Mixing for the good of all

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:05 pm

deshead wrote:
Billy's Little Trip wrote:Where is the in between point to sound good in any situation?
The times when reverb is needed on the master bus outnumber the times when it isn't by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. When in doubt, leave the reverb off.

i think you said this backwards? the times it is not needed outnumber the times it is, etc. ?

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:14 pm

jb wrote:So in practical terms, do reverb units/plugins have a standard measurement? What does "pre-delay" mean... is the number I set that to supposed to be the distance from the "instrument" to the "listener"?

You mentioned room size and such. I've noticed that my reverb doohickeys include a setting for room length and width, but I don't know how to use those settings. I just fiddle until it sounds good. What's the difference between width and length (as in "width means how clangy the sound is, length means how flurfle it is)? I guess a nice couple of examples would do well to illustrate the difference, if you or anyone has a spare minute. I know I'd find them useful.

most new reverb programs that have width and length options are using some form of impulse response (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_response) to create a more "authentic" reverb sound. older ones just add up the area of the room and give longer reverb times and more amplitude for larger rooms.

with impulse response, you might get 4, 8, or even 30+ reverb points combined to create your overall reverb sound. they sample the difference in the sound reflecting off of each point in a room and then apply that difference to your sound. i'm convinced this is mostly a way to force people to buy new CPUs, because it uses a crapton. i guess it's sweet if you're doing 5.1 mixes for dialog and stuff.

but really, i think your first instinct - fiddle with it till it sounds good - is right. people who want an authentic-sounding recording in a space should play together as a band into a stereo mic. everything else is just monkeying around.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:16 pm

jb wrote:What does "pre-delay" mean... is the number I set that to supposed to be the distance from the "instrument" to the "listener"?

It's milliseconds, like obscurity said, and as a general rule of thumb sound travels one foot per millisecond. (Though not when you get much above sea level.) It controls the distance from the instrument to the reflecting surface, NOT the listener. So longer pre-delays effectively move the instrument further away from the wall.

obscurity wrote:I almost feel ike I'm deshead's official opposition here,

obscurity wrote:but I feel compelled to point out that the thing about not using the same 'verb on the same tracks only matters if you care about having your mix sound 'realistic'

Ya, absolutely. I should have made it more clear that I was addressing BLT's original question.

In general, the "do what sounds best" rule takes precedence over all the science.

Mostess wrote:That said, I have yet to find the right way to intentionally use clipping, but it comes in handy. Especially since I hard-limit the full mix as part of my "mastering" process,

If you hard-limit, then you're not clipping.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:18 pm

blue wrote:i think you said this backwards?

D'oh.

That's so bad, I went back and fixed it.

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:23 pm

hard limiting = soft clipping.

pegor · Post by **pegor** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:31 pm

I must have some newb misconception(s).

If best practice is to have reverb on individual tracks
and to compress the master bus . -then -

Won't you get somekinda wierd artifacts from compressing reverb???

Mostess · Post by **Mostess** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:41 pm

deshead wrote: If you hard-limit, then you're not clipping.

Just to clarify my process:

1) Mix to file: if the mix goes into the red, the distortion from the clipping is in the file.

2) "Master": load the file and do little things (parametric EQ, compression, fade out, etc.) to the whole mix, and lastly, turn up the volume a couple dB and hard limit. Noise from the clipping at mix-down is still there, just mooshed in with the rest of the sound.

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:44 pm

pegor wrote:I must have some newb misconception(s).

If best practice is to have reverb on individual tracks
and to compress the master bus . -then -

Won't you get somekinda wierd artifacts from compressing reverb???

only if you go crazy with it.

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:55 pm

blue wrote:
pegor wrote: Won't you get somekinda wierd artifacts from compressing reverb???
only if you go crazy with it.

and sometimes that's desirable.

Post by jb » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:12 pm

I want a reverb thing where I just have my tracks as blobs, which I place where I want them in relation to each other, and then I manipulate a picture of a room, and the thing figures out the reverb for me.

Post by **Lunkhead** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:17 pm

I think that rule about never clipping at least applies to recording to digital. I always limit my mixes so they don't clip. I guess I don't really know if you'll get the same gnarly noise when you make a mixdown that clips as when you record. Anybody?

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:24 pm

Lunkhead wrote:I think rule about never clipping at least applies to recording to digital. I always limit my mixes so they don't clip. I guess I don't really know if you'll get the same gnarly noise when you make a mixdown that clips as when you record. Anybody?

i think most software will translate it to soft clipping.. i've never managed to get digital distortion by cranking levels in a mix.

ken · Post by **ken** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:41 pm

OMG!

If your mixes are clipping, TURN YOUR LEVELS DOWN!!!

Really, go in and drop all tracks by 1 db until it no longer clips! If your mix sounds soft, turn up your monitors.

If in the end your mixes are too hot, you probably recorded your tracks too loud to begin with. DIGITAL IS NOT ANALOG! Don't go into the red!

Sorry for the yelling. I just can't believe what I am hearing.

Ken

spinlock · Post by **spinlock** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:49 pm

jb wrote:I want a reverb thing where I just have my tracks as blobs, which I place where I want them in relation to each other, and then I manipulate a picture of a room, and the thing figures out the reverb for me.

They must exist. I'm pretty sure my sblive came with a program that had a 3d mixer that worked in this way. Set your output as headphones and that's what you've got. Of course, you'd have to have one track on a cd, one on the midi synth, one on the line in... etc

The programming interfaces for all the 3D sound engines (OpenAL, EAX, DirectSound3D) describe sound exactly in this way. You can also put virtual furniture and walls between your sound sources, to give that muffly effect. If you can program, it might not be such a hard thing to hack up.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 4:01 pm

jb wrote:I want a reverb thing where I just have my tracks as blobs, which I place where I want them in relation to each other, and then I manipulate a picture of a room, and the thing figures out the reverb for me.

http://www.tascam.com/Products/GigaPulse.html

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 4:09 pm

Des IS the internets.

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 4:16 pm

i think jb means being able to place multiple sources into a single stereo reverb field. you can probably fudge that with running GP as a bus effect.. maybe i'll give that a try.

Post by jb » Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:13 pm

Yeah maybe, but also I look at GigaPulse and it's COMPLICATED. If it's all based on spatial stuff, why not make an interface that mimics what you're trying to mimic sonically?

"I want to sound like i'm center stage at Wembley Stadium, in front of 100,000 people. And I want this vocal track to sound like one of my backup singers. *click*"

Steve Durand · Post by **Steve Durand** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:45 pm

jb wrote:I want a reverb thing where I just have my tracks as blobs, which I place where I want them in relation to each other, and then I manipulate a picture of a room, and the thing figures out the reverb for me.

Hey, jb,

This sort of looks like it might be kind of what you're talking about.

http://www.spinaudio.com/products.php?i ... escription

Steve

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 10:05 pm

hmm...I have a plugin from these guys that can zoom a sound around your head pretty nicely...this one looks pretty sweet too. Might have to give it a spin. Thanks Steve!

Billy's Little Trip · Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:44 pm

thehipcola wrote:hmm...I have a plugin from these guys that can zoom a sound around your head pretty nicely...this one looks pretty sweet too. Might have to give it a spin. Thanks Steve!

can zoom a sound around your head pretty nicely - ummm, want IT!

I am honestly learning so much in this thread.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 3:12 am

blue wrote:hard limiting = soft clipping.

There's an important distinction: Hard limiting has a release time associated with it, while soft clipping is instantaneous. If a peak trips the limiter, the whole transient will be reduced for X milliseconds; the principle drawback is that this reduces the impact of drum hits. If a peak gets clipped instead, the perceivable dynamics are generally not affected; the trade off is increased distortion.

I frequently find clipping much more transparent than limiting, especially on the drum buss. When mastering I will apply up to 3 db of soft clipping if it lets me avoid 3 db of hard limiting.

And just for the thread in general, Wikipedia has a surprisingly useful article on mastering.