How loud are your kicks and bass when producing

[AJ Reynolds]

no. i usually mix everything around the bass and kick.

[cxccc]

Okay, what are they usually peaking at for you?

[peter_martin]

peaking at what, digital or ana VU? It all depends on the source itself.

Know your room and speakers, have good bass response in it, crank it to ~85 db and use your ears. Really that simple. I listened to a ton of stuff in my room after I got things setup proper. It took me about 3 months of trial and error with balance in my room that I'm comfortable to start getting killer mixes (with my kik and bass being one of my weakest points for my entire production life until recently). This is being from releasing about 50 records, and selling a lot of music. My bottom end sucked, but its about the song really in the end.

I listened to some of my older stuff and yea it was kinda a face palm on a few of em' but man some great songs with great heart. Really thats the most important thing, the song, the heart, and how it emotionally translates and brings people where you want them.

Gain stage your stuff, no reason to go full scale digital 0 even on the master bus.

In general my channels are 99% of the time digital peaked at -12 db across the board then I plan with the faders for balance, with sometimes the kik being the loudest, but it completely depends on the song, production, track, the kik itself, the bass, the musical content, how everything plays off of everything else...

I also make sure that the signal flow through my plugins are not getting hotter than ~-12 db digital scale. That alone was a HUGE time saver for tail chasing with balance.

Note, if you mix at low volumes your bass end will be sh*t, if you mix at 85 db the whole time your percussion will be too loud so mix that very quiet, and getting mid range right at a comfortable medium range level. You'll have to mix in a various volume levels, but kik and bass have to be pushed loud to get the big picture.



Fletcher Munson Curve is your friend, and so are Radio Shack db meters with knowing sound pressure levels too.

When your all said and done, and your stuff sounds really good and balanced across the board at ~85 db in a room you feel confident in your mix will really translate well balance wise.

In fact it will kick major a$$ at 110 db. Knock heads off down the creek as they say in Texas.

lots of practice.

you'll beg for death many times prior to getting it 'right'.

human suffering knows no bounds when it comes to getting kik and bass balance.

Have fun!

[spaceacademy]

Originally Posted by cxccc

Okay, what are they usually peaking at for you?

It would depend on the music. There is no correct level for your kik drum in any music. If its hitting 0db constantly you simply adjust your fader to make it fit with the track.

You might be confusing peaking with RMS. Even then there is no correct or wrong level. But it seems many sample packs have kiks around -12 to 10 RMS volume. Thats pretty loud and obviously the content creators have compressed and limited to reach such a volume in an attempt to impress. Yup, theres even a loudness war going on with content creators. Without any compression or limiting your average drum machine kik would be around -17rms.

It would help if you explained the point of your question. Are you looking to make your kiks louder because you feel their not cutting through the mix or perhaps some other reason?

[Myrok Rolles]

I usually keep the kick and bass around -6 dbu, then mix everything off of the drums... compress on the master buss, crank that shit up, throw on a limiter and call it a day.

[Jaynm26]

Peter Martin has the best answer most young eng do not know how to correctly gain stage their mixes!

[Ged]

dont sweat it - totally song dependent -- as long as your mix has plenty of headroom before mastering e.g peaking at around -6dB

[atma]

****ing loud.

[MoteOfVoid]

Originally Posted by cxccc

Do you have everything relatively quiet first, then bring it up with compression?

Quiet or not is just depending on what direction I turn the knob on
my monitor controller

All the stuff said about proper gain staging is so true. Don't pay so much
attention on the peak meters in your daw. Get some plugin that shows
VU and set the kick level and maybe the bass around -6dbu. That way
there is a lot of headroom for transients and your plugins will be happy.
When you want it louder turn up your speakers. If you use compression
turn off the automatic makeup gain and adjust manually. Makes it a lot
easier to shape the sound without messing up your balance...

Originally Posted by peter_martin

peaking at what, digital or ana VU? It all depends on the source itself.

Know your room and speakers, have good bass response in it, crank it to ~85 db and use your ears. Really that simple. I listened to a ton of stuff in my room after I got things setup proper. It took me about 3 months of trial and error with balance in my room that I'm comfortable to start getting killer mixes (with my kik and bass being one of my weakest points for my entire production life until recently). This is being from releasing about 50 records, and selling a lot of music. My bottom end sucked, but its about the song really in the end.

...

When your all said and done, and your stuff sounds really good and balanced across the board at ~85 db in a room you feel confident in your mix will really translate well balance wise.

In fact it will kick major a$$ at 110 db. Knock heads off down the creek as they say in Texas.

lots of practice.

you'll beg for death many times prior to getting it 'right'.

human suffering knows no bounds when it comes to getting kik and bass balance.

Have fun!

So true



Here is a great thread about gain staging :

The Reason Most ITB mixes don’t Sound as good as Analog mixes (restored)

[msl]

Kick @ -10db, everything else gets mixed around that.


.

[cxccc]

Originally Posted by peter_martin

digital or ana VU?

In general my channels are 99% of the time digital peaked at -12 db across the board then I plan with the faders for balance, with sometimes the kik being the loudest, but it completely depends on the song, production, track, the kik itself, the bass, the musical content, how everything plays off of everything else...

I also make sure that the signal flow through my plugins are not getting hotter than ~-12 db digital scale. That alone was a HUGE time saver for tail chasing with balance.

Thank you for all this great information peter.Yes i'm talking about digital VU btw.

Originally Posted by spaceacademy

It would depend on the music. There is no correct level for your kik drum in any music. If its hitting 0db constantly you simply adjust your fader to make it fit with the track.

You might be confusing peaking with RMS. Even then there is no correct or wrong level. But it seems many sample packs have kiks around -12 to 10 RMS volume. Thats pretty loud and obviously the content creators have compressed and limited to reach such a volume in an attempt to impress. Yup, theres even a loudness war going on with content creators. Without any compression or limiting your average drum machine kik would be around -17rms.

It would help if you explained the point of your question. Are you looking to make your kiks louder because you feel their not cutting through the mix or perhaps some other reason?

You're right I might be confusing the two terms. Tbh I don't have a full grasp on RMS yet. I've always just made music and never got into the technical side of things, but I'm getting to the point where I want to release some tracks. So loudness is an issue, and RMS is a component of a tracks loudness is it not?

Originally Posted by Ged

dont sweat it - totally song dependent -- as long as your mix has plenty of headroom before mastering e.g peaking at around -6dB

So you are saying that before you send something to get mastered your entire track is peaking around 6db? Compared to a current release wouldn't this be really quiet? (I know it's comparing unmastered to mastered)..but mastering brings it up 5-6 db's?

Originally Posted by MoteOfVoid

All the stuff said about proper gain staging is so true. Don't pay so much
attention on the peak meters in your daw. Get some plugin that shows
VU and set the kick level and maybe the bass around -6dbu. That way
there is a lot of headroom for transients and your plugins will be happy.
When you want it louder turn up your speakers. If you use compression
turn off the automatic makeup gain and adjust manually. Makes it a lot
easier to shape the sound without messing up your balance...

Here is a great thread about gain staging :

The Reason Most ITB mixes don’t Sound as good as Analog mixes (restored)

Thank you for the response and information. I have the TT meter, you say that I should get the kick and bass to be set around -6dbu on it?

Originally Posted by msl

Kick @ -10db, everything else gets mixed around that.

.

Thanks

[MoteOfVoid]

Originally Posted by cxccc

So you are saying that before you send something to get mastered your entire track is peaking around 6db? Compared to a current release wouldn't this be really quiet? (I know it's comparing unmastered to mastered)..but mastering brings it up 5-6 db's?

Yes, it does. Assumning you mix 24 bits and the target medium is 16 bits
there is no reason to run your 2bus that hot. If you print your mix and
send it for mastering or doing it yourself it is safe to put eq and compression
on it and raise the gain. Keep in mind that a lot of stuff delivers its mojo by
turning up the gain inside the devices to find the sweet spot instead of slamming
the inputs.

Originally Posted by cxccc

Thank you for the response and information. I have the TT meter, you say that I should get the kick and bass to be set around -6dbu on it?
Thanks

To set levels like discussed here The Reason Most ITB mixes don’t Sound as good as Analog mixes (restored) do the following.

Get PSP Vintage Meter - it is free.
It is callibrated at -12dBfs = 0VU default. Click in the lower part of the gui
to bring up the config page and set the 0VU reference level to -18dBfs.
Now get your kick around -6VU on the meter. Done.
Once set balance everything around the kick. You can check the meter while
mixing if you want but I take it out as I know that everything now falls easy
into place and I'm on the safe side regarding headroom.
If you feel it is too quiet turn up you speakers a little

[Praxisaxis]

Keep in mind that a lot of stuff delivers its mojo by
turning up the gain inside the devices to find the sweet spot instead of slamming
the inputs.

This in a nutshell is why it's important to keep headroom in the mix. If you ever have anything professionally mastered, their gear often works better when you give them that headroom.

And (as already stated) at 24 bit there's no good reason to use it all up.