gain structure and mixing aka THE MONEYSHOT THREAD

[dj_artery]

I have recently bought a sub,.. it really really helps to have these sub frequencies audiable,.. tbh, you can then forget about worrying over figures (-3 this & that etc), and trust your ears! If it sounds good, and relative to what you are trying to acquire in the mix, then what does it matter? even when mastering, if your cliping it doesn't matter, so long as it doesn't sound like it is distorting.

All the best

DJ Artery

(cheeky bit of tune pushing lol )

Soundcloud

[lowpass]

But geez mister we was taught never to go into the red, for bad things will happens

I may have to go for a sub someday. atm though the way my room is setup, it just aint practial to use one.

[darigan]

I was just reading Jack Sparrows Producer Q & A session and in one part of it he says

"I will use the presets first on the eq's that i have until i get closer to how i want it to sound,usually a low fi setting and the boost the highs when applied to snare and hi hats."

I know low fi = Low fidelity
but when hes referring to that in eq, whats that like? chopping off the High frequencies?

[dj_artery]

But geez mister we was taught never to go into the red, for bad things will happens

I may have to go for a sub someday. atm though the way my room is setup, it just aint practial to use one.

lol, 'by golly sir',.. Yes do, I can't advise you enough, it makes all the difference to me, just being able to hear the (so very ) low end 1, feels great on my legs lol, 2, you don't need to worry about all these level rules and trust your ears. You do however have to level it out with your main ref speakers so that you don't over do it or, the exact opposite,.. Which I still aint got round to doing but I have reached a rough (until I borrow my unis db meter) setting by playing some heavily produced Eminem tracks lol

thats true, but at the end of the day, when your mastering tracks, it's the last part of the process's, and if it sounds great, even when your going into the red no biggy.

I've been told by Lee, one of the guys from the Dubstep group 'Diverted' (also a proctor @ my uni's studio) that the mastering students sometimes go upto 3db over 0,.. in the red put basically,.. so long as isn't distorting or damaging to the overall all sound I don't see a problem.

Goes without saying that if your having someone else master your tracks, and you apply the same thesis, then your not gonna get far at all; I leave a good -6db of head room lol

All the best

DJ Artery

Soundcloud

[HAACK]

Perhaps this has been answered before, but here is one for the more experienced producers.

When producing what is the set dB range for your mixer so that you can properly monitor levels without clipping?

I use Reason 4 as primary and usually the mixer is set at 100 but I sometimes bring down to 90 and then boost later which often yields better results and less clipping, is this a good technique for monitoring levels so that the overall mix will not clip in the final mastering stage?

[macc]

@ DJ Artery - naturally I agree about trusting your ears over anything else, of course. But to say 'it doesn't matter, don't worry about it' is poor advice. If you mean that you don't worry about it, then fair enough. But it 100% pays to at the very least be aware of and understand the benefits of good gain structure. Not everyone here is aware of it, and it's important to remember that before saying 'this is all a load of bollox'. Rules are made to be broken, but one always does well to be aware of the rules before you can break them in any productive and repeatable/consistent way. You may just be lucky from time to time, but this is about getting good mixes every time, and having a platform/framework to do so.

It's also not entirely true to say that clipping doesn't matter if you can't hear it - subsequent processing (ie mastering) pretty much cannot help but bring it out. At least, it can't be got rid of once it is in there. This is why, unless used for creative effect on a single channel/group, clipping is best avoided until the VERY last stage - there's no further processing happening after that, bar dither. To give a clipping mix to someone for mastering and then ask them to 'make it loud' (ie limit/clip etc) means you're going to be piling distortion on top of distortion, so it very much does matter if you're hitting zero at the mix stage. I see this enough, believe me Then again you go on to say that you leave plenty of headroom, so I'm not sure what you're doing in actuality Again, I agree that trusting your ears is the way, but there are still good practices that help a lot. No getting around the fact that without being careful, digital gets ugly over 0dB. As with anything else, clipping can cure or kill


@ Haack: It is all in the thread. Generally speaking, you can leave the master fader at default (0dB, dunno about Reason), keep the channels relatively low (maybe on the channel fader, turning down the sound sources is even better), let them add up naturally and (when you get the hang of it) you won't have to turn down the master fader. Use your amp/volume knob to set your listening level

[lowpass]

Welcome back mac

Very good point about the different layers of non-audible clipping adding together to create clipping that you can hear. I had forgotten about that one, was reading though that some mastering engineer's use this technique across different converters in order to push the mix a little hotter without the clipping being so noticeable. Do you ever work like this? or do you stay as far away from clipping as you can?

[macc]

Depends how loud people want things, and what works with the track. Sometimes limiting sounds better, sometimes clipping, whatever. If something has been requested to go stupid loud I *might* clip the absolute loudest bits on the way back into the convertors to shave off the very very loudest bits before going on to other things. Different distortions sound different on different things. Same with anything, sometimes something works, sometimes it doesn't.

Don't get me wrong (again) - I don't mind clipping at all, when done right. But that's all after everything is balanced right, and the cake is ready to be baked. That's the thing about clipping, it (largely) bakes the cake. The point I was trying to make above was (for example) that if you have a track that is tilted way too much towards the low end and you clip pretty heavily 'cos you can't hear it', then send that for mastering, the first thing the dude will do is re-balance the tone correctly. Or maybe overall the track sounds nice through a tube or two (or three...). In both cases, guess what emerges? All those scabby harmonics you put into your signal. Now ask him to make that loud and you can imagine what happens...

Distorting distortion can work of course, but it's better when the source is clean, and the dude's hands aren't tied. More options. The cliche about 'you can make a good mix loud but you can't necessarily make a loud mix good' applies.

Not really back back btw... big things brewing for this year. Watch this space

And as I am here - a very very happy new year to all the members of this forum. I do like it here, a really nice crowd. All the very best to you all!

[HAACK]

@MACC

Likewise Macc glad that you are a part of the forum. I also noticed this with my monitors I will often have an channel perfectly balanced maybe 1-2dB over and once I have another one set the dB's add up.

Cheers for the reply.

[dj_artery]

''It's also not entirely true to say that clipping doesn't matter if you can't hear it - subsequent processing (ie mastering) pretty much cannot help but bring it out. At least, it can't be got rid of once it is in there. This is why, unless used for creative effect on a single channel/group, clipping is best avoided until the VERY last stage - there's no further processing happening after that, bar dither. To give a clipping mix to someone for mastering and then ask them to 'make it loud' (ie limit/clip etc) means you're going to be piling distortion on top of distortion, so it very much does matter if you're hitting zero at the mix stage.''

In terms of us agreeing on the same principals on pre-master mixdowns; This is what I did say. If there is no room, what can the mastering engineer possibly do? next to fuck all

I SAID @ the end of my thread, that when I hand over my own tracks to someone else, that I give -6db of headroom! Plenty of room! no distortion, no clipping, so much room to make it sound big, it would put Mr Blobby out of a profession & he'll still fucking rave to it! lol

I ALSO SAID @ the begining of my thread, that when I'M mastering MY OWN track, and that there is NO MORE 'Subsequent processing' afterwards, that it is OK to clip, so long as it doesn't distort or destruct the sound.

Yes I agree 100% with you, that the basics are there for a reason, much like we are tought to understand and accept that 2+2=4; it's the way in which our world works under some basic parameters.

But again, sticking to 'your sub-bass must be so and so much less than the drums' etc is not the way forward (which I read under a different post) I found this very misguiding once my sub arrived,.. Trust your ears! and not so much frequency graphs, graphic EQ's and set levels for everything in such a school text book fashion,.. I did not intend on anyone understanding that it was ok to clip prior to the mastering process, and if I made this unclear or misguiding, I do appologise sincerely

Happy New Year everyone!

[macc]

Hey hey I tried to make it clear I wasn't having a dig And thanks for clearing up exactly how it is you're doing things, it genuinely wasn't clear.

But again, sticking to 'your sub-bass must be so and so much less than the drums' etc is not the way forward (which I read under a different post) I found this very misguiding once my sub arrived,..

I have said absolutely nothing of the sort Had you read and understood the thread properly, you'd have seen me say about 10 times 'don't obsess over the numbers'. For the umpteenth time, these are principles and guidelines, not rules. I can't say that strongly enough. The point of this thread is keeping things conservative in order to avoid clipping and reap the benefits of good gain structure (repeatable, good mixes), not to prescribe formulae or rules. Cos they don't work.

I did not intend on anyone understanding that it was ok to clip prior to the mastering process, and if I made this unclear or misguiding, I do appologise sincerely

Then we're on the same page after all, hopefully A happy new year to you

[dj_artery]

Hey hey I tried to make it clear I wasn't having a dig And thanks for clearing up exactly how it is you're doing things, it genuinely wasn't clear.

I know my friend , I would expect the 'diging' and 'bitching' per se, to be on Big Brother or the BBC's 'house's of parliament' debates on issues, as opposed to Dubstepforum.com .

I have said absolutely nothing of the sort Had you read and understood the thread properly

I don't recal saying that you personally had said anything like this, only that I myself had read this under another post, and I felt it to be, like I said in my last post, very misguiding when I finally had a sub that could evoke the sub-bass in my mix.

Wishing everyone a prosperous New Year!

All the best

DJ Artery

[morphesis]

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[lowpass]

waittt a minute.....



that's not a question at all

[incnic]

its ed rush tbh

[dj_march]

I was just reading Jack Sparrows Producer Q & A session and in one part of it he says

"I will use the presets first on the eq's that i have until i get closer to how i want it to sound,usually a low fi setting and the boost the highs when applied to snare and hi hats."

I know low fi = Low fidelity
but when hes referring to that in eq, whats that like? chopping off the High frequencies?

Yeah, sounds strange. Maybe he means low filter / high pass

[gadders]

Say you layer 3 kicks, if you want your 'resultant' kick hitting about -9 do you make sure each individual one is hitting at -18 then?

Phil.

[legend4ry]

Say you layer 3 kicks, if you want your 'resultant' kick hitting about -9 do you make sure each individual one is hitting at -18 then?

Phil.

I'm pretty sure it don't work like that, but try it !

[macc]

Say you layer 3 kicks, if you want your 'resultant' kick hitting about -9 do you make sure each individual one is hitting at -18 then?

Phil.

Every case is going to be different, depending on the kicks you are using, how you line them up, how they add up due to their respective frequency/phase/dynamic compositions blah blah.

Point is that once you have layered them, you are in effect talking about one kick, that is, one source So you only really need to be worrying about that.

Don't worry about the numbers too much, don't try to calculate everything. Just keep the levels sensible as described and you're well away.

[gadders]

Righty then I've read all 21 pages and i reckon ive finally got the just of things - thankyou for all the free advice, such a great learning resource!

As i understand it, the aim of the ... 'gain' (sorry) is to produce a mix whereby following gain structure, (and your ears), you produce a balanced sounding mix whereby each element sits its own space and naturally adds up (is not forced) to produce a final track with some breathing room below 0db. EQ and Compression is used to suit but not OTT.

Then to get this up to a level on a par with released tracks, you can simply increase the gain with a limiter. If the track still sounds comparatively weak then thats a result of a poor mixdown?

Cheers,
Phil.