Old 12-13-2006, 09:19 AM   #1
LabbyRoad
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Default Mixing Down to Master Track

Hi All. I'd appreciate any tips that you might have on mixing down to a master track, particularly with regard to sound quality.

My typical project has 8 to 12 tracks all originating as MIDI and VSTs. I render each individual track to wave (48Khz 24 bit) and then render a master track at 44.1Khz 16 bit for eventual burning to audio CD.

I find myself unsatisfied with the sound quality of these final mixdowns. It's not an issue with any one track as much as it is with the over all sound, which to my ear isn't clean.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions.
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Old 12-13-2006, 09:35 AM   #2
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More dtails are needed. maybe you could post some mp3s?

There are books to buy on the subject as well.

I have been trying to learn to mix for years now. It is very hard to do. Lately I treated my room. That has made the biggest improvment in my mixs ever. I you dont have a treated room, do that first. Next, get good monitors. Without these you will never get there.
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Old 12-13-2006, 09:46 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by todd24 View Post
More dtails are needed. maybe you could post some mp3s?

There are books to buy on the subject as well.

I have been trying to learn to mix for years now. It is very hard to do. Lately I treated my room. That has made the biggest improvment in my mixs ever. I you dont have a treated room, do that first. Next, get good monitors. Without these you will never get there.
Thanks Todd24,

You can listen to my first attempt with REAPER at http://www.labbyroad.ca/blog/media/Labby_Road_128.mp3

With regard to room acoustics, this is really not a factor for me since I am generating all tracks from virtual instruments and rendering directly to digital audio. No mics, no pickups, no patch cables.

I guess what I'm after is what other people are doing post production to clean up or punch up their recordings prior to rendering a master track.
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Old 12-13-2006, 01:38 PM   #4
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I just ran it through Spectralive....compare the two, see what ya think..

labbyroad_spec.mp3 - 2.94MB

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Old 12-13-2006, 03:24 PM   #5
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Wow! That's quite an improvement. So much so that it reveals a lot more of the mistakes that I made. I checked out Crysonic's Website and this seems like a bargain for what it does.

Thanks for pointing me to this great tool, RokkD!
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Old 12-13-2006, 03:41 PM   #6
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Man there is soooo much to learn and do. I too am just beginning to learn about mastering, and there is a ton of stuff to read and learn regarding compression and limiters at master mix time. I started out simply trying to level the sound across several songs done at different times (Normalize is not the answer at this stage). SO if you don't do this already, create a new project with the stereo mixes of several songs and load them as separate tracks in a new Reaper project. Then use a compressor followed by a limiter on the master and tweak the settings to your liking while soloing each song. You can also insert a good quality EQ at the beginning of this chain if needed. Once happy with the overall volume and tonal characteristics I then render the master mix, one song at a time. Using this method I end up with a collection that sounds like they belong together. Now...which pluggin to use.....
On all of the various VST threads there a bunches of compressors (single and multi band), and I am in the process of trying several. So far Stardust looks good, but I find it easy to overprocess. Also the Classic Compressor followed by the Classic Limiter works well. Recently I found BuzzRizer at http://www.trifex.de/buzzrizerlight.html This is pretty cool and the presets are good. Based on RokkD's suggestion I just downloaded the demo version of Spectralive (the demo version drops the volume every 15 seconds or so).
Regardless of the Pluggin, be careful, it is pretty easy to overprocess and result in "pumping or clipping" with any of these. I think it will likely take a while before I get really good at this, but it is a journey right?
You might want to check out articles like this one at Sound On Sound http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996...mpression.html They have a great collection of articles for all kinds of stuff like this.
Hope it helps.
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Old 12-13-2006, 03:42 PM   #7
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With regard to the room acoustics, Labby. The problem is not the sounds you put to tape, but the playback. Room acoustics dictate the overall sound you will hear from your monitors in that room. Small rooms will tend to accentuate the low mids (the "muddy" range), which are a problem area of many mixes.

That said, your mix really isn't all that bad at all, to me.
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Old 12-13-2006, 05:26 PM   #8
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Okay lads, before you go spending money, here's another one of my favorites 'T-Sledge'...and it's free, some other good stuff there too.

http://rekkerd.org/sweetboy-vst/

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Old 12-14-2006, 09:52 AM   #9
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RokkD, (and others) if you haven't already you ought to have a look at the BuzzRizerLite that I mentioned above. It is also a free VST. I am way over my head with all of the nuances of compression for Mastering, but this one seems to give very nice results. I also have T-Sledge, but haven't spent enought time with it yet. I did notice that it too have lots of pre-sets which really help a guy like me that is still learning how to tweak these tools. I also want to spend more time with ReaComp. I would be very interested in your opinions/comparison (or anybody's) of BuzzRite/T-Sledge/Stardust/ReaComp from a mastering perspective. They all seam to function fine with Reaper, so I believe this is the appropriate forum for the discussion from a results/tips and tricks perspective.
Many thanks....Woody
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Old 12-14-2006, 01:08 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fluffy View Post
With regard to the room acoustics, Labby. The problem is not the sounds you put to tape, but the playback. Room acoustics dictate the overall sound you will hear from your monitors in that room. Small rooms will tend to accentuate the low mids (the "muddy" range), which are a problem area of many mixes.

That said, your mix really isn't all that bad at all, to me.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm playing around with Spectra Live as recommended by RokkD along with a re-render/re-mix of the song to try and get a cleaner brighter sound. I'll post the finished product on my Website when it's done.
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Old 12-15-2006, 01:54 PM   #11
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Hey bigwoody, labby, how could I forget this, G-Multi, my number one favorite, it's easy to use, and sounds even better now with the new skin ..

go get it now.....it's a beaut ..

http://www.gvst.co.uk/index.htm

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Old 12-16-2006, 01:21 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LabbyRoad View Post
Thanks Todd24,

You can listen to my first attempt with REAPER at http://www.labbyroad.ca/blog/media/Labby_Road_128.mp3

With regard to room acoustics, this is really not a factor for me since I am generating all tracks from virtual instruments and rendering directly to digital audio. No mics, no pickups, no patch cables.

I guess what I'm after is what other people are doing post production to clean up or punch up their recordings prior to rendering a master track.
Hey LabbyRoad!

Whatever you do, your ROOM acoustic wither you wanted it or not is if not the biggest parrt for getting out of your box great MIXES. Now, weither letsy say you're mixing in a Untreated Room, thats ok, but you need to know your room well. Also another point, are you, after you bounce all the Vsti in wave format in 48.24but whatever the format, do you mix them in your Studio monitors or in headphones? Also, whatever you do if you mix with your monitor or headphones, it comes again to the same thing, Knowing your equipement. And most important also KNOWING what you;'re doing when you'rte mixing first not even talking about the final Master track stereo.

What i mean here is that you need to get the best sounding possible of your final Mix while the project still in DAW. And then leave the ther treatment of the Final Masterd version to be ENHANCED. Tat means if you do not use your Eq well in the right way in your instrument and you don't know how to go get this sound on your Synth base or Acst quitar qith your Eq u're using , or do not know how to go add lets say some "AIR" in your Vocals etc.. so right there you're not a winner and you can not do miracles.

Of course now, if you did bounce all your tracks in a final stereo and you wanna master that STERO to sound good (and as i can understand in your case its not the fact, you're nost satisfied with the final result, wich comes again to the starting point, if your mix sound good before the final step, you will be able to ENHANCE it BIG TIME) you can always have cool plugin TOOLS like the ones that has been suggested here from Spetralive-Ozone etc.. etc.. etc.. and but again you need to know what you're looking for as sound and what are the reference you trying to reach!!!And of course know how to tweak and play with those Plugins that allows you to Bring to life your final Mix.

So as they stated it here, Mixing ain't an wasy thing, its one of the most complicated art ecisting in my knowledge and u need to understand all those little details that can make your Mixes shine.

Hope this help, and again, if you're not satififed, go back in to your main mix and listen what is wrong and bounce it to a final stereo and listen back again and again and compare with reference songs unitl you start feeling that u're reching that level and then it means you'r mix is progressing.. READ a lot and put it it in PRACTICE only way!!

Enjoy and Good luck!!
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