Mixing way to Hot...

[beyond dead]

as kurtz said, gain staging is technically used through the the whole process of recording and mixing, but Im referring more to the gain staging of effects on the 2 bus shaping the sound. I`m pretty sure that you are tracking everything okay though...

but yeah, Im not trying to say Im better than you at mixing zombie... Im just saying that the more you experiment and practice tracking, mixing and ( what we are talking about) master bus processing, the better things will sound (which are already sounding bad ass)

I have been taking my finished mixes, removing all master bus processing, and just practicing that, and the relation the volume, and amount of compression on your "sub" groups and individual tracks have before hitting the master affects the processing you do on the master.

Its just a game of making subtle changes, making observations as to how it affects the sound, and deciding what sounds best to you.

 

[ahjteam]

I have been reading up on Gain Staging....And from what i found out that it's mostly for the Analog realm.

Not entirely true, as some plugins work VERY different depending on how hard the signal comes in, especially ampsims etc.

 

[16S]

i have a related noob question: why sometimes does a track (solo'd)read for example -1.8db in the meter but the Master says something else? ..When there are no plugins etc. on the master. Shouldn't the track and the master therefore meter the same?

 

[Fox Mulder]

^^ Maybe 'cause your track meter is reading in terms of pre, and your master is reading in terms of post?

 

[16S]

^^thanks dude. i will check that.

 

[TheIllicitOne]

Ok guys, I'm a little confused on this whole conversation. I understand about mixing low so your master is peaking anywhere from -6 to -3, however what about tracking? I was always told to turn preamp gain up until it peaks (red light on preamp flashes) and then back it off to get the hottest available level without peaking. Should I be shooting for a certain range on my tracking levels as well? Or just once everything is tracked, drop your faders down and mix low? Any help would be appreciated and sorry if it's a dumb question.

 

[colonel kurtz]

as a general rule, keep the meters in the preamps in the green

the occasional spike into the yellow won't kill you, but avoid red lights like the ebola virus

this could keep the levels pretty manageable on the way in...then you should be able to start mixing with all faders at 0 and not peak your master - or even better, as soon as everything's tracked, i'll set all faders to -6 and go from there

 

[Trevoire520]

In a modern 24 bit DAW you have lots of headroom and a very low noise floor. So there is no real advantage to risking clipping by tracking hot. Infact you may find that your recordings come out cleaner if you track quieter, it also gives some headroom for when you're eq'ing.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I'm driving my APIs REALLY hot...and feeding it also extremely hot into the converters (Apogee ad-16x)....with drums I'm usually just before clipping...I like the sound of it
I wouldn't recommend that with anything than a VERY good converter though.

I used to record peaking at -18 to -12 dB or so....not anymore

but it's true, Converters are coloring the sound before they're clipping, so be careful

 

[ATLA]

i have learned to have my tracks come in at -12db. thats what works best for me so far.