Amplitude levels

Hi everyone,
this is a newbee question:
Often when i put drums and baselines together, or add another sample i get at one point buzzing noises from my speakers. I start with some drums, and they sound cool, but adding new sounds to it makes it messy.
I feel like i am doing some elementary mistakes here. How do you avoid sounds that cut each other off? Or is this just a problem of my setup?
(I use an mpc live connected to a small mixer going to my active speakers.)
Thanks
Christopher

Try mixing to -9db or -12db for each track, and see if it goes away.

You can always compress/master later to increase overall loudness, but once you clip you're loosing data you cannot get back.

NearTao wrote:Try mixing to -9db or -12db for each track, and see if it goes away.

How do you do that, though? Track Mixer presents the track's volume in 1-127 scale, instead of dB, at least for MIDI tracks that are 100% of what I do.

My workflow is to record in the tracks so I can see on the track or input in the level meter... but yes, if you're using outboard gear then you'll need a mixer or something similar if you wanted to do that.

Thanks, that works!
(by the way, with the mpc livei could adjust the dbs of the program via the Q-links)

Lampdog wrote:

antic604 wrote:How do you do that, though?

Learn the other mixers, leave track mixer alone.

I'm aware of program & pad mixers, so why the track mixer is for?

Personally I don't mind mixing with track mixer, but... Track mixer can be a bit weird... especially if you use the same program on multiple tracks.

If they took the MPC's digital mixer and built a Physical Mixer from it. That mixer would be the worst desk to work on. From the layout of these MPC's, you can tell the designer didn't work on or reference an actually mixing console.

One to Many, and Many to Many relationships are problematic in quite a few situations...