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grumpygraham
Wannabe
Joined: Jan 15, 2006
Posts: 3
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Help in Idiot language needed please
Greetings,
First time posting here & I hope someone can be good enough to spare a minute or two to end a frustrating few months.
Ok, a few years ago the missus & I decided to have a go at building up a home studio. Neither of us had a clue of how things gelled with something else but over the years we've sat down & picked through one problem after another until we kinda understood both the problem & the answer.
Now, as I said, neither of us had any idea of the hardwork involved in building the studio or the craft that goes into making things sparkle. In my lifetime as an average musician we simply plugged in, played & let the sound guy sort the problems out. Sorry, dragging myself off subject there.Anyway's, we've spent a lot of time, money & effort getting things to a certain standard & are now pretty happy with our set up but there is one thing that I just cannot fathom. How the hell do you bring up the volume in a mix. Our mixing is getting better and better all the time, we master using wavelab, soundforge & t-racks & still our mixes are coming out at around 50%
Other good folk have given advice but tend to go over my head with technical jargon. Please help, I appreciate there could be numerous explantions adding with the fact that we're both a pair of numbnuts.
Thanks for taking the time to read the post, hope it makes sense & someone can help!
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Sun Jan 15, 2006 6:45 pm |
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AC
Chief
Joined: Oct 31, 2002
Posts: 1071
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Volume
Ok, firstly, welcome to the forums and secondly, thanks for the brief history, I guess I can understand why you included that.
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| How the hell do you bring up the volume in a mix. Our mixing is getting better and better all the time, we master using wavelab, soundforge & t-racks & still our mixes are coming out at around 50% |
I need more information here, because I need to know what you use as a mixer, is it hardware/software?
In the same question you mention mastering which is an entirely different process, you know?
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Recording Studio Suntans
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Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:10 pm |
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AC
Chief
Joined: Oct 31, 2002
Posts: 1071
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Stages
| grumpygraham wrote: |
Great, thanks for taking the time to reply.
I put the history to try to explain what stage I was at, if its confused folk then i'm sorry. It wasn't the intention at all.
Ok, i'm recording into cubase 5 through a Behringer SL3242FX desk using a couple of phase28 soundcards, a Alesis 3630 Compressor, Alesis limiter & stereo expander with a yamaha e.q. I know I need a bit more gear to progress and i hope to take care of this within the next few months.
I probably dont appreciate the term 'mastering' properly which is why I admitted that your dealing with a complete idiot here lol. Guess I didnt want to admit how much of an idiot  |
Mixing is the process AFTER recording has taken place. Generally during a recording we are concerned with getting chunky signal levels onto the recorder, in your case in to Cubase and recorded on the hard drive. At this point the only thing we are concerned with is capturing a signal which is going to be useable in the future, so we tend to avoid any processing at this stage, just good hearty signals. The point here is to get the sound as close to what you want the finished sound to be, the less processing the better, particularly if it is digital.
Mixing tpically takes place after we have recorded everything, we come back to the project and start to bring up the signals in our desk, in your case with a virtual desk (or mixer) within Cubase. We then "balance" the levels with the faders, bringing them up and/or down to raise or lower their respective levels. We may use e.q. and or effects or processing to "polish" or "embellish" the individual sounds in the context of the whole thing. We export a stereo file of the mix.
Next we send it off to a mastering engineer who will apply subtle processing to the stereo file in order to create something which sounds good on the widest amount of playback systems possible.
In the home recording environment many of the above stages overlap and/or are catered for in many different ways, which is fine, who cares anyway, BUT, it's always good to know how the professionals might approach a project which is kinda how I have explained it might take place.
As this particular forum thread is concerned with mastering, I'll direct you to the Production Techniques (or mixing if you like) forum:
http://www.studiorecordingengineer.com/forum-13.html
P.S. I wouldn't call you an idiot we all started somewhere.
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Recording Studio Suntans
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Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:54 am |
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Jambrose
Wannabe
Joined: Jun 24, 2005
Posts: 13
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Are you recording at a high enough level? When you are recording a microphone signal take the Price is Right approach: get as close as possible to the top, without going over.
If done properly, you should need to lower signals to fit them in the mix...
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Sun Jan 29, 2006 12:14 am |
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grumpygraham
Wannabe
Joined: Jan 15, 2006
Posts: 3
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Ok, Thanks for the reply posts.
The threads given are a bit of an eye opener lol. Looks like its back to the drawing board for a while.
The signals are very crisp & clear. As I said, its not so much the mixing but the end product volume. All the levels across the process are sitting nicely (although i had problems with vocals for a long time).....Its just the volume of the mix.
For the moment i'm taking the easy option & sending the mixes off to a 'proper' studio for mastering. Perhaps one day i'll grasp it lol......ho hum!
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Mon Jan 30, 2006 9:12 pm |
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RhoneRanger
Engineer
Joined: Nov 04, 2005
Posts: 332
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| Jambrose wrote: |
Are you recording at a high enough level? When you are recording a microphone signal take the Price is Right approach: get as close as possible to the top, without going over.
If done properly, you should need to lower signals to fit them in the mix... |
Well, this is not always the case.. When you have a final mixdown and prepare for mastering, even if you are at -6 or -8 db you are fine.
What you are looking for is a good even signal that does not clip. I usually max my vocals at -2. There is no reason whatsoever to have a "loud" mix. Mastering takes care of that.
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Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:31 am |
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masteringhouse
Moderator
Joined: May 28, 2005
Posts: 68
Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
| grumpygraham wrote: |
Ok, Thanks for the reply posts.
The threads given are a bit of an eye opener lol. Looks like its back to the drawing board for a while.
The signals are very crisp & clear. As I said, its not so much the mixing but the end product volume. All the levels across the process are sitting nicely (although i had problems with vocals for a long time).....Its just the volume of the mix.
For the moment i'm taking the easy option & sending the mixes off to a 'proper' studio for mastering. Perhaps one day i'll grasp it lol......ho hum! |
Attending a 'proper' mastering session from someone who does this as a career should be worth the cost just for the education.
This question gets asked quite a bit. Each stage of audio production has it's own focus. Primarily the focus is on the elements that you can't change in the next stage of production. For example:
When tracking, focus on getting the best performance from the artist and the best sounds possible. Don't "fix in the mix".
When mixing, concentrate on getting the tracks blended well (isn't that why they call lit "mixing"?) and sitting properly. The overall level isn't important here except for reasons of signal to noise ratio. Once you have a two track mix, it will be very difficult to change individual tracks in the mastering stage. So it's important to make certain that any problems at the track level are addressed here, as well as any effects that need to be added.
When mastering the concentration should be less on the individual song and more on the album in it's entirety. That's why overall levels should be addressed here. You don't want to be myopic when mixing, trying to reach the highest levels at that stage or your soft ballad could be louder than your "rocker". Just go for a "semi-consistency". During mastering additional compression/limiting can be added to make a song louder (at the expense of dynamic range) but it is very difficult to add dynamic range to material that has already had it reduced in significant amounts. That's one of the reasons why you will hear ME's complain about the "loudness wars".
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Tom Volpicelli
The Mastering House Inc.
http://www.masteringhouse.com
CD Mastering and Media Production Services
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Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:23 pm |
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