Final Mix Questions

[TASsadar]

I am fairly new to Ableton. I use the program primarily for composition (in arrangement format), not live performance or session view (some day I will expand my horizons, but I am having way too much fun creating music this way right now). I have a lot of questions, but I think I will just try to shoot for one at a time here.

In a nutshell... I would like my tracks to not be half of the volume as the rest of the music that I listen to, and I am at a loss for how to raise the volume without crushing the shit out of it with compressors, or getting SERIOUS clipping and/or distortion.

Where should I start? EQing? I thought compressors would help, but it only got me so far... do I just need to be a little more touchy with them or am I missing like a ton of stuff here?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[The Philosopher King]

Where to start?

Spectrum analyzer and EQ. Too much low end (sub) information in all of your individual tracks will eat up your headroom.

[Tarekith]

http://tarekith.com/assets/mixdowns.html

http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

[TASsadar]

Philosopher: Thanks, I'll check these tools out, mess around with them a little bit.

Tarekith: Thank you!!! The mixdown for beginners guide helped me immensely. I have yet to try out re mixing my one rough draft song, but that read is going to be a go to for me when I start this process. The guide is perfectly aimed at my experience level I think, I enjoyed the read thoroughly. Well written! Thanks for the help man.

[juanlittledevil]

If you want your tracks to sound nice and loud you have to start with a clean mix. Loudness really shouldn't really happen until you maximize it later on in the mastering process. Focus on getting your idea across first.

Here are some things to keep in mind when doing a mixing.

1. lo-cut anything that doesn't belong in the low frequency ranges. I tend to cut anything but kick and bass. Sometimes I also let pads through specially if it's my main focal element, but even then I maybe do like a soft roll off instead.

2. Pay attention to the area between 250hz and 900hz as this is the are where mud occurs. Keep in mind however, that most of your instruments are likely to share this space, so make sure you eq properly. (subtle cuts are better than boosts)

3. Try to get your mix to sound great by adjusting each individual track rather than as a whole, you'll have way more control over your sound this way. Once you have achieved the tonal quality you want bounce it so you have a good 15db to 20db dynamic range, also make sure you have at least a little bit of headroom.

The next steps are more mastering then mixing, so it's best to work with a stereo file instead. Ideally when mastering you'll want to have someone else do it professionally, but it's always nice to have a quick master to listen to in the club or in the car or whatever... When mastering the goal is not to have to do much to the track other than make it nice and loud. There are plenty of great tutorials out there I highly recommend you watch this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFq0c0Tu1I

If you're track is EQ's right from the get go you won't have to compress hardly at all! Don't try to fix things in the mastering phase. If you compress with the multiband compressor do it very slightly, and never compress the mixed track with a stereo compressor or you'll suck the life out of your track.

The thing that's going to make your track nice and loud is using some kind of limiter to maximize your track. remember to leave -.3db be your hard limit or you'll most likely make cd's unplayable in older cd players. Setup a nice lookahead value like 3ms or higher. You can use the auto setting for the release. And then bring up the gain until you get about -3db or -4db gain reduction. If yourself enough headroom you won't really notice the difference but you'll get your track nice and loud without feeling like you've lost too much of the dynamic range.

I use the Ozone plugin to do quick masters of my stuff and it does a great job. You can also use a combination of eq8(make sure you use hi-quality), multiband dynamics, and limiter instead. I have a tutorial on making a multiband imager if you need it on my blog also.

[juanlittledevil]

I made this rack the other day which allows you to do some mastering using ableton devices.


bit.ly/myuocE

[Spectrumdisco]

The key is to try to get the individual tracks sounding right within the overall piece.

By cutting the bass on most of the instruments you give yourself so much room. You can also gain some space by panning left and right especially in the higher frequencies