Basic question about mixing

[Harry_]

Hi,

A very basic question concerning the headroom setting in
the mixing process. When your summed tracks (master)
volume exeeds the headroom level 0 (i.e. is "on red")
but none of the is single tracks exeeds this level,
can I just use the master fader to lower the volume
when rendering the master track - or should I
decrease the level of every individual track
to avoid the distortion?

Harry

[trevox]

Hi,

A very basic question concerning the headroom setting in
the mixing process. When your summed tracks (master)
volume exeeds the headroom level 0 (i.e. is "on red")
but none of the is single tracks exeeds this level,
can I just use the master fader to lower the volume
when rendering the master track - or should I
decrease the level of every individual track
to avoid the distortion?

Harry

A few choices...

1. Decrease all volumes as you said.
2. Route all tracks to another track and lower the volume of this and send to master track.
3. Place a gain utility on the master track and lower the overall volume that way.

Personally, I would go with the options 1 and 3. It's generally good practice to have all tracks peaking at -6db to avoid clipping on your master. Then, having a gain utility to control the level of your final mix for mastering is also a good idea.

[fishmonkey]

yes you can just bring down the master fader.

however it is good mixing practice to keep your master at 0 and mix to a target below that. firstly, it will help you learn how different individual tracks contribute to overall level. secondly, not all equipment is so forgiving, so if you learn to mix that way you will be golden no matter what system you are using.

[crumhorn]

Personally I'd place a utility on the master and adjust that - or group all your tracks and use the group fader.

That way you can preserve the master fader for automation duties like fading to zero at the end of a track.

[Evengy]

If i turn down the Utility (-8db) in Master Track, i leave all other Tracks as it is because i have -8db Headroom. But if i put a few Drums on a Drum Rack, every Signal is under 0db but the Drum Rack Channel itself is red after 1-3 Percussions etc. Is it OK that the Drum Rack Channel is red? I read in another Thread that this is OK because the Group/Drum Rack Channel have enough internal Headroom. Is this correct? Don´t find the thread atm :/

[Harry_]

Thank you all for your informative comments.
I asked this question because I´ve red somewhere that
in this case (i.e. if your mixing is complete, the balance is good but master
level exeeds 0 db), one should decrease the level of every individual
track. This is what I usally intend to do.
However, if you have made a lot of automation, complicated routing and effecting,
the adjustment of all single track or re-routing all tracks to a new channels
may be challenging. (I don´t know if you can see difficulty?)
I think I´ll follow in this case your advice and put a gain utility to my master channel.
BTW, isn´t there a danger that the gain utility input is clipping? I suppose this
depends also on the quality of the gain utility?
Harry

[trevox]

You'll probably find that there is enough headroom that slight clipping on a single track is not going to cause a huge amount of issues and I understand what you mean in regards to automation. If starting from scratch, I still think it is good practice to automate so there is ample headroom on each track so the master does not clip rather than just ensuring the single track does not clip. If you have an existing track with this issue with a lot of automation, you can either add a gain utility to the master as suggested or - if the input into the gain utility is too hot - add gain utilities to each track and control their output from there as this would not affect your automation.

[Tarekith]

yes you can just bring down the master fader.

however it is good mixing practice to keep your master at 0 and mix to a target below that. firstly, it will help you learn how different individual tracks contribute to overall level. secondly, not all equipment is so forgiving, so if you learn to mix that way you will be golden no matter what system you are using.

Agreed. Probably not a huge deal in this case to lower the master since you already have automation making it difficult to lower all the track volumes. Something to keep in mind for your future tracks though.

[Harry_]

Yes, good points. I have to say that as far as I understand this issue - "greed for volume" -
is the one of the most common pitfall in the producing/mixing. When you are recording single
tracks and getting the right sounds, it always feels that you have to maximise the level
to get all the frequencies out. Although you try to leave headroom, very often
at mixing stage you once again struggle with this clipping issue.
Because this is so typical, I wonder if there are any other good advice or innovations made
than this "try to foresee - leave headroom"? I´m sure I´m not the first asking this - it shouldn´t be
very complicated to add a new feature to the modern digital sequencers which tackle this issue, some kind of
"post-master-levelling function".
Harry

[Tarekith]

Well, if you don't have volume automation it's dead simple to select all the track headers in session view and then dragging one volume fader down will lower all of them by the same amount. You keep your mixdown, just at a level that no longer clips the master. Most other DAWs have a trim automation mode as well, so even if you have volume automation you can do the same thing. Unfortunately Live does not have this function.

[heavensdaw]

I find for this very reason that it's best if at all possible to not put any automation on the tracks level faders.. Utility gain automation get most things done.. or failing that, clip volume automation..

Hd

[Harry_]

Most other DAWs have a trim automation mode as well, so even if you have volume automation you can do the same thing. Unfortunately Live does not have this function.

(!) Note for Live developers. H.

[ark]

Live uses floating-point arithmetic internally, so it has an enormous amount of headroom. Of course if the signal on the master track goes above 0dB, it may clip in the audio interface; but I do not think there is any need to worry about anything going into the red before the master.

The situation may be different with other DAWs.

[Tarekith]

He already said it was the master and no the individual tracks that was clipping.

[ark]

He already said it was the master and no the individual tracks that was clipping.

Right. So in that case, it's sufficient simply to turn down the gain on the master. There is no need to turn down the gain on the individual tracks.