Quick question about how to peak drums without **** up th

Yo
I haven't posted here in a while, and you'll probably start seeing my posting a bit more frequently in the future (if you frequent this site yourself), haha I used to be on here a lot so I wanted to say that in case any of the same people are still here..

but yeah just cause I've been using an asr-10 and not an mpc-500 anymore, but I had a quick question about mixing, which is what i'm trying to improve right now:

A lot of times when I'm working on mixing my drums, they always sound a lot better when they're peaking, and the levels are going into the red. I've heard that what you're supposed to do at that point is just turn everything down.. but when its up higher the drums often sound a lot better to me, so I was wondering if there was a way to keep that sound without it really peaking in a way that messes up the quality

I don't know if it's an actual effect I can use just to get the same sound, or I can let it peak on the ASR and just keep it from peaking in ableton.. or maybe I should really try turning down all the tracks and it'll still have that sound.. help me out

thanks in advance

well you could record the said audio, and use a limiter to increase the sound after so it wont peak... yet it still gets compressed...

or, maybe it's a mental thing where louder sounds better? try turning up your speaker volume to see if that is the case.

BTW, welcome back!

Yup, lower things down. If drums are in the red, then lower it and lower the other stuff, but lower them lower than the drums. Simple as chicken pot pie.

If you are sure going into the red or clipping, be it analog or digital, is the sound you actually want and have ruled out the possibly that it isn't indeed just a loudness (psycho-acoustic) thing that's fooling your ears like what mr_debauch stated, it's on you but you do have quite a few options. If its the particular sound of the ASR-10 clipping that you're after you can clip its output and either pad the input of the device recording it (interface, mixer, etc) or use that device's input trim, if either are available, so that you won't clip the recording device's ADC (assumably, since a digital connection likely wouldn't work).

If you just want to square off the peaks by actually clipping and don't want to use the good advice given of just using a limiter, then clip a channel to taste in Live and then resample it, get rid of the original, use the new resampled track and turn the new recording down in the mix. You can also do this even more easily though with the Saturator effect in Live, as it's goal is to attempt to provide most desired flavors of basic clipping and saturation effects with more control than just clipping and resampling from one channel to another, though you could also easily resample it too. Here you get a lot more control however. If you just want to dirty up the sound, you may aslo have varying degrees of success by trying some of the other effects in Live like the Dynamic Tube, Overdrive, Erosion or such, albeit not exactly clipping.

Generally though, proper gain staging and having headroom, like I'll-Green said, is ideal in most cases where you aren't deliberately clipping. This is all only to the best of my knowledge though, not gospel.

your meters can go in the red, as long as they arent clipping digitally, cause that shit is wack

i would try a limiter though if you really want that sound.

sometimes analog clipping can be good, and add harmonics, see tape clipping.

but since its not analog, its always bad.

thats what ive been taught anyway.

get the closest you can to clipping, but dont clip, if you want it loud.

is it possible that on ableton, the meters go into the red way before any real clipping is happening? because it seems like the volume is already reallllly low (on the whole song) and it sounds a lot better when i just turn everything up to the point where the master track is peaking the whole time.

i'll try everything above... again, it might just be that i need to turn everything down, and then turn up the volume on my computer. But it still seems like when I do that, and export it, the song sounds really quiet, which just makes me curious as to why it needs to be turned down that much.

but yeah thanks i'll try everything

drunkmonkey5556 wrote:it might just be that i need to turn everything down, and then turn up the volume on my computer. But it still seems like when I do that, and export it, the song sounds really quiet, which just makes me curious as to why it needs to be turned down that much.

The level on your meters, especially peak levels, have very little to do with the actual volume you're hearing from your speakers or monitors. Peak levels are just measurements to let you know how much headroom you have left after the highest peaks or transients in the material before clipping the converters or output bus. What I believe people are suggesting is that you simply mix at a louder volume, within safety, so that you won't be fooled into thinking that the higher peaking mix actually sounds better. There are other means to make your music actually denser and more compressed and thus able to push up the average level after the fact, through mastering. If that's the type of thing you're into.

as far as virtual effects go... have you ever tried the Waves L3 UltraMaximizer? maybe if you applied that effect strictly to your drum track, you may get that "maxed-out to 99%, just a pixel below the red" sound you seem to be after... may be worth giving it a shot...

i should admit that mastering isn't my strong point though... like most people here, i'm just more into the actual sampling and sequencing aspect of this beat making sh!t...

I generally mix so that the the loudest part of any track (kick, snare, vocals, etc) is peaks at around -3db. I don't use a master fader in Pro Tools, but create a stereo aux track and use it as a submit buss. That track never peaks above -3db.

If you feel the entire track is quiet, turn up your monitors. I personally prefer to mix at a quiet level. That way there is a better representation of whats what, and the mix has a lesser chance of having room issues because nothing is bouncing around.

I wouldn't put a limiter on the drums to keep it from peaking, I would just turn it down...

my 2cents

im with cozy, i usually make my peaks at around -3 to -2 at the peaks.

the reason when you export and your song sounds soft is because it isnt mastered. this is supposed to happen.

your supposed to master a 2 track after the mix is done. NO ONE ever releases a mix that is just a mix, everything is always mastered before it goes to the pressing house and comes into your hands as a cd, album, mp3 file. ect ect.

like crossings said, a l3-ultra maximizer would work to make it louder, and this can be seen as kind of a ghetto type mastering, or a mastering for a person that doesnt need or know how to actually master the song (this also happens on mixtapes because they are meant to be released quick and low budget) or people that just plain dont know what they are doing.

i wouldent get into the habit of putting an L3 on your whole mix ever, unless your just handing it out to friends or something.

i also wouldent put it on my drums before giving it to a mastering engineer, the more headroom they have, the more you can get out of them creatively.

if you want your drums to knock but dont know how to do it, learn how to mix properly, or pay someone to mix it for you, generally its a good thing to have one person mix your stuff, and another person master it.

you can get hung up on 1 milisecond of a song that no one would ever notice, whereas if it had a fresh set of ears, a great mastering job can come out and just pass over that one part that no one would ever notice anyway.

i realize you probably arent trying to pay for your beats to get mixed, because it can get costly and your still in highschool if i remember correctly, read this book called mixing with your mind, it will give you some good tips.

although if your releasing instrumentals and want to put together an album at some point, you can find people that do good "beat mixing" for pretty cheap. around 20 to 30 bucks a track.

nothing wrong with doing so.. driving sounds into the red is often used and is a simple method of sweetening up sounds, and has been done for a long time.. tend to sound better in analog mixers or in tube gear than when done digitally.

just keep check so that harsh higher frequencies wont tear and wear your ears out, as that can more easily happen when those frequencies turn harsh, so good to have the eq ready, or to be able to pull down the volume on hihats and rides if they have their own channel before everything is summed up and goes into whatever you want to use to overdrive

i wouldnt worry about anything, unless it has an unpleasant effect on your ears. no rules like that really.