Elegant solution for turning down a mix that doesn't include turning down the master fader?

[philippe123]

I think we've all found ourselves (even after careful gain staging early on) with a mix that either has too little headroom for mastering or is flat out clipping.

Let's say you've mixed a track, you really love the balance, but things are just too hot on the master fader.

Some people have advised me to just pull the master fader down to 'win' back headroom but I'm not convinced this method doesn't negatively effect the quality of the signal, and for the sake of this post I would like to find a better solution.

I have read that some put a gain plugin as the last insert on their audio, group, and fx send tracks and use those to attenuate a mix.

Have any of you tried this? Do you have a better method that you successfully tested and used?

Thanks for all the tips or suggestions!!

[Unaspected]

A single gain stage as first insert on the master 2 channel.

In general, I find a gain stage at the top of every group buss to be useful - depending on the processing chain that follows it.

[vurt]

grab all channel faders and pull down?

[Unaspected]

grab all channel faders and pull down?

Zeroing out a mix is probably a good thing to do whilst learning.

[vurt]

grab all channel faders and pull down?

Zeroing out a mix is probably a good thing to do whilst learning.

i don't mean start again.
just a few dbs, with all faders at once, keeps the balance, but adds headroom.

[BONES]

The reason the Master fader is there is to change the level of your mix. Doing so will not affect the sound quality at all, it will just make your mix louder or quieter. OTOH, adding unnecessary effects might well degrade the sound quality of your mix. The simpler you can keep your signal paths, the better, so use the Master fader. There is no point in it being there otherwise, is there?

Before I render a mix, I always pull the Master down 3dB, just to make sure there is plenty of headroom. Because I always render at 24 or 32 bit, it doesn't affect the sound quality of the mastered song at all.

[Unaspected]

grab all channel faders and pull down?

Zeroing out a mix is probably a good thing to do whilst learning.

i don't mean start again.
just a few dbs, with all faders at once, keeps the balance, but adds headroom.

Depends on your routing. If you're already running instrument channels into compressors on group busses, then just turn the busses down.

It is good to learn not to be too precious with mixes though so I agreed when I thought you meant to start again with fader levels.

[thecontrolcentre]

If the master is too hot, gang (select) all faders and reduce volume on all tracks at once, until required volume is achieved.

[philippe123]

Ok - I think I missed something in my initial post:

All my tracks have considerable volume automation (I use Cubase Pro) and I've read that fader resolution (not the audio resolution, but actual fader resolution with respects to how big or small a vol cut or boost needs to be) gets more extreme the lower the fader is. For this reason I think it better to not touch the faders as this may skew the volume balance, but rather just use a gain plugin as the last insert and pull that down instead. I am hoping this makes sense?

Again, I understand some of you will find this overkill - that's fine - I am working towards making music and mixing for a living at a high level, so yeah, these things matter to me.

[legendCNCD]

In Live if I've automated the track faders and need to put them lower I put utility with gain -NdB as the last effect

[Guenon]

In Live if I've automated the track faders and need to put them lower I put utility with gain -NdB as the last effect

I do essentially the opposite - okay, not literally, but as in: I never automate the faders themselves, and when I need volume automation on a track, I use Utility and automate that. This way all the faders stay always free, and I can make level adjustments in one go, directly from the mixer view, at a glance, using the faders themselves.

Some people have advised me to just pull the master fader down to 'win' back headroom but I'm not convinced this method doesn't negatively effect the quality of the signal

When you wish to change the final level like that, turning down the master fader is a sure way to keep everything sounding exactly the same. Internal bit depth of DAWs is so high that you will not effect the quality of the signal in this manner. However, in turn, if you happen to have a mix going that has some individual tracks routed to different buses / groups / (post-fader) sends / etc. that contain any level-dependent processing (usually, dynamics processors, but also other types of things with level followers like certain kinds of ducking delays, auto filters, anything) it's actually possible to inadvertently change the sound of your mix, if you as a final step turn individual tracks down as a way to arrive at some desired master channel level, and don't take the changed input levels of possible such processing into account.

[thecontrolcentre]

Some people have advised me to just pull the master fader down to 'win' back headroom but I'm not convinced this method doesn't negatively effect the quality of the signal, and for the sake of this post I would like to find a better solution.

Why? Anything else will likely change the sound of the mix. Pulling the master fader down a couple of db's will only reduce the volume. Presumably there'll be a mastering stage later.

[cantaloupe]

The most 'perfect' way to do this, technically, is to download the free Airwindows BitShiftGain plugin, put it at the end of your chain, and set it at -1. This reduces the gain by 6dB completely lossless, which is theoretically better than your master fader or any other gain plugin.

https://www.airwindows.com/bitshiftgain/

[kritikon]

Personally, I pretty well always use groups already, with everything routed through them. So it's easy to pull up or down groups to tweak your volume that way even if you have automation on channels. Old habits I suppose - you can use the master fader in a DAW, I just got used to mixing in the old days on a mixer, so didn't mess with the master fader.

As for a low mix - not a problem anyway. I really don't care how low my render is - actually I want it way under zero just to be safe. Getting the right peak levels will be done in mastering, and headroom is a really good thing to have for your mixdown render. For a hot mix, I guess groups adds a layer of PITA initially but definitely easier at the end.

[legendCNCD]

In Live if I've automated the track faders and need to put them lower I put utility with gain -NdB as the last effect

I do essentially the opposite - okay, not literally, but as in: I never automate the faders themselves, and when I need volume automation on a track, I use Utility and automate that. This way all the faders stay always free, and I can make level adjustments in one go, directly from the mixer view, at a glance, using the faders themselves.

Yeah I guess it would be better to do it that way, but in the heat of making the tune its always the faders that get automated