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nowaysj wrote:Honestly macc, how many years has it been? You are backed up bro!

It's all the fibre.

Nah man, when all you do is listen to music all day it's hard to listen to music for fun. I had my old mastering speakers as my hi fi for a while, but ended up listening too hard to stuff when I was supposed to be relaxing! So I sold em and bought a £300 hi fi - it's the best thing I have bought for ages to be honest, as I just let music play now. I'm steadily catching up, there was a lot of stuff (26 jazz albums I bought without hearing!) to listen to...

Anyway - I'll take that track to the studio and have a listen. I can hear the compression even on this stereo, mind!

FluidMoShun wrote: This is probably going to sound stupid, as mixing isn't really my speciality, but why can't you mix all these levels at the same proportions to each other but 5 or something decibels higher?

The answer is in the bit you quoted

Remember that 6dB is half. So if you have one element at -6, that is half your headroom gone. Two elements at -6dB each = all your headroom gone. Having the drums at -3 will leave you fighting against clipping and struggling to keep everything down and under control.

macc wrote:I can hear the compression even on this stereo, mind!

Subsequent releases became increasingly more unlistenable. Which I don't get, cause he had a master class, talking about mixing low, and not compressing, letting the ME take care of that. But his tracks are slammed. Phaze One, I can't listen to.

macc wrote:

FluidMoShun wrote: This is probably going to sound stupid, as mixing isn't really my speciality, but why can't you mix all these levels at the same proportions to each other but 5 or something decibels higher?

The answer is in the bit you quoted

Remember that 6dB is half. So if you have one element at -6, that is half your headroom gone. Two elements at -6dB each = all your headroom gone. Having the drums at -3 will leave you fighting against clipping and struggling to keep everything down and under control.

6dB is half of what.. and how does having two elements at -6 (which equals -12) fill up your headroom, if headroom is positive and the elements are negative? Mixing just doesn't make sense to me

Alright brohams, conduct an experiment in your daw, okay? Not every time you sit down do you have to be making tracks.

So just create a sine wave at 440hz at -6db on one channel. Do the same for a second channel. Run those channels together into a buss or into the master. What level are they now?

FluidMoShun wrote:

macc wrote:

FluidMoShun wrote: This is probably going to sound stupid, as mixing isn't really my speciality, but why can't you mix all these levels at the same proportions to each other but 5 or something decibels higher?

The answer is in the bit you quoted

Remember that 6dB is half. So if you have one element at -6, that is half your headroom gone. Two elements at -6dB each = all your headroom gone. Having the drums at -3 will leave you fighting against clipping and struggling to keep everything down and under control.

6dB is half of what.. and how does having two elements at -6 (which equals -12) fill up your headroom, if headroom is positive and the elements are negative? Mixing just doesn't make sense to me

-6 + -6 = 0 sir, remember when adding negatives, the number line goes to the right, which makes your answer "less than" the number you started with. Damn i should be a math teacher. two elements both at -6 db would result in the master being around 0db

RandoRando wrote:

FluidMoShun wrote:

macc wrote:

FluidMoShun wrote: This is probably going to sound stupid, as mixing isn't really my speciality, but why can't you mix all these levels at the same proportions to each other but 5 or something decibels higher?

The answer is in the bit you quoted

Remember that 6dB is half. So if you have one element at -6, that is half your headroom gone. Two elements at -6dB each = all your headroom gone. Having the drums at -3 will leave you fighting against clipping and struggling to keep everything down and under control.

6dB is half of what.. and how does having two elements at -6 (which equals -12) fill up your headroom, if headroom is positive and the elements are negative? Mixing just doesn't make sense to me

-6 + -6 = 0 sir, remember when adding negatives, the number line goes to the right, which makes your answer "less than" the number you started with. Damn i should be a math teacher. two elements both at -6 db would result in the master being around 0db

im pretty sure -6 + -6 = -12, but obviously not with audio signals, cos its not at -6dB its just relative to the full scale where the maximum you can go to is 0 without clipping, but yeah an increase of 6db is a doubling of SPL right? so then -6 db is half the SPL of 0, and adding db to that - 6 will get you to 0?

skimpi wrote:im pretty sure -6 + -6 = -12, but obviously not with audio signals, cos its not at -6dB its just relative to the full scale where the maximum you can go to is 0 without clipping, but yeah an increase of 6db is a doubling of SPL right? so then -6 db is half the SPL of 0, and adding db to that - 6 will get you to 0?

@ fluidmoshun

They way I understand it, if you did that and sent it in to get mastered, it would just get turned down 5 or something decibels lower, and according to everyone else that's bad practice. If you want to raise the volume, just put a limiter on your master channel and bring up the volume for when you show people so it's not too quiet, though I've found that most of my friends can't tell the difference (in volume at least) between my tunes and others if I just turn my speakers up a bit

psychedelicatessen wrote: They way I understand it, if you did that and sent it in to get mastered, it would just get turned down 5 or something decibels lower, and according to everyone else that's bad practice.

Turning it down wouldn't be much good, as it would be very likely that the track would be clipping.

Can't be arsed to read the whole thread to see if anyone has said this yet... but if you are using Cubase 6, you can now use the trims to lower your level on a channel before it hits any pluggins. This is nice, because you won't even get clipping within the pluggins under any circumstances. For those not using a DAW with trim controls there are free pluggins that you can use to do this too. Also, this has the added advantage of allowing you to keep control of your faders for automation or at least keep the better near 0db resolution. BTW... not that it hasn't been said 100 times in this thread, but proper mixing technique makes a huge difference. HUGE!

BTW @ Macc... since I know you post in this thread... got any recommendations for an average starting level for vocals? I'm completely clueless, so it's always a guess for me, and it seems random whether I get them right or not. Any good ways to tell if they are loud enough?

FluidMoShun wrote:

macc wrote:

FluidMoShun wrote: This is probably going to sound stupid, as mixing isn't really my speciality, but why can't you mix all these levels at the same proportions to each other but 5 or something decibels higher?

The answer is in the bit you quoted

Remember that 6dB is half. So if you have one element at -6, that is half your headroom gone. Two elements at -6dB each = all your headroom gone. Having the drums at -3 will leave you fighting against clipping and struggling to keep everything down and under control.

6dB is half of what.. and how does having two elements at -6 (which equals -12) fill up your headroom, if headroom is positive and the elements are negative? Mixing just doesn't make sense to me

I'd stop trying to think about it in terms of arithmetic. Allthough 0dB is your limit, 0dB isn't actually 'zero', its a reference point around which relative amplitude levels can be defined. Technically, measuring amplitude levels in the real world (re: non digital) can only be done logarithmically so '0dB' doesn't actually exist as a quantifiable amplitude (unless your in a vacuum), and the dB levels coming out of your speakers are actually more in the region of about 86dB/Watt at 1meter from the speaker, lowering in amplitude roughly 6dB per meter as you get further away.

Without getting to technical. In digital audio processing 0dB is the (bit width?) limit above which clipping artifacts emerge. Clipping is:

"a form of waveform distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven and attempts to deliver an output voltage or current beyond its maximum capability."

So for sake of ease, and so to be universally applicable to measuring relative amplitude levels, digital audio processing sets 0dB at the clipping threshold. which is as much of an absolute zero as 0 Degrees Celsius.

So when your track reads -12dB its actually telling you the amplitude of that track is 12 decibels below 0dB (remember its just a reference point). If your master buss is reading -6dB then you have 6dB of 'potential amplitude' left to fill before you exceed the limit and clipping artifacts emerge. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ipping.svg ~ Pic)

For example, If you have 1 track in your mix and its sitting at 0dB its taking up the entire audio (amplitude) processing capability of the daw. Adding another track to the mix with any kind of amplitude above absolute zero is adding more signal, (All audio signals pass through the master out buss) which will push the DAWs audio processing capabilities past the clipping threshold.

If you take that tracks fader down to -12dB you've just created 12dB of 'headroom' within which you can fit more signal. you can now for example add another track at -6dB to the mix which eats up 6 decibels of your headroom (this track is also incidentally 6 decibels louder than your other track). You now have 6 decibels of headroom, or to look at it another way your master out buss is now peaking at -6dB. You could now add another track at -6dB taking up all of your headroom, or you could add 2 more tracks at -3dB each... so on and so forth.

I've used these figures (3,6,12 e.t.c.) for ease of explanation, in reality, and the idea of mixing, and more importantly understanding gain structure, is to finely balance the relative amplitudes of each track while keeping the sum total of all tracks below the 0dB threshold. You by no means have to have each track set to -12,-6,-3 e.t.c. in reality its more of a fine tuning balance act with the actual levels being whatever the specific mix needs them to be. Just remember you have a finite work space (the clipping threshold ~ 0dB) and every track adds to the sum total.

hope this helped! Peace.

Turnipish Thoughts wrote: hope this helped! Peace.

It did thanks.

But, 33 Pages, are we done yet?

No, because inaccuracies keep coming up. See Turnipish Thoughts.

nowaysj wrote:No, because inaccuracies keep coming up. See Turnipish Thoughts.

did i get something wrong?

Turnipish Thoughts wrote:If you take that tracks fader down to -12dB you've just created 12dB of 'headroom' within which you can fit more signal. you can now for example add another track at -6dB to the mix which eats up 6 decibels of your headroom (this track is also incidentally 6 decibels louder than your other track). You now have 6 decibels of headroom, or to look at it another way your master out buss is now peaking at -6dB. You could now add another track at -6dB taking up all of your headroom, or you could add 2 more tracks at -3dB each... so on and so forth.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you will exceed 0db if you add two tracks at -3db each to a track at -12db.

nowaysj wrote:

Turnipish Thoughts wrote:If you take that tracks fader down to -12dB you've just created 12dB of 'headroom' within which you can fit more signal. you can now for example add another track at -6dB to the mix which eats up 6 decibels of your headroom (this track is also incidentally 6 decibels louder than your other track). You now have 6 decibels of headroom, or to look at it another way your master out buss is now peaking at -6dB. You could now add another track at -6dB taking up all of your headroom, or you could add 2 more tracks at -3dB each... so on and so forth.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you will exceed 0db if you add two tracks at -3db each to a track at -12db.

oh crap you're completely right! Its -9dB isn't it not -3. i was trying to explain that the amplitude gain will stack. So adding something 3dB louder than your -12dB track will take 3dB off your headroom. you're right i did scew the math. Crapski. I hope people reading this still understand the basic theory i was trying to explain about what 0dB is in respect to headroom.

The math following is correct now. With decibels:
-6 + -6 = 0
-12 + -12 = -6
so
-6 + -12 + -12 = 0

-12 + -9 + -9 = 0
-9 + -9 = -3
so
-12 + -3 = 0

I believe thats what you wanted to say.

going deeper down, all keeping master @ 0dB
(-18 + -18 + -18 + -18 + -18 + -18 + -18 + -18) =0dB
Thats 8 tracks each -18dB and can be broken down into
[ (-18 + -18 +-18 +-18) = -6 ] + [ (-18 + -18 +-18 +-18) = -6 ] =0dB
and
{[(-18 + -18) = -12] + [(-18 + -18) = -12] + [(-18 + -18) = -12] + [(-18 + -18) = -12] } =0dB

ok heres the deal: im a complete newbie when it comes to mixing and mastering. i read this thread from the start and macc's talking about gain on the peak output, and how it should be like -8 db for drums etc. i use reason, and i dont see a fuckin master gain output that shows levels in negatives; is this just me being a complete n00b not knowing what the fuck macc's on about, or is it just that in reason maybe they show this whole output thing in a different number format?