Mixing to make mastering easy

[waltercruz]

-6dBFs, that should be my 'mental' limit when mixing?

[camsr]

If you send the mastering engineer a 32 bit float wav file, then the peak level will not matter. this is because floating point wav does not truncate bits the same way int wavs do. Also, the less EQ on bass, the better, because these frequencies are delayed more when eqing.

[BertKoor]

Imagine taking a mix at 0 dB, bouncing it, lowering it to -10, raising it to 0 dB, and then repeat this process. Eventually after a few tries the entire mix is destroyed from terrible noise and artifacts, so doing this even once will introduce this slightly.

That's total bollox. You can alter the total volume numerous times without affecting the quality or introducing artefacts. That is, if you use an audio editor that uses a format with more than 16 bits. There will be differences, but these are at around -140dB. The typical noise floor of a "mastering grade" DAC is at -120dB. Any mastering engineer worth it's salt knows that.

I hear all the time that mastering engineers demand all peaks to be below -6dBfs and reject tracks e.g. peak-normalised to 0dB. In practice this should be no problem at all for the above mentionned reasons. They just want to make sure you haven't clipped it.

[medway]

Imagine taking a mix at 0 dB, bouncing it, lowering it to -10, raising it to 0 dB, and then repeat this process. Eventually after a few tries the entire mix is destroyed from terrible noise and artifacts, so doing this even once will introduce this slightly.

That's total bollox. You can alter the total volume numerous times without affecting the quality or introducing artefacts. That is, if you use an audio editor that uses a format with more than 16 bits. There will be differences, but these are at around -140dB. The typical noise floor of a "mastering grade" DAC is at -120dB. Any mastering engineer worth it's salt knows that.

I hear all the time that mastering engineers demand all peaks to be below -6dBfs and reject tracks e.g. peak-normalised to 0dB. In practice this should be no problem at all for the above mentionned reasons. They just want to make sure you haven't clipped it.

Exactly, you can do a simple test of inserting a few gain plugins, one set to -100db, one set to +100db, do that a few times and listen, you won't hear anything. Even if you do an analysis the distortion will still be well below what would make an audible difference in most mixes.

I've never demanded that as it makes no difference, it's a waste to normalize but still won't usually have any big consequence. But yes clipping is the only thing that's going to be an issue in most cases.

[Tarekith]

Hey guys, I'm mixing a track that is going to be released on a label right now and I'm wondering what volumes I should mix around. I want to make mastering easier, so I guess mixing around 0 dB might be a good idea. Also, Is it fine if my master channel is peaking (because I have no limiter or anything on my master track) even though my individual tracks are not?

Any input is welcome. Thanks in advance

This is normally how I recommend people approach mixing to make mastering easier later on:

http://tarekith.com/assets/pdfs/Mixdowns.pdf

[itsNano]

anyways, thanks guys I think I got a good idea of what I should do.

[seismic1]

This is normally how I recommend people approach mixing to make mastering easier later on:

http://tarekith.com/assets/pdfs/Mixdowns.pdf

That's a good document. A lot of it is common sense, but there is a lot of useful info in here.

[jam92189]

basically you try to just mix your music at a good level to make things easy I try to go for about -6 db it does not matter if you have to turn down the volume jsut leave the mastering to the mastering engeneer