Prep for Mastering

[sonnywinston]

Hi,

I'm about to submit some mixes to a mastering house and have been asked to supply them with the master stereo buss level at minus 3dbfs (-3dbvu)

I realise what that means, but i don't know of a way to guage that. I'm running pro tools LE - I was hoping there'd be a level guage on the master fader but there isn't

Also, is there anything else I should be thinking of mix and EQ wise before I
send it out?

Its metal of the hard and heavy kind with a lot of melodic vocals.

Cheers,

Sonny

 

[fatalforce]

http://www.kaosaudio.com/roger-nichols-digital-inspector-free/

That is a good plug in to check your levels. Slap it on the master fader to see how loud your mixes are. I think they want nothing to breach -3dB. Good luck man!

 

[colonel kurtz]

minus 3dbfs (-3dbvu)

for the record, -3dbfs is nowhere near -3dbvu...

0dbfs does NOT equal 0dbvu!!!!

depending on how your converters are calibrated, a signal of 0dbvu should be anywhere from -18 to -12dbfs

 

[greyskull]

keep the output fairly conservative, so they got something to play with.
Dont for the love of god put a limiter or slammed compression on the master bus!
label the tracks as follows

1- trackname
2- moretrackname

etc then theyll know how to order it without fannying about

 

[ArtGarceau]

Hi,

I'm about to submit some mixes to a mastering house and have been asked to supply them with the master stereo buss level at minus 3dbfs (-3dbvu)

I realise what that means, but i don't know of a way to guage that. I'm running pro tools LE - I was hoping there'd be a level guage on the master fader but there isn't

Also, is there anything else I should be thinking of mix and EQ wise before I
send it out?

Its metal of the hard and heavy kind with a lot of melodic vocals.

Cheers,

Sonny

-3dbfs and -3dbvu are completely different. Your PT master fader measures full scale (fs). I typically ask that the mix not PEAK higher than -6dbfs, but prefer more headroom if that can be provided.

 

[TeamOmega]

this might be obvious, but make sure you don't use a limiter to lower the levels. a mastering engineer that i worked with once said that the number one problem he has is people doing something stupid with the limiter.

 

[ArtGarceau]

this might be obvious, but make sure you don't use a limiter to lower the levels. a mastering engineer that i worked with once said that the number one problem he has is people doing something stupid with the limiter.

Right. Don't compress or limit to get volume...loudness shouldn't be a concern. If 2-buss compression offers your mix something other than loudness by all means use it.

 

[vile_ator]

I tell my clients to use a limiter like an L2 on the master fader when getting their mix finished up. Then release that and any other plug ins from the master fader and mix down. Dont worry about the levels. If its at -3 cool. If its at -10 cool too. Our computer mixers are clean and we wont introduce any noise to speak of. Regarding the meters, just look at the peak indicator on the master fader light and see what the max level it hits at any point in the song. That is the level that mastering engineer was speaking of. He wants that peak at -3db or so. -3db is the general guideline but it wont matter if its at -10 or at -1. As long as its not over zero or under say -15. If it is at -15, you can consider remixing a bit louder but if not, that is probably fine. Were working with extremely low noise in digital here. Just make a Stereo Interleaved mixdown at 24 bit and send it off.

Colin