummy feature). but even with totally accurate meters, hitting the red just means 0db...doesn't necessarily mean it clipped.

(get a limiter, btw...waves L2 goes on every mix I do)

Good luck over in the mixing forum.
 
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