Tracking levels ...

[Matt Grabe]

I am interested in knowing more about the technique of tracking towards a general mix. What I mean by this is tracking your levels so that when all faders at are unity, the levels are already at a nice balance. What are the pros/cons to this method? I would assume your levels should be adjusted so that your hottest level is tracked at 0 dB analog / -18 dB digital, would this improve the signal/noise ratio? Any thoughts are appreciated!

[Mayor999]

Its definitely a preference thing.

At 24 bits the noise floor is a moot point. And with digital editing, even quiet sections can be dead quiet.

I know a few people do this with drums and then subconciously do this with everything else.

Works well for them I guess.

Pros: Easy rough mixes i guess, but when you seriously start mixing you are throwing up/pulling down stuff so often that it wouldn't matter too much.

Cons: Making sure you have enough signal of things that won't sit high in the mix... pads, HighHat, Ride, BG Vox, etc etc You don't want to not have enough of these elements or for them to sound anemic from lack of driving the pre-amp.

[synthoid]

There's no good reason to do this that I can think of. Why not get a good healthy level on every track and give yourself as good a starting point as possible for mixing? If you capture something at a much reduced level because you think it belongs way down in the mix, and later change your mind, you might run into a problem, and for what benefit? It's easy to pull a fader down during mixing.

-synthoid

[recall]

its easy to strike a balance of getting enough level and also getting a overall representation of the performance at unity gain.

I don't see the point in recording everything hot that individual channels don't relate or respond to each other.

Look at those ":classic albums" TV shows where they just put the channels at unity and the song you've heard all your life is there right in front of you.

This is my approach anyway.


I also want whoever gets the tracks next (if i'm not mixing it) to be able to get a good idea of the song with the faders at unity.

[Gabriel Sousa]

Tracking - Levels


PSW Recording Forums: Whatever Works => Digital tracking with low levels = better...is this new???

[Mayor999]

Originally Posted by recall

I also want whoever gets the tracks next (if i'm not mixing it) to be able to get a good idea of the song with the faders at unity.

This is why pro mixers require a rough mix.

[theblue1]

Get optimal gain going through your crucial analog front end. If you're going into a 20 or 24 bit converter, give yourself ample headroom going into the converter so there's no possibility of crashing 0 dBFS.

Setting up your input/tracking gain so that your project is 'pre-mixed' is getting the whole process upside down and will potentially result in poor gain staging and additional noise.

This is similar to the notion of setting up an analog board at mix-time using trims to set channel levels so that all the faders come out to unity in the basic mix position. It might be convenient or visually helpful in some sense, but it is not good gain-staging practice.

[bgrotto]

I too have been getting more into setting all faders at unity and building sounds and balances from there. My desk, convertors, and outboard just seem to operate much better that way. The only potential issue I've found is signal-to-noise issues when I'm tracking to tape; I get around that by EQing and compressing on the way in. As for the ability to drive preamps into their money zones, just throw a compressor or fader or other gain stage after the pre. Problem solved. And don't tell me about degrading the signal path with extra amplifier stages. Doing it the way I do it keeps me from pulling the line in amps on my desk way down (which sounds noticeably bad), or pulling the PT faders way down (which sounds noticeably bad), or pulling the desks faders way down (which makes doing automation rides a major pain in the ass). In other words, the added gain stage during tracking is a compromise for improved resolution during mixing, and well worth it.

At the very least, tape or not, I always use 0VU as a reference when tracking. Four outta five times, the faders end up close to unity anyways when I start getting balances together.

[recall]

Originally Posted by theblue1

Setting up your input/tracking gain so that your project is 'pre-mixed' is getting the whole process upside down and will potentially result in poor gain staging and additional noise.
.

Are we not recording music where a true representation of a performane is the goal?

The drums will always be louder than live viola for instance. I don't see the point of recording the viola as hot as possible so that it sounds as loud or louder than the drums.

As I said before there is plenty of room in 24 bit to get adequate signal to noise while still recording an accurate balance of what it actually going on in the room.

[Mayor999]

Originally Posted by bgrotto

And don't tell me about degrading the signal path with extra amplifier stages.

I have a major problem (hopefully not!) with sending pre-tape signal through a bunch of gear even if I end up not using it. I think it sounds better to slow it down some and get some stuff in the way.... I do this all the time with API 500 series EQ's.... just unbypass em and if they don't need EQ they end up flat but engaged when recording.

Maybe im nuts but I think it sounds cooler.

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by Matt Grabe

I am interested in knowing more about the technique of tracking towards a general mix. What I mean by this is tracking your levels so that when all faders at are unity, the levels are already at a nice balance. What are the pros/cons to this method? I would assume your levels should be adjusted so that your hottest level is tracked at 0 dB analog / -18 dB digital, would this improve the signal/noise ratio? Any thoughts are appreciated!

I totally agree with tracking everything well below zero. -18 is not unreasonable. Recording prominent parts hotter and vice versa makes no sense though. Thats what faders ar efor.

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by recall

Look at those ":classic albums" TV shows where they just put the channels at unity and the song you've heard all your life is there right in front of you.

This is my approach anyway.

You have to be kidding me......

[Matt Grabe]

Originally Posted by TheArchitect

Recording prominent parts hotter and vice versa makes no sense though. Thats what faders ar efor.

Well I read about the concept from Michael Brauer. Actually, it was a post on here! Here was his comment ...

"Mixing records by Jay Messina is a perfect example. I don’t need to see his name to know it’s his work. You can get a good mix by taking the length of a pencil to pull up all the faders to ‘0’. I barely touch the EQ’s and if I want to put a different take on the mix, the sounds are easy to mold to my liking. I’ll look down the length of the console when the mix is complete and it’s the same every time with Jay’s work, all the faders are lined up in a straight line. That is the way we learned to record at Mediasound. We’d put all the monitor returns to ‘0’ and panned accordingly. All rides and levels were done in the recording process. At a later date, when it was time for overdubs, you or another engineer just needed to put all the faders up to ‘0’ and you had back the exact feel of the song in ten seconds. There was no pressure or surprises of trying to get that great rough back to how it sounded on the tracking date. It also made mixing a breeze."

I believe Michael Barbiero was at MediaSound at the same time Michael Brauer was. Correct me if that is wrong! I have talked with Barbiero quite a lot (he mixed a project I was involved with) and really respect his and Mr. Brauer's work. I was curious if there are any other pros/cons other than what he mentions.

[Dean Roddey]

It would take an pretty crazy amount of effort to do that, compared to just getting good levels (I go for max peaks around -9 to -6dB) and adjusting as required. EQ and compression will eat up some of that on those tracks that use any generally, and you get a good, healthy signal through the plugs so that they have plenty of bits to play with.

Not to mention that it requires knowing absolutely what hte song is going to sound like before you start, and never changing your mind later, even if a better idea comes to you during the mix. Many people are creating the song as the go and could hardly be expected to have an absolute understanding of every aspect of every instrument before they track, such that they would never change their mind about desired levels.

[recall]

Originally Posted by TheArchitect

You have to be kidding me......

Not kidding at all. Joe Barresi mentions this exact anecdote in his Sound on Sound article.

[Jules]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

It would take an pretty crazy amount of effort to do that, compared to just getting good levels......

Not to mention that it requires knowing absolutely what the song is going to sound like before you start, and never changing your mind later, even if a better idea comes to you during the mix. Many people are creating the song as the go and could hardly be expected to have an absolute understanding of every aspect of every instrument before they track, such that they would never change their mind about desired levels.

Its really not rocket science or hard to do..but perhaps its more of a 'rock band' technique, because with a rock band it is REAL easy to do - you simply set your monitor faders in a row and record levels and sounds that play back as a pleasant / "vibey" rough mix

This means that typically things like hihats and overheads & ride cymbal tracks aren't peaking anywhere near zero - (a newbie might say "dude you bedder turn that up man, its waaay too low!" - when in fact the gain staging is PERFECT for such transient signal..) conga tracks wont look "look ballanced" on the VU meters - but will SOUND balanced to the ear.. etc..etc..

I can see with loops, midi music, 808 sub kicks, and dance music it might be a little harder to operate the 'straight line' method (but I have done it without problems in that genre too..)

For a live drum 'band' style music it works brilliantly..

Another proviso..

As the ongoing 'mix' is being monitored in the control room - its easier to do if the performers are out in the live area using headphones (so you as the engineer can monitor your ongoing 'mix' - because if the performer is in the control room, they may nag you to be louder than just 'nicely mixed in' while doing their overdub.. This is a a subtle point but I feel worth mentioning.. (You could always push the fader up for the overdub but find your optimum 'mixed in level on a run-through..)

IMHO its an awesome discipline to get into for recording rock / live band music.

Give it a try, its real easy.. + fun / cool and the ability to get up rough mixes by just putting faders in a row is an obvious advantage (say you have tambourine / shaker / percussion overdubs to do towards the end of an album - its a TOTAL DRAG to have to spend 5 mins to 'get a balance' on each tune (because you will want a nice one to make percussion decisions) on each of 10+ tunes just to do the f^**^% shaker parts.

(its a buzz getting a great sounding vibe going in the studio, having another engineer drop in and watching their split second eyebrow raise as they look at the faders and realize that what you have going on is 'all faders in a row' - its kind of an "engineering machismo" thing to do

[Jules]

Originally Posted by recall

Look at those ":classic albums" TV shows where they just put the channels at unity and the song you've heard all your life is there right in front of you.

I have seen that too..!

[andychamp]

Another advantage I see in recording so that your faders are at or around unity: that's where they have their best resolution.
So any adjustments you need to do can really be fine-tuned.

Regarding the "classic albums" reference: I think those songs would still sound great with some of the faders a couple dBs off.

[Jules]

Actually all in a line at about -10 is usually perfect - don't forget all the faders will COMBINE to a master stereo bus / fader! (so all at "zero" isnt the plan...unless you want to overload the master bus / fader..)

"All in a LINE" is the technique (not all at zero, don't confuse the two!)

[nickynicknick]

I agree that you should be able to record this way...but I don't so much anymore because of amount I like to push the pre varies with each track and when tracking into a decent converter (no not digi 192)....you may find that there is a specific hot spot for certain tracks....also I would never track anything anywhere near digital zero....-6 for peaks only. MTC.
Nick

[melonmachine]

I put up a similar post to this a while ago after getting hold of some old multitracks. Some people then said it was pointless for the same reasons that some have on this post.
I don't have too much engineering knowledge to debate the fine points but I can say that it seems to be the technique on:
Bob Marley - One Love. Marvin Gaye - Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing, What's Going On, I Heard It Through The Grapevine. Stevie Wonder - Superstition.

[Dean Roddey]

Another advantage I see in recording so that your faders are at or around unity: that's where they have their best resolution.

That's true with some DAWS, like ProTools. But if you are using a more modern DAW like SONAR with a floating point summing engine, it's really not. Since you have a practically infinite number of steps between 0dB and the noise floor in a floating point engine, there's no real loss of resolution when you bring down the faders. So you'd get exactly the same results with the fader at 0dB and record the track so it comes in at -18dB as you would recording it so that it peaks at -6dB and bring the fader down to -12dB.

And, in the meantime if you record at the -6dB peak, you can get optimal gain staging on the analog input chain for the best quality analog signal, and you get a good signal level for later use in the DAW. If you end up needing the bits, you have them. If you don't, you can throw some away with no loss of quality or resolution.

So I just don't see any technical or aesthetic reason why you'd want or need to do this unless you are using a limited summing engine like ProTools.

[steveschizoid]

Originally Posted by recall

Are we not recording music where a true representation of a performane is the goal?

I tend to want to make a recording where something unique and interesting is happening each moment - something that really catches the ear. I couldn't care less if it's a true representation of a performance. A sitar player and I were waiting on a client to show up the other day. The client had one specific sitar droney type part in mind, but, since he wasn't there, I decided to experiment. I pitch shifted all the guitar to where it could be heard as based on the same root, then had the sitar player over dub a performance, then unshifted the guitar and shifted the sitar to match, and, voila! - a fascinating sound, yet a totally false representation of the performance. Read Geoff Emerick's book. Recording stopped being solely about capturing a true representation of a peformance more than 50 years ago. Gain staging is important on the other hand. Setting your pre's to get the optimal sound on each track is the only approach that makes sense to me. Monitor mixes are best totally divorced from gain staging IMO.

[Mayor999]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

That's true with some DAWS, like ProTools. But if you are using a more modern DAW like SONAR with a floating point summing engine, it's really not. Since you have a practically infinite number of steps between 0dB and the noise floor in a floating point engine, there's no real loss of resolution when you bring down the faders. So you'd get exactly the same results with the fader at 0dB and record the track so it comes in at -18dB as you would recording it so that it peaks at -6dB and bring the fader down to -12dB.

And, in the meantime if you record at the -6dB peak, you can get optimal gain staging on the analog input chain for the best quality analog signal, and you get a good signal level for later use in the DAW. If you end up needing the bits, you have them. If you don't, you can throw some away with no loss of quality or resolution.

So I just don't see any technical or aesthetic reason why you'd want or need to do this unless you are using a limited summing engine like ProTools.

I think by resolution he meant that the physical distance the fader travels has less of an effect than at other parts on the channel... (The distance between -80 to -60 is the same from -5 to 0)

[Jules]

Originally Posted by nickynicknick

I agree that you should be able to record this way...but I don't so much anymore because of amount I like to push the pre varies with each track and when tracking into a decent converter (no not digi 192)....you may find that there is a specific hot spot for certain tracks....

Hmmm.. for mic pre gain and getting the sweet spot sure but all you need is a line trim device to set the level to to converter (or tape recorder nicely - so a ATTY or a fader (if working on a console) in fact when pushing mic pre's its pretty hard to do it and not slam idiotic levels to a converter any way so you really do need some sort of level control unless you want to be round the back of your converter with a tiny screwdriver adjusting its input calibration all the time)

Originally Posted by nickynicknick

also I would never track anything anywhere near digital zero....-6 for peaks only. MTC.
Nick

You totally missed the point being discussed with that comment. No one is suggesting you record at digital zero.

Originally Posted by Jules

"All in a LINE" is the technique (not all at zero, don't confuse the two!)

These are all poor excuses not to try this technique

Originally Posted by steveschizoid

Gain staging is important on the other hand. Setting your pre's to get the optimal sound on each track is the only approach that makes sense to me.

People using the "all in a line technique" understand gain staging well but take things a 2nd step further.

Originally Posted by steveschizoid

Monitor mixes are best totally divorced from gain staging IMO.

Its possible to record signal 'all in a line' that has perfect gain staging with each piece of equipment involved in the chain.. (by using a fader at the end of the chain)

To those not believing.. 2 points

1) Try to remember what an analog fader does, yes, a real, physical fader that you can actually touch! Its often forgotten in the DAW environment but if you think about it, was obviously a big part of classic analog recording techniques. In a DAW studio a real fader is very useful to have around - if you are overloading mic pre's or compressors or anything else, how else will your converters cope with the hot level if you dont turn it down before it reaches them? A fader before the recorder has been a very important tool for engineers for decades.. look into it, really!

2) "It doesn't look right on the converter's meter's" - you are going to have to use your ears for this technique, not your eyes! To try it, you will have to stop looking at your converter meters and biting your fingernails and will have to trust your converters to record OK a little away from 'zero'.

Recap

Try to use a real fader (or volume pot) before the converter / tape machine
Don't stress about meter levels, does it sound OK?
Have courage

[steveschizoid]

Originally Posted by Jules

Don't stress about meter levels, does it sound OK?
Have courage

I never stress about meter levels. I have 10 Aurora Audio pre's that sound great as long as I'm not stupid. They are designed to work at 0 DbU (-16 FS on the Lynx Aurora 16), which leaves plenty of headroom (and can still be pushed a bit to taste) - and no need for attenuation.

My other 6 pre's (api and adesigns) will usually clip the converter (when recording drums) without attenuation, so I use an atty2'd - these pre's sometimes give interesting results when slammed, so this comes in handy. Still, no stress.

Everyone gets there own headphone mix while tracking - no stress.

Why should I be concerned about my DAW's faders until I begin using them? That would be unnecessary stress.

I am attempting to run a business that is mostly dependent upon musicians paying me. That's pretty audacious - any more courage than that and you might have to call me stupid.

To some extent I've made your argument since I use the atty2'd, but methinks there is some fader snobbery going on here. I'm getting by without a console, since I couldn't afford a good one, and I don't miss it much. I'll need some more EQ's and compressors as $'s permit, but, as latency plummets and technology rockets, I'll miss real faders less and less.

[Jules]

I am not calling you stupid but you sure have decided not to give this technique a try or to understand why a lot of people like work this way.

It actually helps with gain staging and helps session productivity and efficiency.