So I normally find, in the course of assembling a track, that when I've got it all mixed together to my satisfaction that it's hitting somewhere from -5 to 0 on the stereo bus, at which point I select all the active tracks and drag them down a bit together so I have headroom for mastering.
Occasionally I'll have to do this during the mix and/or recording process when I notice I'm hitting 0.
Two questions:
Just in the normal course of recording, where does your master bus level end up at?
Providing I'm not actually peaking, am I wasting my time reducing everything and then ramping it up again via a limiter, or should I just leave it alone and volumerise it from wherever it ends up?
2 bus level just prior to mastering
Re: 2 bus level just prior to mastering
why not just turn the master output down?
Alan.
Alan.
Re: 2 bus level just prior to mastering
I don't know where my master bus peaks. I just know it doesn't clip and the meter stays mostly green to yellow when everything's running. Very precise, right? The actual number means nothing to me. If I had to guess, I'd say it tops around -6 or something.Armistice wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2017 12:55 am So I normally find, in the course of assembling a track, that when I've got it all mixed together to my satisfaction that it's hitting somewhere from -5 to 0 on the stereo bus, at which point I select all the active tracks and drag them down a bit together so I have headroom for mastering.
Occasionally I'll have to do this during the mix and/or recording process when I notice I'm hitting 0.
Two questions:
Just in the normal course of recording, where does your master bus level end up at?
Providing I'm not actually peaking, am I wasting my time reducing everything and then ramping it up again via a limiter, or should I just leave it alone and volumerise it from wherever it ends up?
I suppose how much headroom you need to leave would depend on the limiter you like to use. If it's an emulation of some famous analog limiter, it might be written to expect an analog-like signal level. Some of them seem to handle a hot track going in pretty well, some are a bitch and need to wound up. I don't know. You just need to experiment with different limiters and pre-master signal levels and see what's what. I tend to think it doesn't really matter much. Headroom, no headroom, it doesn't matter with digital. But I'm not a mastering engineer either.
Rebel Yell
Re: 2 bus level just prior to mastering
If you are at -5dbfs, you have enough headroom.
Pulling down the master is a better way (assuming you are in a daw) to lower the level of the song. If you pull down the channel faders, any compression that happens after the channels (group busses) will change because you essentially changed the threshold.
Pulling down the master is a better way (assuming you are in a daw) to lower the level of the song. If you pull down the channel faders, any compression that happens after the channels (group busses) will change because you essentially changed the threshold.
Re: 2 bus level just prior to mastering
Also....
When you send you mixes to an actual mastering engineer, he needs the headroom because a lot of times he is sending the mix out into the real world to use specialized analog equipment. If you are staying in the box and just slapping a limiter on it, there isn't much point to turning it down first.
Like greg pointed out, if your plugin is a hardware emulation, it might be sensitive to input level. But that would be more common with compressors and eqs than it would a brick wall limiter.
As long as something in the box is not clipping, the peak level doesn't matter. The reason you don't want to record something too close to clipping is so you don't over-stress the analog signal path on the way into the daw. Analog equipment can react differently at different signal level.
My mixes tend to end up with an rms level of -20 to -13 dbfs. It depends on the song and how dense the music is. I don't care where it peaks because it doesn't matter (as long as it doesn't clip).
When you send you mixes to an actual mastering engineer, he needs the headroom because a lot of times he is sending the mix out into the real world to use specialized analog equipment. If you are staying in the box and just slapping a limiter on it, there isn't much point to turning it down first.
Like greg pointed out, if your plugin is a hardware emulation, it might be sensitive to input level. But that would be more common with compressors and eqs than it would a brick wall limiter.
As long as something in the box is not clipping, the peak level doesn't matter. The reason you don't want to record something too close to clipping is so you don't over-stress the analog signal path on the way into the daw. Analog equipment can react differently at different signal level.
My mixes tend to end up with an rms level of -20 to -13 dbfs. It depends on the song and how dense the music is. I don't care where it peaks because it doesn't matter (as long as it doesn't clip).
Re: 2 bus level just prior to mastering
Before I "Shmaster", my peaks are probably as low as -10 or less. I track pretty low and mix pretty low.
That's not as much help as the others have given you, just wanted to answer that question so you get an idea.
That's not as much help as the others have given you, just wanted to answer that question so you get an idea.
My site: http://www.ramirami.com
Re: 2 bus level just prior to mastering
Yes, I think I just had that brain snap myself. And worked out why the mix changed. Completely forgot about compression thresholds. Doh!Farview wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2017 9:42 am If you are at -5dbfs, you have enough headroom.
Pulling down the master is a better way (assuming you are in a daw) to lower the level of the song. If you pull down the channel faders, any compression that happens after the channels (group busses) will change because you essentially changed the threshold.
Thanks.