Still relatively new to making tracks, but I understand the basics of mixing. I recently finished a track and I noticed that the mix is quiet when I export it, compared to mastered commercial tracks. My mix never goes over 0 db, so is putting a limiter on the master and raising the gain the only way to louden my mix without mastering? And how much below 0 db should my master channel be at its loudest peak in the final mix? I would rather not put a limiter on future tracks because it kills the dynamics. I'm not trying to make my tracks loud for the sake of being loud, but I just want them to be around the same volume when I upload them somewhere or potentially send them over to labels in the future. I noticed that some of the producers I follow upload pre-mastered tracks but they're around the same overall volume as a professional commercial track. Any advice would be great, thank you!
scorpradio
I always thought it should be at 6db...shows how much I know :crazy:
RobertAllen
I think your mix before sending it to be mastered (or mastering yourself) should be -6 db just so you have the headroom to work with. But I'm not far enough in my production level to be too worried about mastering just yet and I'm just wanting to get a mix with the same volume as other tracks for people to listen to. So if I kept it at -6 db it would be even quieter when I render it.
derail
The -6dB guideline is an arbitrary number some mastering engineer came up with one time, because they were sick of clients sending them songs which either had clipping/ "over"s somewhere in the song, or where the client wanted their song loud and had already strapped a compressor or limiter over the final mix before sending it for mastering.
-6dB ensures that, for clients who don't know how to find the loudest part of their song, they can find a fairly loud section and ensure it's around -6dB and it's unlikely that there will be any "over"s in the rest of the song.
-6dB is quiet enough that it hopefully kills any desire to try to raise the level of the entire mix.
But yes, if you're not sending the track to be mastered, and you want to show labels/ other people what you can do, put a limiter on the master, set the output level to -0.1 dB. -0.1 is almost indistinguishable from 0, and will ensure there's no chance of clipping on any decent system.
Bear in mind though, the vast majority of the loudness comes from the rest of the mixing process, not the limiter at the end. If you have too much frequency content somewhere in the frequency range, that's going to reduce how loud you can push the song with the limiter - if you try to achieve "competitive levels" with the limiter on a bad mix, it's going to start sounding very crunchy and horrible.
Most often this comes down to too much low frequency content, which our ears don't respond as well to as mid range content. I know when I started, I didn't notice that some of my kicks and basses had a heap of sub frequency content in there, or I'd pushed them too high in the mix because I wanted a nice bassy low end and couldn't yet hear where my songs were at, relative to my reference songs.
Be sure to cut out all the parts of each sound which aren't important to that sound's character - hihats don't typically need a lot of low end, actually most sounds except kick/bass don't need low end. Basses often don't need high end content. A lot of sounds have a heap of midrange content which ends up making the mix muddy/ boxy - it cleans the mix up massively to find these frequencies and bring them down a bit.
All the best!
evo8
Put your own track and the reference track in your sequencer and switch between them - whats making the reference track appear louder?
Rodri Santos
If you don't know how to master your track don't do it without knowing the theory because you'll screw it (point 1)
A good mastering engineer can work on your track even if it's peaking at 0db, the -6/-3 explanation above is the why of the number.
I like to have it peaking at -0.3, in my experience you can't see the red when in the daw because you have a limiter there but when playing on decks at some points like risers the red light pop ups if you leave it at 0.
Whip_lash
I found this vid to be pretty useful.
RobertAllen
First off thank you derail for the informative advice you gave, it means a lot. And thank you everyone else for your input and the video which I plan on watching later. I have some more questions once I mull over what has already been said that I'll ask later, but just wanted to let you guys know I appreciate the advice, just really busy with school and can't give a proper reply right now. :)
chris marsh
I know that some people mix into a compressor or limiter for extra loudness. It's not something I've done yet or necesarily advocate but I know it is done. For example I know for a fact that quite a few drum and bass Producers do this and a lot of drum and bass is very in your face/loud.
Richard Butler
quote:
Originally posted by chris marsh
I know that some people mix into a compressor or limiter for extra loudness. It's not something I've done yet or necesarily advocate but I know it is done. For example I know for a fact that quite a few drum and bass Producers do this and a lot of drum and bass is very in your face/loud.
The biggest UK D&B producer is probably Danny Byrd and I saw a production vid of his where he said he always does this so he can be sure the sound is exactly as he wants. A lot of producers now do this and for sure many of them would never claim to have mastering expertise, more they just like cooking the cake all the way from mixing bowl to mouth.
derail
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Butler
The biggest UK D&B producer is probably Danny Byrd and I saw a production vid of his where he said he always does this so he can be sure the sound is exactly as he wants. A lot of producers now do this and for sure many of them would never claim to have mastering expertise, more they just like cooking the cake all the way from mixing bowl to mouth.
Exactly. Full responsibility for the final product. A lot of producers don't want to put hours of work into a song just for 15-30 minutes of mastering to take it somewhere they didn't intend.
Sure, there are good mastering engineers around who will say "yep, this sounds fine, I'm not going to touch it", but there are also some who aren't secure enough to say that and feel the need to do at least something to the song. Or worse, there are probably one or two who have their own thoughts of where a song should go, without checking in detail what the client wants.
I'm totally not getting down on mastering engineers - I have a really good guy in my town who is more than happy to have me sit in on the mastering session, to bring in my reference tracks, to have the discussion about what's required and so on. I appreciate how finely tuned his ears are.
Looney4Clooney
i agree. All the guys that actualy sell master their own music.
