Mixing for the good of all

[starfinger]

what are you using to apply soft clipping?

-craig

[Adam!]

T-Racks. I've heard good things about PSP's MixSaturator, which boasts 7 different saturation / soft-clipping algorithms, but I've never tried it.

[Billy's Little Trip]

One thing I've noticed when using digital tools is that they are very touchy. Every little change in a setting is dramatic. My Pink ribbon song was my first "all" computer recorded and mixed song. I followed advice from Ken and Des, which was great, but I over used everything. I over compressed, I over limited, over gated, too much reverb, etc etc. I took a ripping pounding song and made the drum hits weak and the over all mix muddled. I think it would have sounded better to just leave it in it's original state. Now I've tried a few new things on my Convalescence tune and I can hear the difference. I need to stop man handling the tools and FX.

[blue]

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 [url=http://en.[CENSORED].org/wiki/Mastering]surprisingly useful article[/url] on mastering.

in english, puce is correct, i was wrong - limiting = gain reduction, not clipping.

but you can limit with clipping instead of gain reduction.

and sometimes that sounds nicer.

that is a good trick, puce.

[Adam!]

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

that is a good trick, puce.

Ain't it?

[Mostess]

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.

This sounds kind of like what I've discovered by letting my mixes go into the red. The 0dB ceiling is like an effect: a stupid, merciless compressor with no release time, no look-ahead time, and no softknee. Ken's reaction seems about right---everything I've read on the subject says avoid the digital red at all costs. But I'm playing with it, and it's paying off.

Is there some plugin or effect I should be using to do this instead? I can see the advantage of having a clean recording that you can lower a ceiling onto to get the right amount of peak limiting via clipping, but not too much. I'm doing this already by letting mixes go into the red, turning them down when it's too much. But maybe this is more appropriate to do using effects at "mastering" time (I have to put that in quotes, for I am no master).

[starfinger]

I was experimenting using the saturator plugin that's part of Ableton Live. It has some 'soft clip' settings. What is cool about this compared to using actual digital clipping is that you can control the drive/clipping independently of the output volume. I bet a search for saturator or soft clip on kvraudio would point at a number of such fx.

It seems great for mixing, but I don't think I'd want to run the whole mix through one.

-craig

[deshead]

But maybe this is more appropriate to do using effects at "mastering" time (I have to put that in quotes, for I am no master).

It's traditionally done at mastering time because brick wall limiting causes a loss of information. Once you clip those peaks, the audio data in them is gone forever, so limiting late in the signal chain ensures the preceding effects have the maximum resolution with which to work.

That said, you're doing it because you like the sound, rather than simply to raise the level. So the "do what sound best" rule applies.

Just don't dither before you master ...

[Billy's Little Trip]

Well, I used some of the techniques you guys posted here on my Get A Life entry. One of the most noticeable changes was my compressed bass track. I'm not sure if I like it yet. It did allow me to fill the space without getting boomy or peeking, but I may have left it too low in the mix for fear of too much low tones in the over all mix. Once again, thanks guys, I really can relate to everything you guys are saying from my past experiences, so now you guys are giving my problems names and offering great solutions.

I do have an issue that occurred this time that I never had before. I copied my back up vocals track and changed the pitch to give 3 voices over all. Then after I got them in the mix the way I liked them, I started noticing that one or the other would drop out when they should be there, and sometime come in even though I had the track X'd out. You can hear it in my entry this week.
I think it has to do with my reverb I had on the "sends" but I''m not sure. If I stop where the problem is and back up and play it again, it's fine, but when I start from the beginning, it's back.
Is this a characteristic of hard drive recording?

[Adam!]

I started noticing that one or the other would drop out when they should be there, and sometime come in even though I had the track X'd out. If I stop where the problem is and back up and play it again, it's fine, but when I start from the beginning, it's back.

Are you recording this on a Quantum computer?

[Billy's Little Trip]

Just a regular PC. Quantum? There's a wrench in the dream, lol. Please don't tell me I need a new computer.........actually, go ahead.

[HeuristicsInc]

Are you recording this on a Quantum computer?

Hahaha.

Actually it's possible it's a bug in the program, I did find one in Acid once.
I figure if you mute the track, it'd mute the effects too, but you never know.
-bill

[Billy's Little Trip]

I think you're on to something Heuristics. I'm sure I'm causing it, I just don't know how exactly. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the combo of my send fx and writing animation to stop and start a track using the X feature.

[HeuristicsInc]

Did you say what the software is ?
-bill

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'm using Cubase on a PC.
I'm going to re-mix Pink Ribbon and Get A Life with some of the new techniques I've learned here and post a before and after.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Update:
I think I found out my freezing problems. I use the 24 track option when recording, but I've been getting creative with the mix and FX and using more than 24 tracks. Sometimes just because I'll have guitar parts done several different ways, and every guitar part gets recorded twice on two tracks for panning purposes, then I pick one to use on the final mix. Let me know if you think this could be why I have freezing issues. And it just so happens to be at the end of the recording/mixing stage that it starts happening. Thanks for any advice.

[blue]

being out of CPU will def cause hard hangs. open up the "VST performance" thing from the devices dropdown to monitor how much CPU you're using.

[Billy's Little Trip]

See, you just taught me something I didn't know about.....again.
I just looked at my Gray Rainbow song, and it's peaking at around 60 vatchamah call its (0-100). I wish I would have looked at the VST performance meter when it was freezing to see where it was pegging. But after I deleted some tracks, it was ok.

By the way, I've been playing around with compression and pushing the limiter to boost levels without getting in the red. Do you guys compress individual tracks that need compression, plus use an over all mix down compression? Just wondering if I'm heading in an over compressed direction.

[blue]

See, you just taught me something I didn't know about.....again.
I just looked at my Gray Rainbow song, and it's peaking at around 60 vatchamah call its (0-100). I wish I would have looked at the VST performance meter when it was freezing to see where it was pegging. But after I deleted some tracks, it was ok.

By the way, I've been playing around with compression and pushing the limiter to boost levels without getting in the red. Do you guys compress individual tracks that need compression, plus use an over all mix down compression? Just wondering if I'm heading in an over compressed direction.

there's no right answer to individual track compression +/- bus compression. the general answer is yes, if it needs it. it's very difficult, for instance, to get a thumpy bass drum without compression.

i almost always compress acoustic or clean electric guitars, vox, bass drum, a tiny bit on the snare drum, and clean bass. then i usually do one group track apiece for the drum mix, one for all the guitars, and one for all the vox. if i have a bunch of keyboards or samples, i'll do one group track for them. then i use multiband compression on the group tracks to help separate the instrument groups, rather than doing a bunch of EQ per track. it doesn't always work, but that's where i usually start.

but if you can get away with not compressing the individual tracks much, your mix will be a lot more dynamic and alive.

[Billy's Little Trip]

First off, I'm not sure what you mean by "group track". I'm guessing that is when you have a number of track and mix them into one stereo track?

Second, I noted right away that I'm losing the individual separation of the instruments when I start compressing too much. My "couldn't have been worse" song is a good example of over compression I think. It was by accident that it happened that way, because I had the drum a rhythm guitar tracks mixed down and compressed to send off to Paco for bass. Well at the end as I was finishing the final mix, my computer froze and I lost everything! I almost said fuck it, but I remembered I had the compressed drum and guitar tracks saved, so I added Paco's bass and vocals, mixed it down with a good mix down setting on my compression unit and sent it in. The first thing I notice was the hit from the kick drum was almost gone. The snare had a nice fwap, but not the original sound that I like. Live and learn.

[Reist]

In my experience with drum tracks, I've begun to compress my snare and kicks slightly. I tried gating the snare and kick for a while, but I find that makes the snare lose all kick (convalescence anyone?). I think that the slight compression of those two tracks can really help the mix.

The most important thing I've learned:
Never overcompress single tracks or compress the final track!

[Billy's Little Trip]

Never compress the final mix?

Well, I tried something new on my Gray Rainbow song. I really like how I managed to keep the kick and snare punchy and poppy through out the mix. But I did notice in doing so, I started losing the bass guitar a bit. I mean, you can hear the bass because I eq'd some highs on one track, but the bottom kind of melted into the mix a bit. Let me know what you think of the mix when Gray Rainbow gets posted. Although I've pulled way back on my compression setting, I think I might still have a tad too much.