Volume Levels in a Track

[Mike145]

Hey guys, Im having alot of trouble deciding what volume to have each element of my track running at. I realize theres no "right" way to do it, so long as you have a good sounding track with no clipping, its all good, but im completely lost and my tracks always end up sounding so quiet, even if its clipping in places. So ya if someone could give me a quick run down of what levels they like to keep say, their kicks, snares, sub bass, different synths yadda yadda, thatd be awesome!

[Wrigzilla]

Read this thread http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=14565.

The other question is, does it sound good?

[Sinisterbeats]

this thread might be a little more useful

http://www.dubstepforum.com/this-thread ... 74832.html

[Mike145]

okay thanks sinister i read that, but im still kind of confused. Im guessing that the people in that thread are getting their tracks professionally mastered, because lowering say the drums to -8 or -10 db is gonna create headroom for them to work with, but its obviously gonna make the track way quieter. But what if your not getting your tracks mastered? i feel like putting the elements of my tracks to those levels would just make it even harder to hear..

[Sinisterbeats]

wouldnt worry about your track sounding to quiet at this stage anyway. Keep your levels low enough to leave plenty of headroom and turn your speakers up. What you are asking about is the mixing stage of a track so dont worry if it sounds quiet. You can do your own mastering at this stage with some careful limiting/compression if you think its necessary. Until your mixing/production skills are at a certain level you shouldnt worry too much about mastering. Hope this makes sense as it is St Guinness day

[Mike145]

okay makes sense, thank you sir!

[Susceptor]

I use limiters on individual tracks to control the dynamic range of individual sounds; also, nice to control textural elements.
I use bussing (i.e. synth buss, bass buss, drum buss, samples / fx buss, reverb buss); this way, the individual track levels can be really hot with almost no headroom), and control everything with the busses. This way it gets loud enough, but tight.

[macc]

If I understand that post right, then this man properly understands how to do it.

Not sure about running all the channels very hot (you'll have to turn stuff down at some point), but controlling things at individual and buss level is the way to go