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Mixing/EQ question (pg. 2)
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| DJMiakoda |
| quote: | Originally posted by enferno
the only way for you to learn is by trail an error and experimentation. |
Yeah, I'm starting to realize this and I'm definitely cool with it, I'm just looking for a good place to start at this point, that way I'm not too far off the mark in the end lol. |
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| DJMiakoda |
| quote: | Originally posted by Atlantis-AR
Well, a starting point, maybe. But still I think the best way is to learn to use your ears. Start with your kick peaking at -8 dBFS, and, with your monitoring volume at a moderately low level, add in instruments one at a time and listen for a few minutes (try not to focus on the instrument you've juse added, but rather the sound as a whole), and adjust accordingly. If you practise this enough, and learn to recognise "flat frequency response", you can't really go wrong (well, give it a few years maybe ;)). |
Okay, so I tried this lastnight, I set my kick at -8db, turned all the other faders down and gradually eased the basslines in first, thats as far as I got, I ran into another question....
now you were saying you want to try and keep the whole song relatively around -3db (give or take a few stray peaks) to leave headroom for the engineer and whatnot, keeping this in mind I noticed as I eased the basslines in, as I got to -3db the basslines sounded weak while the kick was very present/powerful in the mix, so I went back in and messed with the compression settings on my kick and got it toned down a little and it seems to be fairly balanced now, the mix with the kick and bass is sitting at around -4db right now, which leaves me room to bring in other elements.
Does it sound like I'm heading in the right direction here? |
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| Atlantis-AR |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJMiakoda
now you were saying you want to try and keep the whole song relatively around -3db (give or take a few stray peaks) to leave headroom for the engineer and whatnot, keeping this in mind I noticed as I eased the basslines in, as I got to -3db the basslines sounded weak while the kick was very present/powerful in the mix, so I went back in and messed with the compression settings on my kick and got it toned down a little and it seems to be fairly balanced now, the mix with the kick and bass is sitting at around -4db right now, which leaves me room to bring in other elements.
Does it sound like I'm heading in the right direction here? |
No, what you want to do is set the kick up to peak at around -8 dB at the output. Start with the master fader at 0 dB, and adjust the kick's channel so that the master output reads -8 dB rather than just setting the instrument's channel fader at -8 dB. I believe channel routing works slightly differently between software, but in Renoise, outputting a 0 dB normalised sample on a 0 dB track to a 0 dB master results in final output of -6 dB. In that case, simply set the kick's fader at -2 dB, or higher if you know you're likely to end up with a tighter mix.
See how it works out for the software you're using, and however you prefer to work. Just know not to set the kick's fader at -8 dB, but observe the master output for this reading. |
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| DJMiakoda |
| quote: | Originally posted by Atlantis-AR
No, what you want to do is set the kick up to peak at around -8 dB at the output. Start with the master fader at 0 dB, and adjust the kick's channel so that the master output reads -8 dB rather than just setting the instrument's channel fader at -8 dB. I believe channel routing works slightly differently between software, but in Renoise, outputting a 0 dB normalised sample on a 0 dB track to a 0 dB master results in final output of -6 dB. In that case, simply set the kick's fader at -2 dB, or higher if you know you're likely to end up with a tighter mix.
See how it works out for the software you're using, and however you prefer to work. Just know not to set the kick's fader at -8 dB, but observe the master output for this reading. |
Maybe I worded things wrong, what I was trying to say is I have the kick set at -8db according to the master decibel meter, I'm not sure what the fader for the kick is at at this point, I've left the master fader at odb/it's default position.
I pulled down all of the other faders, brought the kick in while watching the decibel meter I attached to the master channel, than brought in the basslines.
I've been using the master decibel meter for all of my decibel readings. |
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| Atlantis-AR |
| Oh, so it seems I got the wrong idea then. So you're saying the output of the kick peaks at -8 dBFS? And this is a digital meter with 0 dB being maximum? And so adding in the bass(es) already pushes the combined level up to -3 dB, and even then the bass is still too low in level? That doesn't seem to add up. |
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| Atlantis-AR |
By the way, I haven't mixed a track in months now, so forgive me if any of this isn't the 'conventional' way. It's just that I've been doing this for years prior to mastering, and I've gone through years of trial and error, as well as since learned the requirements of mastering, and I've come to this conclusion.
On the other hand, depending on the software you're using, you could always keep all your channel faders at 0 dB so that you can fade them in and out with the full available range, and instead place a gainer effect after any track effects to decrease the gain to match that of the kick's channel, which is set up in the same way, and output to peak at around -8 dB. I have the idea this only works in Renoise though, since the channel faders come before the effects (totally wrong, but anyway).
It doesn't really matter how you go about it, so long as the kick on its own peaks at around -8 dB, give or take a dB or two, and that the final mix peaks at around -3 dB - that's a peak reading, by the way, not an average reading.
I think the differences between software make this a complex issue to discuss actually, and I don't have all that much experience with them all. |
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| DJMiakoda |
| quote: | Originally posted by Atlantis-AR
Oh, so it seems I got the wrong idea then. So you're saying the output of the kick peaks at -8 dBFS? And this is a digital meter with 0 dB being maximum? And so adding in the bass(es) already pushes the combined level up to -3 dB, and even then the bass is still too low in level? That doesn't seem to add up. |
Something like that, what I've done is I attached the decibel meter to the master channel in my mixer, I dropped all of my faders except the master channel down to the 'off' position basically, than I brought up my kick fader first until the sound reached -8db, than I gradually brought in my basslines....
this is a picture of the sequencer with the mixer open and the master channel decibel meter open (see item circled in red)....
I had to go back and adjust my compression on my kick (I had the gain setting ridiculously high to begin with) to tone down the kick so it wasn't so overwhelming.
Right now with just the kick and the two basslines, I'm at -4db on this meter and it sounds fairly balanced. |
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| DJMiakoda |
| quote: | Originally posted by Atlantis-AR
By the way, I haven't mixed a track in months now, so forgive me if any of this isn't the 'conventional' way. It's just that I've been doing this for years prior to mastering, and I've gone through years of trial and error, as well as since learned the requirements of mastering, and I've come to this conclusion. |
Hey no problem, I appreciate any and all advice, you obviously know way more than I do and I can't say thank you enough for sharing your experience.
I do understand this may take me a great deal of time to gain any sort of wisdom and knowledge with all of this, I have no problem with that, forgive me if I ask too many questions, I'm a sponge when it comes to information, just let me know if I get annoying lol.
| quote: | Originally posted by Atlantis-AR
On the other hand, depending on the software you're using, you could always keep all your channel faders at 0 dB so that you can fade them in and out with the full available range, and instead place a gainer effect after any track effects to decrease the gain to match that of the kick's channel, which is set up in the same way, and output to peak at around -8 dB. I have the idea this only works in Renoise though, since the channel faders come before the effects (totally wrong, but anyway).
It doesn't really matter how you go about it, so long as the kick on its own peaks at around -8 dB, give or take a dB or two, and that the final mix peaks at around -3 dB - that's a peak reading, by the way, not an average reading.
I think the differences between software make this a complex issue to discuss actually, and I don't have all that much experience with them all. |
I'm sure the differences in software can make this a complex issue to discuss, and it probably doesn't help that I'm pretty new to composing music with software, I just started really getting into it recently after spending about two years with hardware only.
So, we have it established that the kick should be peaking at -8db and the overall mix peaking at -3db, not average but peaking.
Probably a silly question but, where should I be with just the kick and two basslines (one underlies the other, basically reinforces it, gives it more of a stereo or larger sound, I have one panned middle right and one panned middle left), without any other percussion or melody lines etc? |
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| Atlantis-AR |
That all looks right. Yeah, don't set the output gain on the compressor beyond what is really necessary, or you'll end up mixing with them rather than the channel faders. Leave them either at 0.0 dB, or increase them enough so that bypassing the compressor maintains a similar level.
I do know that FL Studio has a peculiar way of routing its channels, so you may find another way actually works better, but the idea would still be the same. That your kick is peaking at -8 dB, and the addition of the basslines push that up to -4 dB probably indicates that the bass is quite dynamic, or frequencies are summing together, which you probably want to try to avoid (use EQ to notch out small holes on either the kick and/or bass where the sounds overlap, and/or compress them together), or you may just have to lower the kick down to -10 dB (and the bass(es) accordingly) or so due to the possible nature of the track. Then again, I really dislike FL Studio coming from an engineer's standpoint, and the way the mixer works is somewhat beyond me too, so someone more experienced with the program can probably give you a better opinion. |
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| Atlantis-AR |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJMiakoda
Probably a silly question but, where should I be with just the kick and two basslines (one underlies the other, basically reinforces it, gives it more of a stereo or larger sound, I have one panned middle right and one panned middle left), without any other percussion or melody lines etc? |
Really depends on the nature of the track. Between -6 and -5 dB would probably be sensible places to be in, although that's based on guesswork so use your ears to decide what's best. :) |
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| Atlantis-AR |
| By the way, why don't you just set the kick's channel fader to its default 100% position? I just tried this by starting FL Studio and adding four kick instances (DNC_Kick.wav, which looks to be a sample normalised to 0 dB) to the step sequencer, and the master dB meter reads exactly -8 dB. Seems the developers had thought of that. |
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| DJMiakoda |
| quote: | Originally posted by Atlantis-AR
By the way, why don't you just set the kick's channel fader to its default 100% position? I just tried this by starting FL Studio and adding four kick instances (DNC_Kick.wav, which looks to be a sample normalised to 0 dB) to the step sequencer, and the master dB meter reads exactly -8 dB. Seems the developers had thought of that. |
I see this, I set the fader for the kick at it's default, same with the volume level in the piano roll, it indeed ends up at -8db without compression or EQ'ing which leads me to this question, is compression really needed with this kick sample (DNC Kick) or has the sample already been tweaked to it's optimum range?
To be honest, the kick I have compressed and EQ'd sounds alot better to my ears than the untouched sample. |
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