Question on Mixing/Mastering

[nwright]

OK, so I have a new Firepod, and my band is getting ready to record our first EP on it. I have also DL'd demos of Izotope Ozone and our drummer DL'd some Waves bundle for me to try (L2 I think is the main plug in??). We also bought Drumagog for starters (well, our drummer did)...Anyway, I'm still learning Cubase a bit, but I have a few questions...

When mixing drums, do you apply compression to all the drums as a sub mix, or do you do it individually (per track), or both? I'm having trouble learning how to make a sub mix of drums in Cubase and how to apply plug in effects like compression to them. At first, I thought I could do a send of all the drums to the same plug in (i.e. compressor or what have you), but is there an easier way?

Also, when mastering a final mix, do you do it from the recording program, or do you render the mix and then master that from the recording program or another program? I don't really know how to ask it, I guess, but when rendering the track to .wav format, do you set your mix and then apply the mastering things on the master faders (or buss), or do it all after the .wav has been created?

I'll admit I haven't delved into the manual this deeply, it's a huge read and only available on my computer, no actual book. I'm at work (thus no access to manual) and have some free time, so I thought I'd ask you guys.

 

[SPLASTiK]

Compress the drums individually. A kick drum will require different settings than a tom or snare.

When you're done with a mix of a song, render it then import it into a new empty session. Then apply the plugins to the master fader.

 

[deathtotaliban]

Yea splastik is right, you should put compression on the individual tracks andnot on the whole mix of the drums. Also usually only the toms, snare, and kick have compression and you rarely if ever apply compression to the overheads, you should only apply a small amount of eq if any.You would really only send the drums to a bus for effects if you were going to apply say reverb to the whole mix of the drums. Export the .wav and apply eq, compression, or limiting or any of those or none of them, its all your choice and how you want it to sound.

 

[cornerarea]

Compress the drums individually. A kick drum will require different settings than a tom or snare.

When you're done with a mix of a song, render it then import it into a new empty session. Then apply the plugins to the master fader.

Ditto.

Although sometimes the drum sound could benefit by compressing the submix as well. You should really go by your ear.

As for mastering, render the mix then master it in the DAW or a dedicated wave editor. A matter of preference.

 

[STINNETT]

Well everybody is different, but I'll chime in on how I do it.

I will set up a send on the kick, snare, and toms to a bus. I'll throw some heavy compression on that buss, like 6:1 or more and then I'll mix that bus in kinda low to the main drum mix. It can add some fatness to the drums without taking away the dynamics of the original sound. As far as individual tracks, I still compress the kick and toms a little and usually the snare quite a bit. I also generally compress the overheads a little.
When mixing, if I'm looking for more body from a particular drum, I'll increase it's send level to the compressed drum buss.

I also set up a send on all the drums to a reverb buss, and I mix each track in at different levels to get the right sound.

 

[deathtotaliban]

I have a quick question about sending the drums to a buss in Nuendo, I can just add the buss in the VST Connections choice right? and it will give me another buss channel, but will it still send that signal to the right output for my monitors? Thanks!

Jordan

 

[booyah14]

Could someone please explain the logic behind this one part for me? Why do you need to import it into a new session exactly? Why couldn't you do the same thing to the master fader from the original session? Always wondered why people did it this way. Please enlighten me.

 

[deathtotaliban]

It can give you more controll if you are working with fades and such. Also in the case like mine were my computer sucks, it allows for more plug-ins to be run on everything if I dont have any running the master buss during mixing. But for as why its done this way those are only some logical reasons i could come up with.

 

[pharrell]

YO

Mix and master at the same time...

It works

 

[SPLASTiK]

Could someone please explain the logic behind this one part for me? Why do you need to import it into a new session exactly? Why couldn't you do the same thing to the master fader from the original session? Always wondered why people did it this way. Please enlighten me.

Well technically you can... but I like to put it into a new session so I can compare it to a reference cd or a previously mastered track easier.

Also less numbers for you computer to crunch as you'd have a few dozen tracks of audio with plugins... so it saves resources if you're low on additional processing power.

Also the fades as someone else mentioned.

 

[booyah14]

Thanks for the answers. For a reference and to save processing power I understand. But for fades, why can't you just use the master fader? As long as you are using a master fader and not an aux, it seems like nothing would be effected that way.

Speaking of that, a bunch of people swear that using an aux as a substitute for the master fader sounds better. Does anyone here do that?

 

[nwright]

Thanks for the answers. For me, opening a new session with the mixed track makes the most sense, from a noob standpoint. Keeping track of sends and busses and whatnot is the stuff that confuses me in the digital realm. For me, in this sense, analog was easier to grasp. Not being able to "see" everything at the same time on my monitor gets me confused flipping through stuff.

Plus, I don't want to tax my system too much, so opening a new session to master from makes the most sense.

 

[SPLASTiK]

Thanks for the answers. For a reference and to save processing power I understand. But for fades, why can't you just use the master fader? As long as you are using a master fader and not an aux, it seems like nothing would be effected that way.

Speaking of that, a bunch of people swear that using an aux as a substitute for the master fader sounds better. Does anyone here do that?

Well you could fade that way, it doesn't really matter I guess. Some mastering engineers prefer to do the fading themselves instead of the person who mixed it so that's probably partially where it comes from.

About the auxes... I think that was something to do with old versions of ProTools where supposedly mixes sounded better going through the buses or something? I think it was discussed long ago here but has been fixed since...

Maybe someone else will touch up on that.