(Levels) Sorry, you guys must be tired of threads like this...

[909x303]

And even more of people like me asking about production/mixing issues rather than mastering issues at the mastering forum ahahaha. I'm so sorry already!

But i really need to take this weight off my head and shoulders with Gearslut's Mastering *Jedi High Council*

I've a doubt regarding levels (peak and RMS) before and during mixing and the vision for mastering after it.

I'm setting up a band influenced by live acts from the likes of Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, Junkie XL, etc.
The Prodigy in their early and mid 90's days (before Fat ot the Land) for example, the tracks were simpler and less complex, more spacey and you could perfectly feel the kickdrum hitting you and hear the trail it left (and i'm not talking about reverb) In contrast to today's absolute smashed-nonsense-pancakes (i remember some hip hops from 2005/2006 that were even 10x worse, the beats felt like really soft pillows hitting a wall!)

I think their tracks today have a lot of distortion and upfront stuff mainly than other things (i don't think that is loudness distortion, but intended overdriven artistic distortion.) and yet they are loud, but have that fat and smooth "audio pancake punch" as i like to call it, LOL!

I'm doing everything in the box for now and my host is Ableton 7.03.

Well for some, i'm trying to get that 90's punch, dynamics and clarity and breathing space for some tracks and for others i wanna go for today's in your face stuff, but not smashed to death. Maybe the drums in an artistic way (been having fascinating results with parallel processing) but i would like to retain the necessary dynamics to have enough punch and make the drums cut through. Then i wanna compare these tracks and decide where i wanna go with my music, maybe sit someplace between the 90's dynamics and 00's in your face levels.

I've started writting my tracks now using an Waves PAZ meter on the master buss, followed by OtiumFX's Basslane (freeware utility to control the low end field, i like to leave everything below 200hz or sometimes 300hz mono). I got used to never touch the master fader for any reason, so what i've been doing is balancing my channel faders so that the meters on the PAZ hits -6 on the peaks and -15 RMS of average level. Is this a good way to go for those 90's days? or should i leave more space? like -8 and -16?

Now about the present day..

If i'm after the "smooth fat rounded dryless pancake punch" (LOL!) of todays music, should i:

A> heavily compress, parallel compress, agressively EQ and Saturate things (transients mostly) and leave the same space (-6 on peaks -15 on RMS) for the mastering engineer?

B> Leave things more dryish and ride'em till -3 on peaks and -12rms?

C> Leave things as they are and ask the engineer to bring'em upfront in your face?

But i just don't wanna send my tracks for mastering if they are wrong at the start or end of mixing stage, (and for the time being i can't spend more than 100 bucks for online mastering, i know, ridiculous) But i would like to leave my tracks with the potential for mastering, be it the old school sound or in your face stuff.

So i welcome any suggestions for both the 90's and 00's path i'm about to try out!

Also i have a question about the PAZ Meter, what are weighting curves?
should i worry about which one is proper to deal with the material i'm working/metering with?

the PAZ Meter features unweighted, dBA, dBB, dBC and i don't know what each are or each do.

Thanks very much, and also thanks to each and everyone of you that have time to spare on-line and makes Gearslutz a much needed information-paradise for both Engineers and Musicians in the world.

PS: Sorry for any bad english, grammar or typos, i'm quite in a hurry now!

Renan L.B

[Bob Olhsson]

Sounds to me like you may be overthinking this.

I'd turn the mix down and the monitors up and make the mix really punch without worrying about how loud it is relative to other tracks. I'd disable each bit of signal processing and then turn the track up in the mix to make sure none of the signal processing is castrating the sound of that element of the mix. Remember that in the '80s and '90s absolutely nobody had the amount of signal processing available that's in even the most basic DAW software.

It's real easy to fool yourself with signal processing into thinking louder but worse sounding is better than simply making something louder.

[UnderTow]

Here is a very simple recipe: Take one of the current loud CDs on the market. Go into your studio and play that CD. Turn up the monitoring level until your ears are hurting. Quickly stop the CD.

Now leave the monitoring level exactly where it is. Mix your stuff so that it sounds exactly how you think it should sound. (And that means it doesn't hurt your ears. In other words, you will be mixing much softer than the loud CD). Send off the mix for mastering and ask the ME to make it loud for you.

Although the above is slightly tongue in cheek (only slightly), using this method you shouldn't even ever have to look at a meter while mixing...

Or even better, check Bob Katz' K-Metering system: Introducing the 'K' Metering system

As for PAZ, I really don't like it. I much prefer any of the free spectrum analysers out there. Check these out:

Voxengo or Blue Cat's FreqAnalyst - Real Time Spectrum Analyzer DirectX and VST Plugin (Freeware)


Alistair