gain structure and mixing aka THE MONEYSHOT THREAD

[macc]

That's fair enough Some people do *drastically* overdo it though, and still want the tune to sound loud. I'm talking 6-8dB too much sub

[rob sparx]

That's fair enough Some people do *drastically* overdo it though, and still want the tune to sound loud. I'm talking 6-8dB too much sub

Fair play thats a bit OTT!

I have had tunes done before though where too much bass has been taken out or even worse the low end of the sub has been rolled off at a frequency too high and no amount of turning up the bass on a mixer will get that low end back! Fair enough if its rock music you don't want the rumble of a bass guitar clouding the mix but for music where sub is the most important part of the mix its not on!

[tathagata]

This topic is brilliant, thanks so much Macc.
I had it in my head that someone posted a link to a little rough guide to frequency ranges on this thread i.e. where a snare 'should' peak etc., (and it had something about putting a notch e.q. around the frequency of human speech to clean a mix up) but I can't find it.
Can anyone remember that please?

[Tombones]

This topic is brilliant, thanks so much Macc.
I had it in my head that someone posted a link to a little rough guide to frequency ranges on this thread i.e. where a snare 'should' peak etc., (and it had something about putting a notch e.q. around the frequency of human speech to clean a mix up) but I can't find it.
Can anyone remember that please?

think this is the one http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=81641

[allisfullof]

i'm following this as specified but still having some problems......im using fl studio 8 with a fruity db meter on my master. ive tried setting drums (2 kicks, 1 snare) anywhere from -9db to -10.8db.....kick sub around -10.db to -11.db....synth bass (over the sub) at around -17db......and i have some horn/pipe samples (sounds like the musicians of jajouka or osmething) at about -16db and so on.....

now my question is this. i've read on the internet that you want your levels peaking at -6db. is this true if you're following general gain structuring guidelines (drums at ~-9-10db, etc) so i set everything up and make sure nothing is peaking over -6db while everything is playing together in pattern mode....but whenever i play the song thru song mode and watch the db meter, it's jumping OVER 0db......anyone have any clue why this is happening?[/list]

[Sharmaji]

(most likely problem) too much low-end in things that don't need low-end-- mid-range pads and synths, percussion elements, strings, etc-- are eating up your headroom.

solution, a: hi pass stuff where you can w/o detrimentally affecting the original sound.

solution, b: decrease the dynamic range on things that can handle it-- again, the biggest culprits are often midrangey bits that wobble around too much.

mix and match.

-6 is just a guideline, not a rule. it's not like your tune instantly goes from bangin' to suck once you cross -6db.

[Tombones]

oops, not sure what happened there.

[tathagata]

This topic is brilliant, thanks so much Macc.
I had it in my head that someone posted a link to a little rough guide to frequency ranges on this thread i.e. where a snare 'should' peak etc., (and it had something about putting a notch e.q. around the frequency of human speech to clean a mix up) but I can't find it.
Can anyone remember that please?

think this is the one http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=81641

That's it, cheers man.

[shift]

http://www.myspace.com/shift1988

great thread

[Brisance]

http://www.myspace.com/shift1988

great thread

You really don't even care about the thread and want to advertise your myspace, right?

[lowpass]

http://www.myspace.com/shift1988

great thread

You really don't even care about the thread and want to advertise your myspace, right?

nah this guy seems legit, yeah this post is as useless as his but I've just read through all 8 pages and felt like I had to

[nitz]

Damm Bob your a god man no lie
am the person who that send you the PM lol
i spend a good time reading through all 8 pages post by post!
and have some questions to ask

1. i am using reason and reason only i do not no where what channel peak because it does not show DB’s
2. What do you accuracy mean by the word “head room”? Does it mean to give your mix space?
3. When you talk about what element need to be at what DB do you mean the master fader or the channel it self?
4. What’s dynamical range and can you explain clashing frequencies?

Thank you once again!

[futures_untold]

Damm Bob your a god man no lie
am the person who that send you the PM lol
i spend a good time reading through all 8 pages post by post!
and have some questions to ask

1. i am using reason and reason only i do not no where what channel peak because it does not show DB’s
2. What do you accuracy mean by the word “head room”? Does it mean to give your mix space?
3. When you talk about what element need to be at what DB do you mean the master fader or the channel it self?
4. What’s dynamical range and can you explain clashing frequencies?

Thank you once again!

I'll have a pop at answering your questions.

1> In Reason, just leave the master mixer 'master volume' at 0. If the whole mix crosses it, you can assume that you've clipped the audio somewhat (gone past zero and distorted the audio!!!!)

I think the M Class compressor gives real output data, not just 0-127 like the rest of hte controls in Reason. Thus, you could run everything through that to check your output dB. (Apply 0 threshold and 1:1 compression for no compression)

The ultimate guage in Reason is the clip meter, a little red light that comes on if you exceed 0db in the bottom left of the transport bar.

---------------------

2> Headroom refers to the amount of dB you have left before you 'redline', that is, before you hit 0dB on a mixer and your audio starts distorting.

If you turned every element of your tune down by 15dB, you'd have lot's of 'headroom'. If you ran everything 'hot' (loud), you would quickly hit 0dB and thus have no 'headroom'. One way around this is to compress all the elements of your mix individually, but that negates the point of decent mixing in the first place! (Because you limit the dynamic range of your audio to gain headroom. Turning everything down allows you to maintain the full dynamic range of each element of your audio as well as headroom!)

---------------------

3> Turn down each channel, not the master fader. That way, you know that the master output is 0dB. If you were to turn down the master volume, you would be mixing to a lower volume level than neccessary. You could do this, but you would have to normalise your audio at the end to bring the volume back up to 0dB, thus, to use all your available headroom.

---------------------

4> This is two questions, thus two answers are needed.

A> Dynamic range is the range between the quietest and loudest points in your audio. Thus, a singer who skreams () one moment and whispers the next, has a huge dynamic range. Using compressors and limiters reduces dynamic range by forcing gain (volume) reduction at the threshold you set.

One reason to mix without using compressors is to maintain maximum dynamic range within your audio.

---------------------

B> Clashing frequencies are simple. If you have two elements in your track, both that contain the same frequencies, they will cause phase problems (phase reinforcement and phase cancelation).

To minimise this effect, we would use an eq to 'cut out' a dip in the clashing frequency range on one of the elements. That way, one element would contain the full frequency range at its original volume. The other would have a reduced volume in the problem frequency range.

Hope that explains things haha!

[megaladon]

Just to mention briefly re clashing frequencies (I only saw this the other week) you can use the vocoder as a very rough analyser while you work. Whack an Aux send into the modulator input of a vocoder, and if you think two elements are clashing just solo them and have a look at the frequencies they're hitting.

I realise this might be such an old trick but thought I'd mention it. Can be useful.

[nitz]

Damm Bob your a god man no lie
am the person who that send you the PM lol
i spend a good time reading through all 8 pages post by post!
and have some questions to ask

1. i am using reason and reason only i do not no where what channel peak because it does not show DB’s
2. What do you accuracy mean by the word “head room”? Does it mean to give your mix space?
3. When you talk about what element need to be at what DB do you mean the master fader or the channel it self?
4. What’s dynamical range and can you explain clashing frequencies?

Thank you once again!

I'll have a pop at answering your questions.

1> In Reason, just leave the master mixer 'master volume' at 0. If the whole mix crosses it, you can assume that you've clipped the audio somewhat (gone past zero and distorted the audio!!!!)

I think the M Class compressor gives real output data, not just 0-127 like the rest of hte controls in Reason. Thus, you could run everything through that to check your output dB. (Apply 0 threshold and 1:1 compression for no compression)

The ultimate guage in Reason is the clip meter, a little red light that comes on if you exceed 0db in the bottom left of the transport bar.

---------------------

2> Headroom refers to the amount of dB you have left before you 'redline', that is, before you hit 0dB on a mixer and your audio starts distorting.

If you turned every element of your tune down by 15dB, you'd have lot's of 'headroom'. If you ran everything 'hot' (loud), you would quickly hit 0dB and thus have no 'headroom'. One way around this is to compress all the elements of your mix individually, but that negates the point of decent mixing in the first place! (Because you limit the dynamic range of your audio to gain headroom. Turning everything down allows you to maintain the full dynamic range of each element of your audio as well as headroom!)

---------------------

3> Turn down each channel, not the master fader. That way, you know that the master output is 0dB. If you were to turn down the master volume, you would be mixing to a lower volume level than neccessary. You could do this, but you would have to normalise your audio at the end to bring the volume back up to 0dB, thus, to use all your available headroom.

---------------------

4> This is two questions, thus two answers are needed.

A> Dynamic range is the range between the quietest and loudest points in your audio. Thus, a singer who skreams () one moment and whispers the next, has a huge dynamic range. Using compressors and limiters reduces dynamic range by forcing gain (volume) reduction at the threshold you set.

One reason to mix without using compressors is to maintain maximum dynamic range within your audio.

---------------------

B> Clashing frequencies are simple. If you have two elements in your track, both that contain the same frequencies, they will cause phase problems (phase reinforcement and phase cancelation).

To minimise this effect, we would use an eq to 'cut out' a dip in the clashing frequency range on one of the elements. That way, one element would contain the full frequency range at its original volume. The other would have a reduced volume in the problem frequency range.

Hope that explains things haha!

Thank you much very it helped, specially the idea of using the compressor, because i though of that before but thought it was a dumb idea but now i know it is not thank you

[nitz]

Damm Bob your a god man no lie
am the person who that send you the PM lol
i spend a good time reading through all 8 pages post by post!
and have some questions to ask

1. i am using reason and reason only i do not no where what channel peak because it does not show DB’s
2. What do you accuracy mean by “head room”? Does it mean to give your mix space?
3. When you talk about what element need to be at what DB do you mean the master fader or the channel it self?
4. What’s dynamical range and can you explain clashing frequencies?

Thank you once again!

Your better off asking google mate.

Not that macc cant answer your questions, its that your asking quite broad questions, I know macc will/can answer, probably pages long. But your pushing your luck there man, hes not the only resource to your production questions and is quite busy man most of the time.
Sorry for the 'bitchin

Mate, do you think all i did was, ask bob?
no, no, NO i being a lot of research over the pass few days to understand all this theory. You are making it sound like that all i did is just just ask him and didn't do any thing else, no mate i think i have done abit too much researching for this, because i should be revising for my exams but instead been working to find out all this theory, i understand most of it but just wanted to make sure and get the fuller meaning

[nitz]

Just to mention briefly re clashing frequencies (I only saw this the other week) you can use the vocoder as a very rough analyser while you work. Whack an Aux send into the modulator input of a vocoder, and if you think two elements are clashing just solo them and have a look at the frequencies they're hitting.

I realise this might be such an old trick but thought I'd mention it. Can be useful.

i just tried that, i didn't work i think i did something wrong

[futures_untold]

Actually, the compressor only shows the aomount of gain reduction.

The MClass Maximiser does have a properly labelled vu meter though!

Megaladon's idea of using the vocoder would definately give you a rough visual indicator of where your frequencies are sitting.

However, you should be able to do this by ear (or using a parametric eq to sweep the frequencies)