quote:

Originally posted by Subtle Yeah i know about the loudness war, and if i see spikes in my tracks i keep them, because i know limiting them will make the sound worse. What I mean about bad mix is that the volume cannot be raised alot without loosing dynamics, while the good mix can have its volume raised without it sounding different than in the sequencer. Which means lesser processing to get an even volume overall, thus a more correct mixdown. The bad mix sounds good, it just cannot sound as high in volume as other tracks going with it.

Exactly - very well put. Mixing well and the loudness war two different things. You can have equal or closer relative levels on mix without it being labeled as a casualty of the loudness war. What I mean is to maximise the use of your available/potential gain by creating a well balanced mix with relative levels is good mixing practice and has nothing to with the loudness war.

Compressing the utter shit out of your mix to make the relative levels closer and reduce dynamic differences is a major component in the loudness war, but these two ways of working are not the same thing at all. That "high quality commerical sound" is';t anything random either. It's very carefully done to make crap pop songs fight against other crap pop songs when played on tinny radios or ipods. Technically though it does serve a purpose, and one that engineers specifically try to do for that medium and that particular genre.

Omega_Blue - you're description is exactly right. You don't cut the trunk of the tree because a couple of branches are too big. If your a couple of tracks in your mix are causing the master to clip, then you haven't balanced the track right, plain and simple.

Again,that's because your system (+ it's calibration) and the way you work should align with simple, proven, audio engineering techniques and theory such as gain staging, mixing to unity gain etc.

Eldrtich - you're right but when working with samples (and most of us do at some point with EDM) 32bit floating point processing only helps with them clipping, not reducing noise which is inherent in all samples. Also, if you're project is set to 16bit, then 32bit FP again only helps with closed system internal clipping, not the quality of your final mix audio which will be at 16bit. Yes, internally the softsynths will "compute" at 32 bit but again the moment you bounce them to audio files, they are truncated to 16bit which has a dynamic range 96dbfs and their noise floor relative to the samples is still maintained.

i don't think headroom is the word you are looking for.

Headroom is the amount of space you have before overloading a system.

Creating space in a mix has absolutely nothing to do with headroom. As far as the question you meant to ask , well i'm sure some others have already answered.

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Originally posted by RichieV i don't think headroom is the word you are looking for. Headroom is the amount of space you have before overloading a system. Creating space in a mix has absolutely nothing to do with headroom. As far as the question you meant to ask , well i'm sure some others have already answered.

That's what I've been getting at.....

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Originally posted by DJ RANN Finally, and not to be too pedantic - the title of this thread is actually a misnoma. You can't "create headroom" as such with EQ. Headroom in it's correct sense relates to dynamic range of the mix. EQ can;t by definition create more headroom. EQ can however provide frequency separation and there provide space between elements, but again it is technically impossible to "create headroom" with EQ.

It all depends on how you define headroom. Headroom implies that there is also a "ceiling" (which in general is 0dbfs) if your whole mix is continuously peaking close to 0dbfs, you've got little headroom.

If your mix is peaking @ -3dbfs you've got more headroom.

HOWEVER this tells nothing about the dynamics in a mix. the fist example can have less dynamics, because all transients are already shaved off then the 2nd one.

if the 2nd file has no transients, you can maximize it, or even limit it a bit, but you will hear squashing artifacts kicking in very quickly.

so if headroom is defined as amount of db's between peaks and 0dbfs EQ can help increasing that space. But once the dynamics are gone, you will never get them back. (you can get back something simmilar through a transient shaper, but it will never sound the same) some people also call the "inter instrument volume differences" headroom, though they really mean dynamics.

Do some reading on 0dbfs, K14 scales and RMS levels.

and then there is also a whole different dimension called "artistic aproach" which can be intented sqaushing to emphazise groove or to get a less distinct "knock knock" kick, sidechaining etc....

So i guess there is no "wrong" or "right" it all depends on the effect you're after and the techniques u use to get there. Not understanding the technique means you will not have targeted results....

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Last edited by Raphie on Apr-10-2009 at 08:25

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Originally posted by DJ RANN Eldrtich - you're right but when working with samples (and most of us do at some point with EDM) 32bit floating point processing only helps with them clipping, not reducing noise which is inherent in all samples. Also, if you're project is set to 16bit, then 32bit FP again only helps with closed system internal clipping, not the quality of your final mix audio which will be at 16bit. Yes, internally the softsynths will "compute" at 32 bit but again the moment you bounce them to audio files, they are truncated to 16bit which has a dynamic range 96dbfs and their noise floor relative to the samples is still maintained.

How is that relevant to whether it's a bad idea to lower the master fader if the mix is too loud? All of the summing, including the master fader is done in 32 bit fp.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN That's what I've been getting at.....

I disagree. Technically EQ is used to attenuate specific frequency ranges thus you can directly conlude you can create more headroom by using EQ. If you have a 250hz sine and eq 250hz down by 5db you have 5 dB more headroom, same goes for an entire mix (up to a certain extent). Especially if you attenuate dominant frequencies it can provide you extra headroom.

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quote:

If less is more think about how much more more would be. -Frasier

time correct everything so timing is as precise as a swiss clock, then shelve everything that's not bass or kick to 150hz. That should clean your mix in general.

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Originally posted by Raphie 12/24/36db/oct shelf?

Whatever is the steepest you can get away with I would think...

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In general while mixing you don't conciously EQ to create headroom, you do it through mixing relative track volumes. EQ'n gives the different parts in your mix space, a frequency spectrum to breath in, which is what the OP is probably looking for. I think if the OP used the word SPACE instead of HEADROOM, this thread would be a better place. EQ for Space, relative Level Mix for Headroom. But Storyteller did make a point, that EQ'n can overlap as an extra means for making Headroom. For example, if your cutting sub 40hz frequencies on a Bass sound that was adding an extra 1 to 2db of volume to the channel, then you'd be adding some space AND headroom by cutting off those frequencies. Gotta twist to shout.

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To master, the following were used in this order -

1. Multi-band Compressor
2. EQ
3. Limiter

Pictured at peak close to volume, here:



To obtain the following result:



In such a way, I used a multi-band compressor and subtractive EQ, sparingly, to take out frequencies that would allow for maximization of over-all volume without squashing the dynamics. In that regard, EQ was used to maximize the available headroom so that other frequencies could have more prominence.