Mix levels and reference tracks

[mementus]

So. I have noticed that most 'pro' songs (mastered, have to consider this) seem don't care about 'levels' at all. They hit the peaks, rise rms and go over. And still sound good.

Let me understand the whole game and how it works, please. Or simply feel free to share your experiences/thoughts.

[jancivil]

I don't know, I'm not going to get into 'pro'. I do not mix with my eyes or care about numbers. Most of the things I use can go over 0dB and not clip.
One of the best sounding things of mine in terms of overdriven lead guitar goes WAY WAY into the red, over and over. It is what makes that sound.
I have a lot of dynamic range in my music, because that's what I do with the instruments. I see this all the time here, like it's tenets of religion, this anal attention to numbers and all of this lingo. Typically it serves a mastering engineer, this talk. So it serves a vested interest, guide the thinking of people and keep pushing this little area you 'know'. I think if you can mix you don't need it. I think that mastering in terms of digital/DAW work is mostly a hoax or almost a scam. Now, if there is certain media that can present problems such as extreme bass - mastering for grooves on a record, you can't have all that bass, for instance - or for motion picture work, there is a real function to it. But quite a lot of it assumes, albeit in many cases correctly, that the artist can't manage some pretty simple tasks, on top of being unable to mix or find someone that can mix.

Lately I have stopped putting a limiter on the master bus; I used to do 'overload protection' but once I forgot to. I was doing edits of two-files for a final product and one copy of a file seemed more hot than its sister. So I was going back to the full project for another pass and I looked at the master bus and sure enough, the limiter was missing. Since then I have not found any problem, so it wasn't doing anything but removing a bit of musical excitement that I really like. Now mind you I take quite some care before things hit the master bus so it's not a matter of overloading in general or some failure to stage gain, I mix while I'm 'writing' and by the time I render it's pretty fine.

I check my renders in iTunes and I'm not shocked by the level of a commercial track coming on next by accident in terms of 'reference'. This is not rocket science.

[camsr]

The masters are made louder and less dynamic because it's better to listen to in noisy environments like the car or FM radio or anything else you can think of. They also sound better on portable devices because they have small low power transistor amplifiers that do not overload. Stereotypical HIFI listening doesn't normally have these problems, which is where complains will come from, but I didn't tell you that.

[camsr]

I don't know, I'm not going to get into 'pro'. I do not mix with my eyes or care about numbers. Most of the things I use can go over 0dB and not clip.

Nothing goes over 0dBFS through the DAC unless it's intersample peaks. So however you are mixing, is fine, sounds good, but really, the numbers are there for reference. Think of mastering as a science and not an artform, because if you want to be loud, there is a science to it. Why else would "artists" struggle with it?

[jancivil]

Yet I do not have a problem whatsoever with knowing how to make something loud (there are people that don't and for them 'mastering' is essentially 'maximizing'. That doesn't even seem real competent to me.). You're talking to a straw man. I understand the numbers are there for reference.

All of this lingo about 'headroom' is typically by or for people that lack headroom in the music. People that are going to master or send to a mastering engineer this music that's pretty much all the same volume. Great, if that's what you want. I have real difference in soft vs loud, though.

However you describe the issue, I push say an amp sim in a way that ultimately the channel is in the red very frequently. However the final group I may bring down in the mix. My point is if I cared like many do about the numbers, I don't get anywhere near that sound. I noticed I liked the result of no final overload protection, not caring at all about Cubase master bus's red light. If I hear a hard clip, I'll care. Doesn't happen.

I think there are people that believe sound is a branch of science rather than an art, so what they make is artistically not present.

[camsr]

One of my high school teachers once told me that music is not art. I respectfully disagree what that, on the premise that art's definition is vague. Although I do always question what somebody says about music and art together because of that. The creativity of music making is absolutely an art form. Clipping peaks and making shit mixes sound better is not. I thought that guy was a total picture snob ever since

[jancivil]

I've never used a clipper. I think there is a type of shit mixing, yes, where that is a thing. I know what it does. I'm not hammering the shit out of the master bus in general.
My remarks were actually specific. I saved a project before a render where for whatever reason the limiter - I only ever use it for *overload protection* - wasn't inserted. My use of it had nothing to do with pushing/maximizing, or coloring. I don't make that kind of music. It looks like an assumption here that everyone that talks of production is the same EDM Produca.

See if we can refrain from forming a straw man. I don't make shit mixes, I just don't think mixing is a science. Mastering is when it is, but many people that opine here have a less-than-fully formed notion of it. I say that this perception of its necessity is not that well informed, in terms of: you need it to be loud, you need it to have this finished sound; you need it because you can't mix basically. 99.9% of the talk about it equally applies to mixing, in other words.

[camsr]

The portion of the mastering process that actually deals with audio production/engineering is about objectivity of hearing. It is about making people say, wow, this sounds good (or another intended response). If the mixer/producer/artist/whoever can stay objective during this stage of the recording, then it's like having a mastering engineer in the room already. The samples in the file don't re-arrange themselves or grow legs and walk off because it's unmastered, the mix is perfectly capable of attaining a mastered standard before it ever sees a mastering. It's all the same dimension, amplitude over time. Bitdepths and sample rates. That's all an audio recording is.

[BERFAB]

One of my high school teachers once told me that music is not art.

What a d*ck. What kind of professional educator would deign to mold young minds like this?
Idiot.

Teachers should inspire, not crush souls.

Unless he was making a very obvious joke, but camsr didn't seem to take it that way.

[camsr]

No, it was a literal statement. For shame!