fader to unity

[gretchkit]

Hello,

Might someone be kind enough to show me how to print a track so that to play it back all one has to do is bring the fader up to unity.

What I have been doing, which I'm not sure is accurate, is when tracking is to set the fader to unity and use the gain on the channel to bring my levels up to +4 - 7 db when the peak light is activated on this mixer. Subsequently on playback, I adjust the gain so that the peak light is activated is the same manner.


I do appreciate the advice.

[LTA]

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about tape calibration? Or tracking so that your mix is mixed with all faders at unity?

But i can tell you this. The peak light is not the best thing to use to calibrate equipment. It possibly will react differently to live and playback signals.

So, get a 1kHz tone generator, and run that into an input channel. Raise the gain on that channel until the vu meter hits 0. Bus it out to the tape machine, adjusting odd-even panning so that the full 0 dBu signal is being output to the tape machine. If you feel inclined, pull out a DMM and check the voltage across the hi and low conductors in the tape send cable. With a +4 dBu system, the voltage should be 1.228V.

Now, to keep it simple, ill pretend you are using a simple tape recorder with only input and output gain controls. Both digital decks and especially ATRs in practice are a bit more complicated.

First, set your tape machine meter to monitor the input. Adjust the input gain on the tape machine until its meter reads 0 vu (or dbfs reference to 0 vu for digital).

Now, assuming the tape machine is calibrated internally, the 1kHz tone input at 0vu will be recorded and then played back at 0vu. Monitor the playback level on the tape machine, just to make sure. If it is off, you need to do internal tweaking or live with it. The voltage output from the tape return should be equal to 1.228 volts if you hook up your DMM. Adjust your output gain until you reach this voltage.

Next, go back to the board and get the tape return to display on a meter. The tape return should be playing back at 0 vu. If it isn't, adjust the tape return input gain on the console if there is one. In a pinch, you can hack it by adjusting the tape machine output gain.

Now for the disclaimer: If you aren't comfortable tweaking pots, don't do this. While the process is actually easy, it is possible to mess up levels to a point limited experience will not be able to make up for. Make sure you are tweaking the control you mean too. And if you have any uncertainty, ask more questions before you start.

[gretchkit]

There's a style of tracking where once all is said and done, faders are brought up to unity and viola there's the mix as it was printed.

[ulysses]

Originally posted by gretchkit
There's a style of tracking where once all is said and done, faders are brought up to unity and viola there's the mix as it was printed.

No, there isn't.

[LTA]

Originally posted by gretchkit
There's a style of tracking where once all is said and done, faders are brought up to unity and viola there's the mix as it was printed.

Don't forget to have your eq's at perfect 7's either.

Put your monitor faders at unity, adjust your preamp gain so that it sounds good, then adjust your playback level with the channel fader. For this approach, you have to assume (conceptually) that the tape machine doesn't add level-dependent coloration to the signal. That is a pretty naive assumption for both the digital and analog realm, btw.

In the area of live sound, this can be a worthwhile mode of operation. If you are in a situation where you reproduce the same sources at the same volumes day in and day out (radio, touring, tv, h.o.w.), you can have a far easier time getting your mix together by putting the faders at unity and adjusting the input gain. To me, this approach is inappropriate for one-off recording sessions in which every aspect of the signal chain should be optimized for the highest possible fidelity. You can mix your stems so the group fader is at unity though

[David R.]

I think what you are talking about is achieved in the tracking stage, when you are so good at getting your levels and sounds to "tape" (or whatever medium) that on playback the faders are all at zero.

You can only do this if you can take this pebble from my hand.

What I am saying is get the best sounds and the best levels you possibily can and don't worry so much about having to move the faders a bit on mix.

[djui5]

Originally posted by gretchkit
There's a style of tracking where once all is said and done, faders are brought up to unity and viola there's the mix as it was printed.

That's called "mixing while you track"

It's a process of getting the sounds you want while tracking and is usually done by an engineer who's tracking and mixing the album.

As for putting the faders at unity and having a mix.....not likely. If an engineer say's he does that...then I'd call someone else.

[entropy]

pass me my flame thrower

[sismundi]

There's a Martin Hannett joke in here somewhere.

[gretchkit]

Thanks for the replies. Thanks LTA...

I had seen a documentary where an ABBA song was being replayed from the control room by the original engineer and he had all faders at unity on 8 channels. Perhaps it was a stems mix afterall but I'm not for certain.

[The MPCist]

Originally posted by gretchkit
Thanks for the replies. Thanks LTA...

I had seen a documentary where an ABBA song was being replayed from the control room by the original engineer and he had all faders at unity on 8 channels. Perhaps it was a stems mix afterall but I'm not for certain.

For TV? We do that alot. When the camera crew comes in, we just play the printed mix (soloed) and put the faders of the individual tracks to whatever (not heard).

[natpub]

Originally posted by gretchkit
Thanks for the replies. Thanks LTA...

I had seen a documentary where an ABBA song was being replayed from the control room by the original engineer and he had all faders at unity on 8 channels. Perhaps it was a stems mix afterall but I'm not for certain.

I saw this documentary, and saw the scene you refer to. All he was doing was bringing up the stereo buss of each sub group, and sending it to a sidecar. All the fader moves for each track in the group were either already printed or automated. The side car subs would just be brought up to unity because the mix was on the main board. There was nothing special or weird to it, since it was already a long-since completed mix, and he was just showing the breakdown of the song by sub-group. If you think back, you will recall that he was facing sideways and doing the moves on a sidecar.

--KT

[myoshida]

It's normal procedure in film post, once your stems have been recorded, for the rerecording mixer to bring the faders to unity and listen only to confirm that there are no punch-in holes. It's also common for the producer or director to tell the mixer that the balance still isn't right and you end up adjusting the faders and then fixing the changes back to the stems.

m yoshida

[gretchkit]

Right on, KT. Yes, I do remember what looked to be a sidecar.

Since it was a session from the 1970's I thought perhaps I was witnessing a lost art.

[LTA]

Originally posted by gretchkit
Since it was a session from the 1970's I thought perhaps I was witnessing a lost art.

There are all sorts of things like that. Check out the typical picture of Bonham's drum kit. The T rods tend to be parallel to the hoop. And i've seen guitars (and basses) with the tuners all in a row in pictures too. The problem with pictures is that they don't tell the whole story, especially if they are missing the caption. But they can be an excellent source of investigative inspiration.

[Extreme Mixing]

On SSL VCA style automation, a lot of guys used to write all of the fader levels on the first mix pass. Then they would set all of the faders to trim mode, and put all the faders at unity, so they could make the moves and know where to get back to their null point. That may be what you saw, too.

I knew a TV music guy, named Ami Hadani, who used to track that way doing 60 piece orchestras for the 6 Million Dollar Man and Charlie's Angles. He called it straight line mixing. The monitors (as I recall they were knobs, not faders) were always set to unity gain. He got the blend on the input side. I think if noise was an issue they used the output cal adjustment to tweak the returns. The set up stayed the same day after day.

He got most of the final mixes on the fly when the band played the final take. If they needed a remix, he could easily get the "mix" back by just playing the multi track back, and making the needed adjustment to the blend.

Those were the old days. Few, if any, overdubs and not much second-guessing. Now days, the record gets made in the control room, rather than in the studio, so it's a different way of working.

What I think you should be aware of is not printing everything blazing hot to disc. I see no reason to priint sounds so hot that they need to be attenuated 30 or 40db to fit into the mix. I like to try to keep my faders up, where I can control them more accurately and make finer adjustments. Try moving a shaker from -35db to -35.5. It's just not as accurate as moving it from -3 to -3.5.

Steve

[gretchkit]

Thanks, Steve.

Best.

[Predrag Trpkov]

Originally posted by gretchkit
There's a style of tracking where once all is said and done, faders are brought up to unity and viola there's the mix as it was printed.

Isn't that what Tom Dowd used to do?

[Charles Dye]

Yeah, Steve, I've heard of it as well.

My understanding was that guys in jingle houses also used to use it a lot with analog consoles. They were fast, very good at their jobs, and always trying to find ways to be faster. They usually cut + mixed entire productions in half a day, and working this fast they could easily envision how their mix would sound while they were tracking the rhythm section (they would've been live players). So, whether they were going to next overdub horns, strings, keys, bgs, whatever, they simply would imagine where they would be in the mix, and leave room for them as they cut the drums, bass + gtrs.

The first thing they did was set all the faders returning from the tape machine (also in the days of analog tape) to 0 dB, or -5, -10, nonetheless they would all be set to the same value. Then their levels to tape were all handled essentially as if they were building up a mix. They didn't try to get the hottest level, they tried to get a balanced blend of the instruments as they were being monitored through the faders.

The purpose, like Steve said, was so they could recall the mix instantly, making the turn around between clients faster if they did have to come back to a project a second day for changes.

And I guess in a sense it is a lost art. A victim to automated consoles, digital consoles + DAW's--all with their instant recall everythings.