A couple of mixing questions

[EmilDelaRosa]

1. Gain Staging - I've read a lot of stuff about gain staging and -18dbfs rms mixing recently and I decided to try it out. So what I did is use sonimus satson (console emulation plug) and trim the level of every track til it peaks at around -12 making sure that every track doesn't clip, and leaving the faders at unity. Then after trimming only then that I adjust the faders and panning. Is this the right way to do gain staging? I'm still kinda confused haha but it sounds awesome nonetheless.

2. Reverbs and Delays - What I do before is make a lot of reverb and delay sends. One plate reverb for drums. And then another plate, a room verb, a stereo delay, and a slapback delay for vocals. Should I just use the same plate verb for the vocals and drums?

3. Mixbuss Compression - I've never tried mixing with a compressor on my 2 buss, only plugin I leave there is the Satson bus plugin. What are the benefits of using them?

4. Drum Bus Compression - I also don't add any plugins on my Drum Bus, but I've read that some people use compression on their busses. What other plugin do you usually insert on your drum bus?

Thanks in advance!

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

1. Gain Staging

Yes, you're doing it right.

2. Reverbs and Delays

It's all to taste. I use different verbs for everything: my room buss, my snare, my toms, and whatever.

3. Mixbuss Compression

I normally throw one on there with very light compression, just to even out the sound and catch any peaks that might slip through.

4. Drum Bus Compression

I have a second drum buss running that has a compressor on it. It basically gives more oomph to my drum hits. Also, maybe a touch of verb and a bit of EQ to find any pokey frequencies.

 

[EmilDelaRosa]

Thanks man! Regarding the drum compression, see in reaper I never learned the right way to buss things, what i do is put them in folders. I have a DRUMS folder which acts like a buss, could I just send that to another track pre-fader and then apply compression? Will that do the same thing?

 

[EmilDelaRosa]

Also on the 2 buss compression, do you mix with them right from the start? I do use compression but only when it's time to master.

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

Folders? Whaaaat? Bussing is just sending multiple tracks to a single one. For example:

Kick
Snare
Toms
OH
Hihat
Room
Comp Buss

The kick, snare, and toms all go to the comp buss, which has that compressor on it. All of the drum tracks (maybe minus the kick) go to the room buss, where there is a comp, verb, and snare.

There is no actual buss option, it's simply routing.

 

[botus99]

IDEALLY you should have read the thread listed here since joining a year and a half ago:
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/andy-sneap/262441-useful-links-faq-please-read.html

The best link in the bunch there is the Sneap Forum search. There are probably 50-100 threads about the same thing. Multiply that by how many subjects there can be... things are getting out of hand. Nonetheless, here's some links to each of your inquiries.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/f-o-h/776655-can-someone-explain-18-db-mixing.html
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/f-o-h/846634-18db-mixing.html
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...ereo-bus-compression-making-better-mixes.html

Annnnnd I'm bored of looking. Haha sorry if I come off as harsh, but these have all been answered multiple times by now. Those take care of questions 1&3. Question 2 will have varying answers depending on who you ask and what your going for. Do you WANT it to sound like the drums and vocals are in the same space? There's nothing saying you can't so TRY IT! If you like it, kick ass, you're done. If not, well I guess it's time to try it on its own reverb send then. Or you could pair it up with the guitar solo reverb. You're limited only by your processing power, and more importantly, your imagination. Nothing says it NEEDS to be a plate either.

Question 4 can be answered a few ways. I've heard some guys say that it is more "metal" to leave compression off of the drum buss and to compress the drums individually and that compressing the buss is more of a "rock" approach. In my experience, it's true. Tape and console saturation is pretty common too. Really, that's it in my opinion. I try to get the most from using less, if you catch my drift.

 

[EmilDelaRosa]

Haha this is how it looks like: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33408092/Drums.PNG

In reaper if I send the all the drums to a buss, the volume doubles. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33408092/Mixer.PNG

Also if I mute the drum buss, the tracks that i sent to it still plays. I'm not really a total noob but I just didn't learn the proper way of bussing in reaper haha! Whenever I see other DAWs it's totally different like, you create an aux track then set it as a buss 1/2 etc. It's just not the same with reaper, that's why I just route it in folders. I do send the channels though if i'm using reverbs and delays.

Here's my latest mix btw http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33408092/70x7_Mix2.mp3

 

[EmilDelaRosa]

@botus99 no offense taken my dude! Yeah I just wanted to confirm if I was doing it right cause reading all that -18db mixing thread made me confused as fuck. I kinda understand it though after reading it over and over again which is why I came up with that satson stuff. Also the mixing with stereo buss compression I was worried if it was a bit outdated and there are new techniques to do haha!

Interesting, I've never tried adding tape saturation to my drum buss. Will try that out! There are so many techniques regarding compression that makes my head ache haha! Still fun though Thanks!

 

[xFkx]

you're about to embark on a mystical journey to discover whether you want to compress the drumbuss/2buss, not whether you should do it

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

Haha this is how it looks like: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33408092/Drums.PNG

In reaper if I send the all the drums to a buss, the volume doubles. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33408092/Mixer.PNG

Also if I mute the drum buss, the tracks that i sent to it still plays. I'm not really a total noob but I just didn't learn the proper way of bussing in reaper haha! Whenever I see other DAWs it's totally different like, you create an aux track then set it as a buss 1/2 etc. It's just not the same with reaper, that's why I just route it in folders. I do send the channels though if i'm using reverbs and delays.

Here's my latest mix btw http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33408092/70x7_Mix2.mp3

Well, yeah it's going to double, because now you have two signals from the same sound source. What I normally do is keep the 2nd drum buss all the way down while adding all the tracks, and then mix it solo, getting the compression and EQ just the way I want it. Then I bring it up until it fits in nicely with the rest of my drums.

If you really want to completely buss something, you must send all the tracks to that buss, bring their individual faders all the way down, and then make each send Pre-Fader (Post-EQ). The reason I don't do this is that I feel it doesn't give me enough control over each individual track.

 

[RedDog]

In reaper, your busses are folders. Apply fx to the folder track for buss processing. You're thinking of sends. Those can be used for parallel processing, like compression. Sending audio will double your volume.

 

[EmilDelaRosa]

Yes that's what I do. So if I wanted to duplicate the buss, I'm going to have to duplicate the subtracks as well is that correct? I want to try this technique where I duplicate the buss and remove the compression on the duplicate.

 

[RedDog]

Don't do that. Reaper is immensely flexible. Add a send from the parent folder to a track not inside the child tracks, make sure the send has "pre-fx" selected. Boom, clean bus.

 

[infectdsniper]

saw some stuff in this thread talking about doubling volume in reaper when setting up sends. just turn of the send to the master, from the original track. Alt+click the I/O button to do it quickly