what do your waveforms look like when mixing?

[bryan_kilco]

Now that I've started tracking drums at -18dbFS I find it difficult to do some splitting/editing because the waves are just so tiny. I can get a nice big sound after processing, but even when I render to a stem, the waves are pretty small. Do you guys normalize anything for any purposes? Can someone post a screenshot of what their drum waves look like while mixing?

Not worthy.

 

[slo77y]

NEVER normalize anything. it just degrades audio quality without sense. thats what faders are for.

in the age of 24bit, it is a wise idea to gain defensively, -18db is not the worst idea imho. in general, i try to keep a minimum of 12db headroom in my mixes before mastering chain - somehow in the digital world it always sounds better to mix at low levels and then crank in the gain in the mastering chain - dont ask me why.

in most daw's, like cubase you have a control that turns the transients up, so they look big while being recorded quiet - that should fix your issue.

 

[TheDriller]

most daws have a facility to crank up the display size of the waveforms without affecting the actual audio.
just look it up in the manual and im sure you'll have no trouble seeing it on screen

 

[egan.]

Yeah, zoom in.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I just wasnt sure if the smaller waveforms and transients would effect dynamic split sensitivity. I can't for the life of me seem to quantize drums and get it to come out sounding anywhere near "good". This is in Reaper btw. Checked some tutorials and still have issues.

 

[HatchetDrummer]

Slip Edit. If the drummer is playing anything that has lots of pattern changes its much faster and much easier IMO to slip the audio onto the grid.

 

[bryan_kilco]

yeah see, I zoom in all I want and the waves are just really thin and it gets hard to pick out each kick hit, for example. Really only breaking the seal with slip editing and I'm not even sure I'm doing it properly. Split regions, ALT+Click and drag, correct?

 

[Ermz]

Which DAW do you use? Most of them let you enlarge the waveform displays within the regions.

 

[narcossintese]

If you´re on Reaper, the default shortcut to zoom peaks is Shift+Up/Down.

 

[bryan_kilco]

If you´re on Reaper, the default shortcut to zoom peaks is Shift+Up/Down.

awesome!! thanks!!!

 

[AdamWathan]

If you´re on Reaper, the default shortcut to zoom peaks is Shift+Up/Down.

Fuck, I lost a Reaper keyboard shortcut race.

 

[Erik Monsonis]

I just track at -6dB or so, with the faders turn down to -6dB or so. That way the waveforms are clear and have more than enough headroom.