Mixing/Mastering question about faders/getting overal mix quieter

[Caine123]

hi guys,

stupid question but how do you do it?
i got this example, i mixed everything and set all mixer faders to 0 then adjusted percussions by ear and not going over -3dB on the master channel. after i adjust the rest of the rlements i was near 0dB, so i marked ALL mixer faders and set them down until i hit about -5 to -3dB, correct?



then i started to include my master channel preset with all my plugins, EQ, 2 comps, limiter and 2 magic vsts lol autoadjusters sometimes i leave them out or apply only some small bits like from Gulfloss etc. then my LUFS hit the -7 suddenly, where would you now turn down the volume? to get to e.g. -9 Lufs?
a) on the Mixer Faders just turning all down EQUALLY
b) turn down output gain in EQ, Comps etc from Master bus?

thx

[andymcbain]

How does it sound at -7 LUFS? Is there a reason you need to turn it down?

If I were in your situation I'd lower the output gain of whatever is before the limiter, or lower the input gain on the limiter, so it's doing less work.

[Caine123]

thx im aiming at -9 LUFS cause it shows in Fabfilter-L as CD target quality

[andymcbain]

thx im aiming at -9 LUFS cause it shows in Fabfilter-L as CD target quality

Ahh ok - well the levels of CD masters vary quite a bit so I would ignore Fabfilter in this case. Maybe find the average levels of some reference tracks from your genre and use that as a target

Don't sacrifice sound quality for volume though. Sometimes it's difficult to get a mix to a target volume without crushing it.

[aberration123]

Try using a VU meter like mvMeter for example. Set it to RMS mode, Kick -18RMS and gain-match, bass -22RMS, everything else -24RMS, and from there balance the faders to taste, you may need to tame the spikey things along the way.

Mix in planes for depth.
-3db to move it back/forward
-5db further
-10db further still

If too loud at the master level add simple "tool" on turn it down, if too quiet turn up.

[aberration123]

Blah.

[BertKoor]

-7 dB? Why? Just because you can? Are you proud of what you've done? How does it sound?

Take a CD (one of those 12cm plastic disks) which you think sounds really good, like a true mastering engineer mastered it. Measure its loudness. I bet it is not in single digits.

Take for example static white noise. Normalise it. The RMS level will be around -10dBfs. You can make it louder, but only by distorting it.

What to do now? TURN IT DOWN !!!
Which fader? Any... Think about what things in your fx chain do, and it will become apparent.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war