General mixing/mastering question, regarding peaking meters/

drunkmonkey5556 wrote:yo Whats up
I'm on adderall so forgive me if I ramble.. but I think if anything it'll make my question more clear..
I'm making an instrumental album right now and I'm working pretty much exclusively in Ableton at this point in the process..
I'm trying to get it to sound as good as I can, and basically all the tracks in all the songs I'm working on are peaking.

I'm gonna start by lowering everything so that the master track stays in the green, but is it a problem if individual tracks are peaking? Because I notice that whenever I turn things too far down, the general sound of the song is a lot weaker (even if I turn my master volume up on my interface)... Maybe its just in my head or something but yeah, my main question here is, am I losing sound quality when individual tracks are peaking, or can I leave them like that?
Also, (most important part) eventually I'm gonna have to export everything out into mp3 files, so when I do that, how can I make sure nothing is peaking WHILE at the same time, have them at a good volume for listening? I ask this because in the past, when I've exported songs (and made sure the meter was in the green), then listened to it in itunes, its at a MUCH lower volume than the rest of my music.. is there some standard I should be adhering to in terms of master volume?
Thanks in advance



(P.S. , I haven't posted here in a while, are any of the old heads on here? off the top I remember Lampdog, DStruct, deadBeat, the cosmic pimp, but yeah I'd have to see the rest of the usernames to remember them. It'd be cool to hear where your music is at right now, I remember getting a lot of help from yall back in the day. Maybe get some beat battles going.. haha.
By the way I produce under the name "Surveillance" now. I wanted to announce that because it's likely that other people have that name, but I want it, so if I post it here maybe yall can back me up and say that I'm the real Surveillance. I might end up having to add a " 1 " at the end. (theres someone else on soundcloud with that name right now so that's what I'm doing for now, until I blow up and I can get his account deleted haha)... But yeah... If you remember me from a few years ago on this forum post your music and I'll check it out. When I put out my instrumental tape sometime this summer I'll definitely post it here to get some feedback.
Peace

EDIT: OH SHITTT i just noticed yall finally added a beat battle section! thats sick, i'll definitely be getting in on that

Yes, it's a problem if any of your tracks are peaking. You should have 3 to 6db of headroom on the master bus. Look up "limiting" on google and you will understand how people get songs to commercial volume. Peace.

Lampdog wrote:Been a long long minute. Welcome back.

+1

I remember you kid, with all the ASR10 questions if I remember correctly. All grown up and shit now haha. Sounding like you defected to software these days...We've also got a forum specifically for DAW's now where cats can discuss Ableton, Logic, Cubase etc.

Staying green is cool but you should be hitting the reds once in a while through out the mix. Not saying the whole time, but read it again and it says "once in a while". Give the track some curves. A nice set of tits that heads will be bobbing to.

sirparksalot wrote:Yes, it's a problem if any of your tracks are peaking. You should have 3 to 6db of headroom on the master bus. Look up "limiting" on google and you will understand how people get songs to commercial volume. Peace.

The mix should come as close to clipping as possible, without actually clipping, at the loudest part of the song.

Leaving 3-6dB headroom is incorrect.

People get commercial volume by squashing everything right up against the top of the meter, using compression and limiting in the mastering stage.

SimonInAustralia wrote:

sirparksalot wrote:Yes, it's a problem if any of your tracks are peaking. You should have 3 to 6db of headroom on the master bus. Look up "limiting" on google and you will understand how people get songs to commercial volume. Peace.

The mix should come as close to clipping as possible, without actually clipping, at the loudest part of the song.

Leaving 3-6dB headroom is incorrect.

People get commercial volume by squashing everything right up against the top of the meter, using compression and limiting in the mastering stage.

Are you talking about the mix should be as close to clipping as possible, or the mastered track? I was talking about the mix only, leaving 3-6 DB of headroom for the mastering engineer. If you are talking about the mastered song (or just limited/compressed), then I usually set the output to -.3dB and then squash the threshold to bring it to commercial volume.

At least every mastering engineer I have ever dealt with has always asked me to leave 3-6dB of headroom for them, but maybe I'm doing it wrong?

sirparksalot wrote:Are you talking about the mix should be as close to clipping as possible, or the mastered track? I was talking about the mix only, leaving 3-6 DB of headroom for the mastering engineer. If you are talking about the mastered song (or just limited/compressed), then I usually set the output to -.3dB and then squash the threshold to bring it to commercial volume.

At least every mastering engineer I have ever dealt with has always asked me to leave 3-6dB of headroom for them, but maybe I'm doing it wrong?

No, I am talking about it in the context of this thread, where the OP wants to make his own mp3s sound as loud as commercial songs.

In a situation where you are sending your mixes to a professional mastering engineer, then yes, you would follow their guidlines as to what they prefer in terms of headroom.

The mastering engineer wants that headroom for their workflow in compressing/limiting it up against 0dBFS, the OP here in this thread, for the purposes of making their mp3s as loud as possible, most likely doesn't.

Your advice to peak limit at -.3dBFS, and squash the dynamics up against that as much as possible before noticible audio artifacts, would probably be better advice.

SimonInAustralia wrote:

sirparksalot wrote:Are you talking about the mix should be as close to clipping as possible, or the mastered track? I was talking about the mix only, leaving 3-6 DB of headroom for the mastering engineer. If you are talking about the mastered song (or just limited/compressed), then I usually set the output to -.3dB and then squash the threshold to bring it to commercial volume.

At least every mastering engineer I have ever dealt with has always asked me to leave 3-6dB of headroom for them, but maybe I'm doing it wrong?

No, I am talking about it in the context of this thread, where the OP wants to make his own mp3s sound as loud as commercial songs.

In a situation where you are sending your mixes to a professional mastering engineer, then yes, you would follow their guidlines as to what they prefer in terms of headroom.

The mastering engineer wants that headroom for their workflow in compressing/limiting it up against 0dBFS, the OP here in this thread, for the purposes of making their mp3s as loud as possible, most likely doesn't.

Your advice to peak limit at -.3dBFS, and squash the dynamics up against that as much as possible before noticible audio artifacts, would probably be better advice.

Pretty sure that's the way that I answered it in my original post, or tried to. OP asked if it was a problem to have individual tracks peaking into the red. I answered that by saying yes it is, and gave advice that while mixing, you should have 3 to 6db of headroom on the master bus....shouldn't be peaking on any tracks in the mix. Then I told him to google how to use a limiter to get commercial volume, as the folks on gearslutz/youtube can show him how to use a limiter much faster and better than I can.

sirparksalot wrote:and gave advice that while mixing, you should have 3 to 6db of headroom on the master bus....

Yes, but that is incorrect.

If you are sending the mix to a mastering engineer, then sure, if that is what the mastering engineer requests.

But he is not sending it to a mastering engineer, he wants to make it as loud as he can, himself.

Mixing to a peak of -3 to -6 dBFS omn the master bus is not going to make it as loud as possible, without the additional mastering stage/process.

SimonInAustralia wrote:

sirparksalot wrote:and gave advice that while mixing, you should have 3 to 6db of headroom on the master bus....

Mixing to a peak of -3 to -6 dBFS omn the master bus is not going to make it as loud as possible, without the additional mastering stage/process.

Yes, exactly. My suggestion was to mix with good levels that do not distort anywhere in the mix and then use a limiter to bring the master bus signal to a commercial level. I'm not trying to sound upset or start an argument, I'm just trying to understand why mixing with 3 to 6 dB of headroom before limiting, and then using a limiter to peak at -.3 dB is bad advice.

It's not...

SimonInAustralia wrote:Pretty sure that's the way that I answered it in my original post

SimonInAustralia wrote: you should have 3 to 6db of headroom

Ill-Green wrote:Leaving 3-6dB headroom is incorrect.

Ill-Green wrote:The mix should come as close to clipping as possible, without actually clipping

sirparksalot wrote:In a situation where you are sending your mixes to a professional mastering engineer, then yes, you would follow their guidlines as to what they prefer in terms of headroom.

sirparksalot wrote:I am talking about it in the context of this thread, where the OP wants to make his own mp3s sound as loud as commercial songs.

SimonInAustralia wrote:

Sorry am only pratcising my cut & paste skills, it could come in handy in this forum

^^^No one that you "quoted" said any of those things...

sirparksalot wrote:^^^No one that you "quoted" said any of those things...

Yea i noticed that after, weird .Well i wont do that again