Level with me PLEASE
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Posted on Apr 11, 2003 08:22 am
madhatz1027
Member Since: Jul 14, 2002
wHATS UP hrc...LOVE THE NEW LOOK...Ok heres the question...a mastering engineer told me that my mixes should peak between -2 to -4 db so they have enough headroom for mastering. Should my master fader level be left at zero and I mix so that I peak in between these levels or should I mix at zero on the master fader and turn my mix down to these levels and mixdown to a two track stereo wave file...I have been wrestiling with this issue for a while...Level with me on this subject please...By the way Im using Cubase SX and Nuendo 1.6.
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Apr 11, 2003 08:51 am I think your engineer just wants the final results to peak between -2 and -4dB. How you get there is entirely up to you. You'll get pretty much the same results either way. Myself, I would probably be the rebel and mix so that my final is peaking damn near 0db and just come back and lightly compress the whole thing down to never peak above 2dB. Or just send it to him as-is and let him fix it. That's his job LOL.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Apr 11, 2003 11:43 am During mix down I usually leave my master faders at 0db and adjust the individual channels while keeping an eye on the master levels. It is a balancing act of getting all of the channels at volumes relitive to each other to produce the sound you want and watching the master levels to keep the peak volumes of the "mixed" piece just below 0db. Having said this, I feel the need to say those dreaded words "there are no absolutes". If you are sending your mix to this person for pre-mastering / mastering then by all means follow his or her instructions. Give them what the indicate they need. If you are doing the pre and mastering process, expirement. Newer mixing software using 32 bit float amplitude sampling are very forgiving relitive to digital sampling and hardware becomes the constraint.
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Apr 11, 2003 08:12 pm Walt raises a very good point.
If you are mixing on analouge gear, you can infact afford to go over 0dB, infact, you can usually hit around +10dB before you start running into the slightest signs of overloading things - and even then, analouge clipping is no where near as harsh as digital clipping.
The only real concern you should have is when getting it from the anaould devices, through the Analouge to Digital (A2D) converters on your soundcard. It is this point in the chain that CAN NOT exceed 0dB in peak volume - otherwise clipping WILL occur and it will not be nice.
Once a waveform is in a digital enviroment you can easily normalise it to get it to the desired volume (tho, you should still recording into a digital device around -10dB to -2dB as normalisation will also bring up background noise from the devices in question.
However, with digital mixing programs (eg: Sonar, Cubase SX), the internal registers are all set to 32bit - this means that physicall digital clipping is VERY hard to attain - this means that if your master bus volume reading in, say for example, Cubase SX, is reading +5dB you will not experience any digital clipping. The registers are all 32bit and thus have lots of head-room avaliable.
Still, it is good practice to mix to under 0dB and avoid any red lights...
jues.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Apr 12, 2003 12:32 am Well put Jues! I was having difficulty wraping that whole thing up. Nice job!
