Hey Folks..
This is Man Parrish.. GREAT thread about mixing. I've been mixing my own stuff for the
past 20 years, and it's STILL often a fight. Mixing is not only a technical skill, it's also an
"art form" that develops with experience and time.
Even experienced users run into mixes that are like puzzles. Sounds great, but it's
clipping. Compress and limit to get your levels in line, and it takes the life out of the mix.
Lower the volume and the levels are great, but the "punch" is gone. Don't get discouraged,
keep pushing forward. Things will start to make sense.
Also PLEASE don't get hung up on technical issues !!! It can kill your creativity ! Mixes are
creative processes as well ! If your material or song sucks, you can make it sound great,
but it will be a great sounding piece of junk. Don't get hung up on making it sound "radio
ready". There are professional mastering guys that do nothing but that. If your stuff is
picked up by a label they will master it. And thru experience, you'll get to know who the
good mastering guys are. And believe me, they are in demand !
Jeeze.. back in the 80's we mixed to 1/2 inch tape with no output compression [although
the tape itself compressed it a bit] The mastering guy got the "raw mix" material and
usually did amazing job at making it sound "pro". It was essential for putting mixes on
vinyl. Too much bass and the needle would literally jump the grooves ! Today stuff is
digital and we all have tools that a few years ago would have cost $50,000 to outfit our
studios. Believe me, I went that route !
Look...Consider your final medium. If it's going to be posted online in MP3 format, MP3
compresses stuff. And as a by product of the MP3 algorithm, it "EQ's" your material as well.
I personally LOVE MP3 compression for when I DJ over large sound systems in big clubs.
Tons of "boom" and the CD levels are usually really loud.
If you are doing classical or ambient, you want the dynamics, don't squish. If you're trying
to impress a label to sign your Dance, Hip Hop or Rock Band, compression is great for
giving your track good punch to "impress". But do you really thing a label is signing your
track for the "punch" or because they like the source material ?
With over 20 years of producing and mixing experience, there are times even I can't get a
mix happening. I get hung up on a particular bass line or sound that I worked hard on and
love. I want to feature it in the mix and can't get my levels right. At that point I have to
decide how important the final mix is, and if I'm doing it good or harm at that point.
If the material is really that critical, and your life is depending on it, call in a professional
to mix or master it. And honestly...after you spend all that money getting it to sound
right, it will get mastered, compressed and squished into an MP3 and played thru some
cheap $20 pair of headphones or over some cheap "multimedia" computer speakers, or
squashed on radio anyway.. It will drive you nuts !
Concentrate on what you do best. If mixing or mastering engineer is what you want to do
as a profession, do it. If you're a composer, producer or re-mixer..do what you do best.It's
the old "Jack of all trades - master of none" syndrome. I follow the simple rule of...if you
THINK you're screwing a track up by PRINTING an effect or compressor...don't ! Same thing
with a final mix. You probably won't be able to "undo" it later and you'll be stuck with
something worse off. I can't tell you how may re mixes I've done where the vocals or
tracks were printed to tape WITH reverb or a bad compressor or effects that left my hands
tied to doing the material justice.
Do what yo do best, if you're in doubt about adding effects, don't. You can "fix it in the
mix" later.. BUT.. only if you have the proper source material to start off with. Hope all this
'rambling' helps ! - GREAT Logic Group Guys !! - And how much do I LOVE logic !! Man
Parrish
--- In Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com, "Wade" <bloomer@...> wrote:
>
> Hi again Iraklis,
>
> --- In Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com, "iraklis_l" <iraklis.lampropoulos@> wrote:
>
> > Since my clipping does not occur on the bass channel, but rather this
> > bass channel is causing the MAIN OUTPUT to clip, I understand that I
> > need to use the Limiter on it (the channel) instead of a compresor
> > and the Ad-Limiter on the output as I already have. However what
> > should I do in order for my output not to clip WITHOUT the Ad-
> > Limiter? Of course the normal answer is to bring the whole output mix
> > down which is what I have done until there is no clipping and then
> > add the Ad-Limiter back in to bring up the level I lost. However this
> > results to the song being very low in volume compared to normal radio
> > mixes. Shouldn't the Ad-Limiter compensate by definition (since it
> > uses brickwall) for all the level I lost when I reduced the output
> > level slider?
> >
> > Another approach I have tried is to leave the output level at 0dB and
> > reduce the level of all channels the same number of dBs so that their
> > relative levels are maintained. With this method, in order to get the
> > output not to clip I have to reduce all levels tremendously, which
> > again leads to a song of low volume, for which the Ad-Limiter does
> > NOT compensate back. It is all due to this one bass channel.
> >
> > Do you have any other method of preference that you would suggest or
> > do you believe that once I add the Limiter on the bass channel (will
> > try it when back tonite) I will be able to maintain my whole mix loud
> > without clipping with the output at 0dB and then add the Ad-Limiter
> > for the final extra couple of dBs?
>
> Ah, ye olde dominant bass. This is a classic mixing headache you are negotiating here :)
>
> Perhaps the first thing you should consider is that any commercial song you hear on the
> radio is EXTREMELY compressed and brickwall limited, beyond the point where it's even
> healthy. First it's compressed and limited some by the mix engineer, then the mastering
> engineer will crush it up a ton with a brickwall limiter (for you, that's the equivalent of
> putting your well-mixed track into the adaptive limiter reaaaally hot... though I don't
think
> the adaptive limiter goes that hot? Can't say too much here cos I haven't used it much),
> and then this already massively crushed material is fed by the radio station through a
> series of filters and compressors to squish it even further when they broadcast it. It's a
> competitive war of loudness that can't really be won, and it's at its worst in the realm of
> commercial music that can be heard on radio. If you're working in some other genre,
you
> may have more breathing space and a greater tolerance for more dynamic levels, but if
> not...
>
> So first, don't aim for as loud as radio, even as your own mastering engineer, because
> that's the extreme end of the process. It's also been shown that a song not brickwall
> limited to hell comes out sounding better on the radio than the one that has, cos it's
hard
> to futher squish something that's already of pancake width.
>
> My next suggestion though is that the use of EQ in your mix is just as important as your
> use of compression and limiting - maybe more important - in achieving general
loudness
> and a satisfying mix. Especially in the case of a troublesome bass (will discuss in a
> second.) So, I dunno how far along you are along in your understanding of EQ VS your
> understanding thus far of comp/limiting, but you should probably accept that until you
> can use all of these things with some skill, it will prove hard for you to get a mix that
> sounds competitively/comparably loud or full, versus the products of people who do
know
> how to use these things which you hear all around you all the time. (It's frustrating - I've
> been there)
>
> Loudness comes down to there being a finite amount of frequency bandwidth for your
> recording. Typically when the instruments all just play as they were recorded, many of
> them will share large chunks of frequency. Where they clash overtly the result can be
> muddiness or complete masking of sound, plus all those frequencies that are being
> doubled up are eating up your bandwidth. The track will hit zero db sooner without
> sounding particularly loud. With EQ you can strip overlapping frequencies in part or in
> whole from one or both (or more) of the instruments which are clashing. The non-
stripped
> frequencies you leave somewhere fill that area of the spectrum, but the muddiness
goes,
> you gain bandwidth, and hopefully the frequencies containing the most characteristic
> qualities of the instrument remain and are heard better than before. You get better
sound
> and the same or greater loudness while your main output doesn't peak as soon.
>
> So the bass is a very typical problem-maker. Bass instruments take up a lot of your mix
in
> any case 'cos of the way the human ear works, so you tend to have make room for them.
> Find other instruments which are bassy and try rolling off the lower frequencies. As you
do
> this, you may find your main bass track becomes more audible, hence you can turn it
> down, hence the whole track doesn't cliip as soon... etc etc. Roll bass off any tracks
which
> don't have bass elements, or very minimal ones. Every bit of bandwidth you reclaim can
> help. Of course this all takes a lot of practise to be able to do, but you just gotta get in
> there and start trying at some point. Roll some bass off, listen to the mix, use your ears.
If
> things ever sound 'worse' or annoying, put back what you've taken out and look for
> alternate solutions, other instruments you can treat.
>
> While learning to use EQ, a spectrum analyser can be extremely useful, cos it'll show you
> the effect of your fiddlings on the spectrum while you hear them at the same time. If
> you're on Logic Pro, there's one somewhere amongst the helper plugins, though the free
> Inspector from EA is better. Just looking at these things can show you hot or weak
> frequency spots in your mix.
>
> For your song - I suggest mentally putting the adaptive limiter aside for now and
> concentrate on making the mix and individual tracks work better. When you've got a
> decent mix, then feed it into the ad-limiter to get that last stage boost of loudness.
Which
> should still not be as loud as radio ;)
>
