Sonimus Satson (Console emulation) ready to buy now :)

[Compyfox]

Less headroom equals less room to play around with, therefore resulting in agressive mixes that resemble material you hear on the radio (read: K-System, K-12 and higher right from the start).

The -18dB doesn't come from nowhere - it's a calibration level for ages now. Some even go as low as -24dB depending on the region you're usually at. -20dB and -18dB are most common however, they're declared by "recommendations" from both EBU and SMTPE.

Read this part of the Wikipedia entry on Peak Programme Meters please:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_progr ... dio_levels

They pretty much unifiy at what optimum worklevel a unit should operate.


You don't waste bits either, it's the other way around: you "save" them for the transient heavy content. And having a transparent/transient heavy mix sounds way more pleasant than a squashed production to begin with.

Again:

[bill45]

Can You match commercial CD levels with this technique?
If I import commercial tunes into cubase, they all will pin the VU meters
on both satscon and VCC.

[bduffy]

Can You match commercial CD levels with this technique?
If I import commercial tunes into cubase, they all will pin the VU meters
on both satscon and VCC.

bill45, you never have to worry about matching commercial CD levels while mixing. Mixes are compressed and processed to commercial loudness during mastering. You would be ill-advised to mix at that loudness level, just try to get your mix as good-sounding as possible in your DAW; forget loudness.

It is often a good idea to A/B against a commercial mix, though, to check your mix and ears. just turn the CD track way down in your DAW.

[updog]

Can You match commercial CD levels with this technique?
If I import commercial tunes into cubase, they all will pin the VU meters
on both satscon and VCC.

bill45, you never have to worry about matching commercial CD levels while mixing. Mixes are compressed and processed to commercial loudness during mastering. You would be ill-advised to mix at that loudness level, just try to get your mix as good-sounding as possible in your DAW; forget loudness.

It is often a good idea to A/B against a commercial mix, though, to check your mix and ears. just turn the CD track way down in your DAW.

i think the question was more like; "can my mixes be mastered commercial-loud when using this method?" let's remember that most of us "master" a lot of stuff by ourselves.

the answer to the question is yes - in fact, you could get even louder masters using this technique due to the increased headroom.

[bduffy]

Can You match commercial CD levels with this technique?
If I import commercial tunes into cubase, they all will pin the VU meters
on both satscon and VCC.

bill45, you never have to worry about matching commercial CD levels while mixing. Mixes are compressed and processed to commercial loudness during mastering. You would be ill-advised to mix at that loudness level, just try to get your mix as good-sounding as possible in your DAW; forget loudness.

It is often a good idea to A/B against a commercial mix, though, to check your mix and ears. just turn the CD track way down in your DAW.

i think the question was more like; "can my mixes be mastered commercial-loud when using this method?" let's remember that most of us "master" a lot of stuff by ourselves.

the answer to the question is yes - in fact, you could get even louder masters using this technique due to the increased headroom.

That's not the impression I got. Notice he said, when "I import commercial tunes into cubase, they all will pin the VU meters on both satscon and VCC." Sounds like he's wondering why the commercial track is so much louder, relative to his tracks.

But yeah, of course, a better-mixed song will master better. Usually home mixes have too much bass too, which limits gain reduction.

[bill45]

I've read stuff from pros who say their mixes, do not get boosted much, during the mastering stage.If You have enough CPU power,Why not get your final EQ,
Compression,level maximizing done at mix.If, your doing your own mastering.
You could always render an unprocessed mix just in case.
If you master seprately and pin the vu meter, your still breaking Compy's
gain staging rules.
Compy, Are satscom and VCC VU meters accurate?I remember, You talking about them in another post.

[bill45]

bduffy,
How much level boosting , are you doing at mastering?
What is your mastering chain.

[sqigls]

Read my KVRmarks on "How Analog Equipment should be used".

It's a small tutorial with the competition, but it applys to every plugin that is calibrated to -18dB RMS.

Calibrating to -18dB is too safe if you ask me. I try to aim for -12, it will force you to sharpen your mixes and waste less bits... :p

What does that mean, "sharpen your mixes"? I just don't see what's "sharper" about -12dB.

I meant "mixing" sorry...
It encourages tighter mixing. -18dB is very safe, more room for mistakes. I feel that if you need that much room for transients then you ARE wasting bits. I personally aim to peg the VU without pegging the peak. Not overly compressing the mix, just learing control the transients.

[updog]

I've read stuff from pros who say their mixes, do not get boosted much, during the mastering stage.If You have enough CPU power,Why not get your final EQ,
Compression,level maximizing done at mix.If, your doing your own mastering.
You could always render an unprocessed mix just in case.
If you master seprately and pin the vu meter, your still breaking Compy's
gain staging rules.
Compy, Are satscom and VCC VU meters accurate?I remember, You talking about them in another post.

you must have terms confused here. let's put it this way; ANYTHING you put in your master channel, THAT'S mastering. if you boost things too much in the mix, like maximize volume and stuff like that, you'll lose all headroom which makes the material harder to master.

gain staging applies to mastering, too, but as the final plugin of the chain you should use a limiter to raise the level of the material towards the commercial levels. how soon you'll reach audible distortion, which isn't what you want, depends on the headroom you left in the mix and how well you've mixed the material.

the loudness will depend on several factors. again, a good, balanced mix is important. you can have some saturation on individual tracks and even the master fader, this will help you get the mix sound louder and larger when you can't add any more gain to your final limiter.

[updog]

That's not the impression I got. Notice he said, when "I import commercial tunes into cubase, they all will pin the VU meters on both satscon and VCC." Sounds like he's wondering why the commercial track is so much louder, relative to his tracks.

oh sorry, i missed that part. in that case you're probably right

[bill45]

I don't think I'm confused.Frequency content is a very big deal(Fletcher Munson curves). If I use this method I'm going to need 12db of boost to match commercial levels.Some electronic music guys will take their master faders down to something like -20db, then use a 9 plugin mastering chain, to get their levels.Some people say hit +6dbfs on your daw,clip in the box, or use a clipper.
I'm not trying to be difficult or confrontational.Just want to compare notes and learn.

[Gamma-UT]

I meant "mixing" sorry...
It encourages tighter mixing. -18dB is very safe, more room for mistakes. I feel that if you need that much room for transients then you ARE wasting bits. I personally aim to peg the VU without pegging the peak. Not overly compressing the mix, just learing control the transients.

1bit ~= 6dB of SNR. You're 'wasting' a whopping 3 bits out of 32 (or 24 on PT TDM) by having your average around -18dB. A little more room doesn't sound bad to me. I was working with a track the other day with a synthesised, phycially modelled bass so not exactly out of control and it was generating some transients that were close to 0dB despite being mixed at this oversafe level. OK, they'll get limited later on, but I'd prefer those not to render and have them clip unnoticed before I get around to dealing with it.

[Compyfox]

Can You match commercial CD levels with this technique?
If I import commercial tunes into cubase, they all will pin the VU meters
on both satscon and VCC.

Of course this happens, because "commercial level" productions would result in a readout of -6dB to -3dB on a VU if the reference level is 0dBFS and rise/fall is 300ms. In our case, -18dB = 0VU, the readout would result in +12. And that is way too hot.

If you want to compare finished mixes with your production/mixing setup to the -18dB reference level, of course you need to turn down the input gain first.


IF it's the other way around to get to a "commercial level", yes, that is done while in the mastering stage. While mixing, ingore everything that boosts the output level. Just mix that your maximum peak never(!) exceed -3dBFS digital peak, do not touch the master fader and you're good to go for the next step.

I've read stuff from pros who say their mixes, do not get boosted much, during the mastering stage.If You have enough CPU power,Why not get your final EQ,
Compression,level maximizing done at mix.If, your doing your own mastering.
You could always render an unprocessed mix just in case.
If you master seprately and pin the vu meter, your still breaking Compy's
gain staging rules.

Again, you have to seperate mixing and (pre)mastering in this case. While mixing, you mix. While (pre)mastering, you finalise the song and bring it to the final loudness level you want your listeners to hear. Two seperate steps, even different metering standards involved.

Of course you could to this in the very same project, but to me this is just chaotic.

Are satscom and VCC VU meters accurate? I remember, You talking about them in another post.

VCC is still slightly off, but only about 0,5db to 1dB max(!). I haven't updated in a while, but I remember something along those lines. Else SATSON and VCC are pretty much on the spot.

If you're in doubt, the best VU's I can recommend in this case are Klanghelm's VUMT and zplane's PPMulator XL. Nothing is more acourate and simpler to setup in terms of VU's as of this moment. I use VUMT myself prior to any console/module emulation.

It encourages tighter mixing. -18dB is very safe, more room for mistakes. I feel that if you need that much room for transients then you ARE wasting bits. I personally aim to peg the VU without pegging the peak. Not overly compressing the mix, just learing control the transients.

This is your way of working, but you still evade the calibration standards. Furthermore, you're not wasting bits. Actually if you have "low" bit material in a 24bit (and higher) recording, your recording should (in theory!) even be smaller than one with full bits used. Furthermore, the higher the dynamic range, the less changes of experiencing clipped recordings - unless you work 32bit float but even then I'd advice not going higher than 0VU or according to SMTPE/EBU not higher than -9dBFS digital peak per channel while recording/mixing.


It's hard to wrap your head around it, but working ITB and OTB at the same time is way simpler and pretty much hassle free that way.

you must have terms confused here. let's put it this way; ANYTHING you put in your master channel, THAT'S mastering.

Please, stop here right now. MASTERING has nothing to do with putting plugins or inserted modules into the "Master Channel" (also known as mix bus or summing bus) in the mixing stage.

(Pre)Mastering is an own process and has NOTHING to do with mixing.

if you boost things too much in the mix, like maximize volume and stuff like that, you'll lose all headroom which makes the material harder to master.

That is correct.

gain staging applies to mastering, too, but as the final plugin of the chain you should use a limiter to raise the level of the material towards the commercial levels. how soon you'll reach audible distortion, which isn't what you want, depends on the headroom you left in the mix and how well you've mixed the material.

Again, this would count to (pre)mastering, not mixing.

the loudness will depend on several factors. again, a good, balanced mix is important. you can have some saturation on individual tracks and even the master fader, this will help you get the mix sound louder and larger when you can't add any more gain to your final limiter.

With the calibration method and utilising a proper gain staging process, you DO NOT need any limiter on the master bus at all. And you should not either.

Since I implemented proper gain staging into my workflow and having an eye on both VU and digital peak meters, I've never even once exceeded K-14 (K-System) or a maximum digital peak of -2dB.

I don't think I'm confused.Frequency content is a very big deal(Fletcher Munson curves). If I use this method I'm going to need 12db of boost to match commercial levels.Some electronic music guys will take their master faders down to something like -20db, then use a 9 plugin mastering chain, to get their levels.Some people say hit +6dbfs on your daw,clip in the box, or use a clipper.

They pretty much do it the other way around: mix to their liking, pull down the master fader (which, according to digital guru's, messes with the bitrate) and then get their stuff back up again in terms of loudness with several plugins. IMO: counter productive.

If they would have mixed on calibrated systems right from the start, they would have a balanced mix and would not need to add as much compression/EQ/limiting to get to a commercial level.

Several factors are important:
- proper worklevel
- proper listening environment
- a balanced mix

If you take these three into consideration, you barely need anything more than just the right EQ here and there, a slight gain boost and peak limiting.

I'm not trying to be difficult or confrontational.Just want to compare notes and learn.

Having an open mind is always a good thing.
I hope you could learn a thing or two.

[Spitfire31]

…
They pretty much do it the other way around: mix to their liking, pull down the master fader (which, according to digital guru's, messes with the bitrate)….

I assume you mean bit depth?

Kind regards,

Joachim

[jam92189]

well i bit the bullet just bought it I own sknote stripbus and love it I just want to have this so i can have a subtle saturation when i need it might not use it much but I will keep you posted