Chords for How To Properly Set Your Recording And Mixing Levels
Tempo:
136.2 bpm
Chords used:
G
Ab
Bb
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Jam Along & Learn...
Hello again, Dez Asante from the TechMuzeAcademy with another quick tip for you guys today.
This one comes courtesy of a question [G] from a MixLessons.com subscriber.
Comes from Will McCollum and he says, my question is about levels, recording and mixing levels.
I think I know that the goal is not to go above 0dB but what should my input meter levels
be when recording the track and what should the track levels in the mix be?
Obviously, some will be higher than others but what is too high?
What should the output meter level be when I'm ready for mix down?
I know that these levels can be subjective and dependent on the sound of the project
as a whole but is there a sweet spot for the output levels, specifically with mastering in mind?
Well, once again like many, many things in this arena, there is no hard rule set in stone
but there are some points to consider.
And the first thing I'll start with is to your point that you wanna try to get as close
to zero without clipping or peaking.
And this is kind of a best practice that came out of the older analog days of technology
where you did want to get your signal on input as close to that 0dB mark as possible without
going over and the reason for that was to get the signal as high above the noise floor as possible.
So the signal to noise ratio, you wanted that to be in your favor.
And that's because of the inherent noise that was a part of analog gear, analog circuitry,
tape hiss, things of that nature.
So that was always the best practice.
Get that signal up as high as you can with just [Ab] enough headroom that you don't risk clipping
and overloading the input.
Now, in the days of high bit depth digital recording, this is not near as big an issue
as it once was.
So now, you can set your levels very, very conservatively on input without the risk of
like leaving yourself with loads of headroom so you totally avoid the risk of clipping
and of course in the digital world, clipping must be avoided at all cost because there's
absolutely nothing musical sounding about a digital clip.
In the analog domain, you could get a little of that clipping and it just sort of added
a grit and an aggressiveness to the tone which may or may not have been appropriate, may
not have been what you intended but at least it was musically usable.
In a world of digital, it's not musically usable at all.
So you wanna definitely avoid clipping.
Now the other thing that is advantageous nowadays is that if you're capturing audio at 24 bit,
the headroom dynamically that you have is just ridiculous.
It's and especially if you start editing in 32 bit and that exponentially increases the
dynamic range headroom that you have but I won't get too into the scientific details
but in practice, you can definitely set your input levels very, very conservatively.
You can even be going, you know, half the travel of your meters aiming for minus 6 to
minus 12 dB, maybe even softer than that on input.
You can always adjust these levels in the mix of course, that's part of what we do as mixers.
We bring the balances back into the track and bring the levels to where they need to be.
But on input nowadays, set your levels very, very conservatively.
So that's point number one.
Point number two about the levels at the master bus with mastering in mind and this is another
common, common mistake that I see a lot of newer engineers doing which is getting that
mix on the stereo bus up as loud as possible.
And it's an easy pitfall to fall into because we're used to listening to commercial records
which have been mastered.
We're used to hearing that competitive loudness that seems to be rampant in the industry today
and of course, when we hear our own mixes, we want them to compete.
We want them to seem, you know, as close as we can get them to the stuff that we enjoy
listening to ourselves.
However, if you are going to be sending your track to mastering which is a great idea by
the way to get that third party perspective and to get somebody with great ears and great
gear to put the final polish on your track, then you definitely want to leave the mastering
engineer with loads of headroom so that he or she can do [G] what they do [Bb] with a great deal
of freedom and not have [N] to worry about not having enough headroom to make a boost or
anything like that if they determine that it's needed.
Okay.
So, setting your output levels to peak maximum, minus 6, minus 10 is healthy and that leaves
the mastering engineer with a bit of headroom to do the work that they do.
Okay.
So, you can if you're, you know, to appease yourself or when you're going to bounce out
a rough so that you can study it, you know, on your iPod while going for a jog or going
for a drive or whatever, you know, you can quickly throw a limiter or maximizer on your
stereo bus, bring those levels up to sort of competitive areas and then export that
rough mix so that you can check it out or that you can play it for the client or what
have you so that they get a better, a sort of quasi mastered version to evaluate.
There's certainly nothing wrong with that but do not forget to remove that plug in and
bring those levels back to so that there's some breath and movement and nothing is squashed
and there's loads of headroom before you send to mastering.
A mastering engineer can add compression and limiting.
A mastering engineer no matter how good they are cannot remove it if that's what you've sent them.
Okay.
So, I hope that helps answer the question.
Bottom line is be conservative with your levels.
There's loads of headroom in a 24-bit digital environment.
If you're editing and mixing in 32-bit float, even more headroom to speak of and I don't
think you need to worry too much about getting too close to zero at any point in the process.
And we'll see you next time.
This one comes courtesy of a question [G] from a MixLessons.com subscriber.
Comes from Will McCollum and he says, my question is about levels, recording and mixing levels.
I think I know that the goal is not to go above 0dB but what should my input meter levels
be when recording the track and what should the track levels in the mix be?
Obviously, some will be higher than others but what is too high?
What should the output meter level be when I'm ready for mix down?
I know that these levels can be subjective and dependent on the sound of the project
as a whole but is there a sweet spot for the output levels, specifically with mastering in mind?
Well, once again like many, many things in this arena, there is no hard rule set in stone
but there are some points to consider.
And the first thing I'll start with is to your point that you wanna try to get as close
to zero without clipping or peaking.
And this is kind of a best practice that came out of the older analog days of technology
where you did want to get your signal on input as close to that 0dB mark as possible without
going over and the reason for that was to get the signal as high above the noise floor as possible.
So the signal to noise ratio, you wanted that to be in your favor.
And that's because of the inherent noise that was a part of analog gear, analog circuitry,
tape hiss, things of that nature.
So that was always the best practice.
Get that signal up as high as you can with just [Ab] enough headroom that you don't risk clipping
and overloading the input.
Now, in the days of high bit depth digital recording, this is not near as big an issue
as it once was.
So now, you can set your levels very, very conservatively on input without the risk of
like leaving yourself with loads of headroom so you totally avoid the risk of clipping
and of course in the digital world, clipping must be avoided at all cost because there's
absolutely nothing musical sounding about a digital clip.
In the analog domain, you could get a little of that clipping and it just sort of added
a grit and an aggressiveness to the tone which may or may not have been appropriate, may
not have been what you intended but at least it was musically usable.
In a world of digital, it's not musically usable at all.
So you wanna definitely avoid clipping.
Now the other thing that is advantageous nowadays is that if you're capturing audio at 24 bit,
the headroom dynamically that you have is just ridiculous.
It's and especially if you start editing in 32 bit and that exponentially increases the
dynamic range headroom that you have but I won't get too into the scientific details
but in practice, you can definitely set your input levels very, very conservatively.
You can even be going, you know, half the travel of your meters aiming for minus 6 to
minus 12 dB, maybe even softer than that on input.
You can always adjust these levels in the mix of course, that's part of what we do as mixers.
We bring the balances back into the track and bring the levels to where they need to be.
But on input nowadays, set your levels very, very conservatively.
So that's point number one.
Point number two about the levels at the master bus with mastering in mind and this is another
common, common mistake that I see a lot of newer engineers doing which is getting that
mix on the stereo bus up as loud as possible.
And it's an easy pitfall to fall into because we're used to listening to commercial records
which have been mastered.
We're used to hearing that competitive loudness that seems to be rampant in the industry today
and of course, when we hear our own mixes, we want them to compete.
We want them to seem, you know, as close as we can get them to the stuff that we enjoy
listening to ourselves.
However, if you are going to be sending your track to mastering which is a great idea by
the way to get that third party perspective and to get somebody with great ears and great
gear to put the final polish on your track, then you definitely want to leave the mastering
engineer with loads of headroom so that he or she can do [G] what they do [Bb] with a great deal
of freedom and not have [N] to worry about not having enough headroom to make a boost or
anything like that if they determine that it's needed.
Okay.
So, setting your output levels to peak maximum, minus 6, minus 10 is healthy and that leaves
the mastering engineer with a bit of headroom to do the work that they do.
Okay.
So, you can if you're, you know, to appease yourself or when you're going to bounce out
a rough so that you can study it, you know, on your iPod while going for a jog or going
for a drive or whatever, you know, you can quickly throw a limiter or maximizer on your
stereo bus, bring those levels up to sort of competitive areas and then export that
rough mix so that you can check it out or that you can play it for the client or what
have you so that they get a better, a sort of quasi mastered version to evaluate.
There's certainly nothing wrong with that but do not forget to remove that plug in and
bring those levels back to so that there's some breath and movement and nothing is squashed
and there's loads of headroom before you send to mastering.
A mastering engineer can add compression and limiting.
A mastering engineer no matter how good they are cannot remove it if that's what you've sent them.
Okay.
So, I hope that helps answer the question.
Bottom line is be conservative with your levels.
There's loads of headroom in a 24-bit digital environment.
If you're editing and mixing in 32-bit float, even more headroom to speak of and I don't
think you need to worry too much about getting too close to zero at any point in the process.
And we'll see you next time.
100% ➙ 136BPM
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Hello again, Dez Asante from the TechMuzeAcademy with another quick tip for you guys today.
This one comes courtesy of a question [G] from a MixLessons.com subscriber.
Comes from Will McCollum and he says, my question is about levels, recording and mixing levels.
I think I know that the goal is not to go above 0dB but what should my input meter levels
be when recording the track and what should the track levels in the mix be?
Obviously, some will be higher than others but what is too high?
What should the output meter level be when I'm ready for mix down?
I know that these levels can be subjective and dependent on the sound of the project
as a whole but is there a sweet spot for the output levels, specifically with mastering in mind?
_ Well, once again like many, many things in this arena, there is no hard rule set in stone
but there are some points to consider.
And the first thing I'll start with is to your point that you wanna try to get as close
to zero without clipping or peaking.
And this is kind of a best practice that came out of the older analog days of technology
where you did want to get your signal on input as close to that 0dB mark as possible without
going over and the reason for that was to get the signal as high above the noise floor as possible.
So the signal to noise ratio, you wanted that to be in your favor.
And that's because of the inherent noise that was a part of analog gear, analog circuitry,
tape hiss, things of that nature.
So that was always the best practice.
Get that signal up as high as you can with just [Ab] enough _ headroom that you don't risk clipping
and overloading the input. _
Now, in the days of high bit depth digital recording, this is not near as big an issue
as it once was.
So now, you can set your levels very, very conservatively on input without the risk of
like leaving yourself with loads of headroom so you totally avoid the risk of clipping
and of course in the digital world, clipping must be avoided at all cost because there's
absolutely nothing musical sounding about a digital clip.
In the analog domain, you could get a little of that _ _ clipping and it just sort of added
a grit and an aggressiveness to the tone which may or may not have been appropriate, may
not have been what you intended but at least it was musically usable.
In a world of digital, it's not musically usable at all.
So you wanna definitely avoid clipping.
Now the other thing that is advantageous nowadays is that if you're capturing audio at 24 bit, _
_ the headroom dynamically that you have is just _ ridiculous.
It's _ and especially if you start editing in 32 bit and that _ exponentially increases the
dynamic range headroom that you have but I won't get too into the scientific details
but in practice, you can definitely set your input levels very, very conservatively.
_ You can even be going, you know, half the travel of your meters aiming for minus 6 to
minus 12 dB, maybe even _ softer than that on input.
You can always adjust these levels in the mix of course, that's part of what we do as mixers.
We bring the balances back into the track and bring the levels to where they need to be.
But on input nowadays, _ set your levels very, very conservatively.
So that's point number one.
_ Point number two about the levels at the master bus with mastering in mind and this is another
common, common mistake that I see a lot of _ newer engineers doing which is getting that
mix on the stereo bus up as loud as possible.
And it's an easy _ pitfall to fall into because we're used to listening to commercial records
which have been mastered.
We're used to hearing that competitive loudness that seems to be rampant in the industry today
and of course, when we hear our own mixes, we want them to compete.
We want them to seem, _ you know, as close as we can get them to the stuff that we enjoy
listening to ourselves.
However, if you are going to be sending your track to mastering which is a great idea by
the way to get that third party perspective and to get somebody with great ears and great
gear to put the final polish on your track, then you definitely want to leave the mastering
engineer with loads of headroom so that he or she can do [G] what they do [Bb] with a great deal
of freedom and not have [N] to worry about not having enough headroom to make a boost or
anything like that if they determine that it's needed.
Okay.
So, setting your output levels to peak maximum, minus 6, minus 10 _ is healthy and that leaves
the mastering engineer with a bit of headroom to do the work that they do.
Okay.
So, you can if you're, you know, to appease yourself or when you're going to bounce out
a rough so that you can study it, you know, on your iPod while going for a jog or going
for a drive or whatever, _ you know, you can quickly throw a limiter or maximizer on your
stereo bus, bring those levels up to sort of competitive _ _ areas and then export that
rough mix so that you can check it out or that you can play it for the client or what
have you so that they get a better, a sort of quasi mastered version to evaluate.
There's certainly nothing wrong with that but do not forget to remove that plug in and
bring those levels back to so that there's some breath and movement and nothing is squashed
and there's loads of headroom before you send to mastering.
A mastering engineer can add compression and limiting.
A mastering engineer no matter how good they are cannot remove it if that's what you've sent them.
Okay.
So, I hope that helps answer the question.
Bottom line is be conservative with your levels.
There's loads of headroom in a 24-bit digital environment.
If you're editing and mixing in 32-bit float, even more headroom to speak of and I don't
think you need to worry too much about getting too close to zero at any point in the process.
And we'll see you next time. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Hello again, Dez Asante from the TechMuzeAcademy with another quick tip for you guys today.
This one comes courtesy of a question [G] from a MixLessons.com subscriber.
Comes from Will McCollum and he says, my question is about levels, recording and mixing levels.
I think I know that the goal is not to go above 0dB but what should my input meter levels
be when recording the track and what should the track levels in the mix be?
Obviously, some will be higher than others but what is too high?
What should the output meter level be when I'm ready for mix down?
I know that these levels can be subjective and dependent on the sound of the project
as a whole but is there a sweet spot for the output levels, specifically with mastering in mind?
_ Well, once again like many, many things in this arena, there is no hard rule set in stone
but there are some points to consider.
And the first thing I'll start with is to your point that you wanna try to get as close
to zero without clipping or peaking.
And this is kind of a best practice that came out of the older analog days of technology
where you did want to get your signal on input as close to that 0dB mark as possible without
going over and the reason for that was to get the signal as high above the noise floor as possible.
So the signal to noise ratio, you wanted that to be in your favor.
And that's because of the inherent noise that was a part of analog gear, analog circuitry,
tape hiss, things of that nature.
So that was always the best practice.
Get that signal up as high as you can with just [Ab] enough _ headroom that you don't risk clipping
and overloading the input. _
Now, in the days of high bit depth digital recording, this is not near as big an issue
as it once was.
So now, you can set your levels very, very conservatively on input without the risk of
like leaving yourself with loads of headroom so you totally avoid the risk of clipping
and of course in the digital world, clipping must be avoided at all cost because there's
absolutely nothing musical sounding about a digital clip.
In the analog domain, you could get a little of that _ _ clipping and it just sort of added
a grit and an aggressiveness to the tone which may or may not have been appropriate, may
not have been what you intended but at least it was musically usable.
In a world of digital, it's not musically usable at all.
So you wanna definitely avoid clipping.
Now the other thing that is advantageous nowadays is that if you're capturing audio at 24 bit, _
_ the headroom dynamically that you have is just _ ridiculous.
It's _ and especially if you start editing in 32 bit and that _ exponentially increases the
dynamic range headroom that you have but I won't get too into the scientific details
but in practice, you can definitely set your input levels very, very conservatively.
_ You can even be going, you know, half the travel of your meters aiming for minus 6 to
minus 12 dB, maybe even _ softer than that on input.
You can always adjust these levels in the mix of course, that's part of what we do as mixers.
We bring the balances back into the track and bring the levels to where they need to be.
But on input nowadays, _ set your levels very, very conservatively.
So that's point number one.
_ Point number two about the levels at the master bus with mastering in mind and this is another
common, common mistake that I see a lot of _ newer engineers doing which is getting that
mix on the stereo bus up as loud as possible.
And it's an easy _ pitfall to fall into because we're used to listening to commercial records
which have been mastered.
We're used to hearing that competitive loudness that seems to be rampant in the industry today
and of course, when we hear our own mixes, we want them to compete.
We want them to seem, _ you know, as close as we can get them to the stuff that we enjoy
listening to ourselves.
However, if you are going to be sending your track to mastering which is a great idea by
the way to get that third party perspective and to get somebody with great ears and great
gear to put the final polish on your track, then you definitely want to leave the mastering
engineer with loads of headroom so that he or she can do [G] what they do [Bb] with a great deal
of freedom and not have [N] to worry about not having enough headroom to make a boost or
anything like that if they determine that it's needed.
Okay.
So, setting your output levels to peak maximum, minus 6, minus 10 _ is healthy and that leaves
the mastering engineer with a bit of headroom to do the work that they do.
Okay.
So, you can if you're, you know, to appease yourself or when you're going to bounce out
a rough so that you can study it, you know, on your iPod while going for a jog or going
for a drive or whatever, _ you know, you can quickly throw a limiter or maximizer on your
stereo bus, bring those levels up to sort of competitive _ _ areas and then export that
rough mix so that you can check it out or that you can play it for the client or what
have you so that they get a better, a sort of quasi mastered version to evaluate.
There's certainly nothing wrong with that but do not forget to remove that plug in and
bring those levels back to so that there's some breath and movement and nothing is squashed
and there's loads of headroom before you send to mastering.
A mastering engineer can add compression and limiting.
A mastering engineer no matter how good they are cannot remove it if that's what you've sent them.
Okay.
So, I hope that helps answer the question.
Bottom line is be conservative with your levels.
There's loads of headroom in a 24-bit digital environment.
If you're editing and mixing in 32-bit float, even more headroom to speak of and I don't
think you need to worry too much about getting too close to zero at any point in the process.
And we'll see you next time. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _