Relative mixing levels

[BrettT]

Do you guys use a general rule to start with as far as setting individual instrument levels? Say I have a stereo drum bus with all the individual drum levels adjusted relative to each other as desired, a stereo guitar bus of the rhythm guitars, and a bass bus...what's a good level to set the drums, guitar, and bass as a starting point?

I've always done this by ear, but I know there must be some general method out there.

 

[HeadCrusher]

I start with the kick peaking at -9 to -6 and build my mix from there.

 

[fade_2_black]

I work on instruments individually first - work out a full drum mix, guitar mix, bass mix, vox with backing vox, etc and then put them together and work on levels over the full instrument mixes.
Obviously I dont bounce them down to a single stereo track per instrument - rather use stereo aux channels.

Then change individual things as they need to be changed.

 

[Neil_Mad]

I start with the bass at -14 or -17 db and I never turn up I prefer turn all the rest down I build my mix from this point.

www.myspace.com/tteop

 

[RiF]

As the title of this threads says, levels are relative. So it is useful to have a fixed reference. If you don't, you might find yourself moving faders up and down randomly and probably have all the faders all the way up... For me, it sounds reasonable to mix the drums's relative levels first, then match the bass (I heard of some people starting with the bass and not with the drums), like Neil_Mad said. To begin with, load a mix that you're happy with and note the average bass-level and match your new mix. Keep these levels where they are throughout the whole mix and mix everything else relative to these.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

That is something I believe I do the "wrong way". I always set drums first, but then when I start to add bass and guitars, I feel the need to push drums further, parallel comp etc, and when I realize I already have a mix that is averaging -11/10dB, which I feel it's not correct. I always mix with an API 2500 on the 2bus, although I believe isn't the best for the 2bus, but since it has an internal limiter I use it. Although using another one with a limiter would do the same thing... but basically that's where I struggle a bit, keep the mix at really low levels before mastering

 

[sickchris]

i start with the bass, usually -17/-18db balance the sound evenly then build off of that.

 

[Neil_Mad]

Hi,... well... this was wrote for the user "ahjteam" and I follow EVERY TIME I do not sayd that my mix are god BUT It really work, at least for me then in the "mastering" turn the fucking volumen up jajaja and I use TS Rack with an extra ecualizer and some stuff but ovbiusly I am like other I´m just try to learn, hope this help you. Mi older mixes was fully compressed and distorted but now I have really clean sound and still be very loud jejee cheers.

I suggest that you start remixing the whole stuff, but leave all the plugins as is, but try this:

- turn all the faders down, bring the master fader to zero and turn off all the master bus plugins, except maybe spectrum analyzer and "safe limiter" (For example the free Waves L1 clone, W1, with threshold at 0dBFS, doing nothing, just making sure that the finished mix doesn't clip. Don't worry about archieving the loudness at this part, it will be done in the mastering, not mixing).
- bring up the bass first and keep that as a benchmark. Have it fucking slammed against the compressor and put it so that the peaks hit at -18dBFS and never move it again. If the bass gets buried, don't turn it up, but turn everything else down. If the bass sounds too quiet at -18dBFS, turn your monitors louder.
- Add the vocals so that they cut thru the bass but don't overpower them. if the song is an instrumental so far, skip this phase
- The bring up the kick and listen to the low end that it isn't competing with the bass in the sub or killing eachothers out. If they are, do something about it. My suggestion is to sidechain kick to the bass (see the sticky)
- Then add the overheads so that you get nice balance with the kick and the cymbals, don't worry so much about the snare
- Then add the guitars. They have to cut thru the mix, but not overpower anything else. If they cut thru the mix only by overpowering something, do something about the guitar sound.
- Then add the snare. Make sure that it cuts thru but doesn't overpower the mix. If it doesn't cut thru the mix without hitting the limiter, do something about it. Usually the bottom mic helps alot.
- Then add everything else to taste
- After you have done this, I suggest you group everything (ie. kick, snare, drums, bass, guitars, keys, vocals, fx... etc.) so its easier to do small adjustments. Its not mandatory, but I highly recommend it.
- Go take a break, atleast 10 minutes. Eat something, catch some fresh industrial polluted air, have a smoke, go watch some tv, surf the net. Come back and listen again. Tweak until it sounds good. 20-60 minutes of tweaking, a 10 minute break, 20-60 minutes of tweaking, a 10 minutes break, *continue until satisfied*

and then repost

 

[MonochromaticStains]

I second the ahjteam post.

My mixes have gotten alot better since using this formula.

 

[joeymusicguy]

unless you've got amazing hearing memory, i dont think starting with a bass level is a good initial tactic. this is because bass is mostly... well bass. so the level is very sensitive to the EQ and the amount of frequency energy in the recorded track. Suppose your bass has a lot of low end, and just a little top end. you listen to the bass on solo and it sounds great, but it might need a lot less low end to bring that top end out by the time you've got a mix going. if thats the case, bringing the low end down will cause the output level / volume of the bass to decrease DRASTICALLY.

so if you're starting with bass, and then moving forward, you get to a point where you can't tell the top end of the bass anymore, and you need to make adjustments. when you do that, the level is lost.

i dunno i mean, technically you could just compensate with the fader, after making the adjustments, but it seems like the relativity here is a little too much to start out with.

 

[Neil_Mad]

unless you've got amazing hearing memory, i dont think starting with a bass level is a good initial tactic. this is because bass is mostly... well bass. so the level is very sensitive to the EQ and the amount of frequency energy in the recorded track. Suppose your bass has a lot of low end, and just a little top end. you listen to the bass on solo and it sounds great, but it might need a lot less low end to bring that top end out by the time you've got a mix going. if thats the case, bringing the low end down will cause the output level / volume of the bass to decrease DRASTICALLY.

so if you're starting with bass, and then moving forward, you get to a point where you can't tell the top end of the bass anymore, and you need to make adjustments. when you do that, the level is lost.

i dunno i mean, technically you could just compensate with the fader, after making the adjustments, but it seems like the relativity here is a little too much to start out with.

So what is you sugestion? Joey how do you start yor mixes you have a lot of great work so which is your start technique?
grettings

 

[joeymusicguy]

So what is you sugestion? Joey how do you start yor mixes you have a lot of great work so which is your start technique?
grettings

i always start with kick and snare because, i always have my kick and snare sound finished before i even record anything else over the drums

so there's not going to be any eq adjustments there and i can have a safe bet on the levels

 

[Metaltastic]

I don't really see the point in specifying levels, cuz it's all gonna get smashed in the end for loudness' sake anyway; I always just drop everything down like halfway so I have plenty of headroom and go from there! (and usually reference the levels of everything in relation to the kick)

 

[Fox Mulder]

I always start off with the snare first, then match up the guitars with the bass, and then the kick and the rest.
Took me some 'getting used to' to determine the overall low-end I'd need from the guitars+bass, but I got over it.

Oh and yes, I always leave about 6db of headroom.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

That's the main thing, I always start with kick and snare, as joey said, always always, but when I add everything else, I disrupt the starting level point. Which I obviously shouldn't but I'm gonna have to start doing that and making an effort into leaving -6dB of headroom before mastering

 

[Fox Mulder]

I don't really see the point in specifying levels, cuz it's all gonna get smashed in the end for loudness' sake anyway

Well, why not maintain no more than -10db of rms?

 

[wishtheend]

Tried what was said in ahjteam's post - and it actually worked well for what I'm working on. I was able to get a much better drum/gtr/vox balance. I ended up having to comp the bass moreso once I got everything in the image, so that was the main thing I had to retweak. I kept a PAZ on the master after a Waves L2 (0.1 thresh / -0.3 ceiling) and just watched what instruments fought where. I was getting a nasty overall bump around 60-80hz, but a little C4 tammed that nicely (about 2db max reduction).

I will say that after doing this, my overall mix didn't have as many crazy peaks from kick and snare that I normally see when starting out with those tracks. Bringing in the snare later seemed much better, and allowed for less clipping when I did a psuedo master. Thanks for the tips!

 

[Metaltastic]

Well, why not maintain no more than -10db of rms?

Cuz we're talking about relative mixing levels, not mastering

 

[Fox Mulder]

People have been giving me that emoticon a lot nowadays. Argh.

 

[LeSedna]

I bump this thread because it learnt me a lot, and I'm sure more can be said