Hello all,
I’m making one-hour mixes in Ableton Live for my Radioshow. These mixes contains a lot of different tracks (usually 20+) with of course different sound levels etc. Problem is, that the mastering of all these individuals tracks is of course not the same. I have bought the Slate Digital FG-X plugin a while ago, but it seems I can’t get it to do what I want.
Sometimes I download a podcast by Hard Rock Sofa and their mixes are really nice : lots of dynamics, good punchy basskicks and clear highs as well.
Can someone tell me what I should do to “master” my mixes? What’s the best way to get things started? How do I get the “levels” of all the tracks about the same? And how to get nice rounded kickdrums and clear highs?
Would love to hear your suggestions.
Kind regards,
dotcom87
You shouldn’t really have to master a mix. Each of the tracks will already be mastered, if you add and limiting, for example, you will just be making the tracks over-compressed.
You will need to automate the levels of each track as it comes in so it is playing at the same level as the last track, there isn’t really a short-cut to doing this. My advice to to put a Utility on each channel and automate that.
As for “nice rounded kickdrums and clear highs”, just keep your levels out of the red and they will take care of themselves.
To answer the above; radio stations and commercial compilations/mixes often use additional processing to get all the tracks to a similar level. Yes each track has already been mastered but they still vary wildly.
A DJ mix has the added complication of 2 tracks playing at once at certain points, which is bound to give a change in level even if you’re being as careful as you can. Ideally you’d want the individual tracks to be playing right up to 0db, which means some limiting is needed when mixing 2 together else you risk distortion or you have to turn everything else down. You would set the threshold so it’s unnoticeable when a single track is playing, it’s just taming the parts where tunes are overlapping. In some programs like Traktor there’s a limiter already on for this reason.
There’s a guide here on one possible method of working with a DJ set, he basically does volume automation to get it as even as possible throughout, then adds light compressing/limiting to catch any remaining bits. It takes a while but gives a result just like a proper mix CD you’d get in the shops:
I disagree with a lot of what you have put here. Getting the levels right is a part of the mixing process. You get the tracks in time, at the same level and introduce one track to another without a big volume change (say by lowering the bass on one track then swapping the bass).
When you go to a club you don’t hear tracks played at different volumes because the DJ is “mixing”.
Putting a compressor on the master of a mix isn’t going to make all the tracks the same volume - that isn’t what a compressor does.
Traktor has a limiter on the master so that the output doesn’t have nasty digital distortion if you push it over 0db. You shouldn’t go as near to 0db as possible, you should turn the master level down to avoid it.
This is from NI knowledgebase (you need to log in to see it but I have quoted below):
This way you will have 6db of headroom you can mix into before the limiter starts to kick in. This is sufficient for most mixing situations. If a lot of gain is applied when EQing with drastic settings or using extreme effects, more headroom will be needed and the Master Volume should be turned down even further.
Clubs have limiters too. And you wouldn’t notice different levels very much at PA levels of volume because of how our ears work.
Look at your unlimited recording mix in a wav editor, I doubt it’s consistantly the same level unless you’re some kind of super human. Now look at a pro mix CD. More importantly, listen before and after the post processing and see if you like the results or not.
[quote]TheAnt (25/04/2012)
This way you will have 6db of headroom you can mix into before the limiter starts to kick in. This is sufficient for most mixing situations. If a lot of gain is applied when EQing with drastic settings or using extreme effects, more headroom will be needed and the Master Volume should be turned down even further.
That's right, you want to keep the levels below 0db while recording the mix. If your master is set to -6db, then when one track is playing on it's own without any of those effects, it will be at a max of -6db, which is very quiet and lends itself nicely for a boost with mastering if you're going for that polished studio mix result.
Image of the recent Anjunadeep 04 CD to show what I mean:
[url=http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/9839/waveformanjunadeep4.png]http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/9839/waveformanjunadeep4.png[/url]
If anyone can do it live as perfect as this then fair play to them, but common practice is to master it afterwards which you can see and hear.
![http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/9839/waveformanjunadeep4.png[/url]](http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/9839/waveformanjunadeep4.png%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
Yeah, you have misunderstood the quote. I am happy to help, but I am not interested in getting in an argument about this. You obviously feel confident in you knowledge.
I am going to regret this, but I will try again.
Yes, professional CDs are mastered - BUT the mastering proccess DOES NOT make the tracks the same volume. That is not what compressors or limiters do. Making the tracks the same volume is part of the mixing process.
[quote]sqwirral (25/04/2012)[hr]Image of the recent Anjunadeep 04 CD to show what I mean:
If anyone can do it live as perfect as this then fair play to them, but common practice is to master it afterwards which you can see and hear.[/quote]
On our radio station we use a program (cant think of the name of it off the top of my head rite now but ill look at it on saturday and get back to you) but what i dose in a nutshell is read the volume of the first track, locks that volume in so if the next track comes in to high or to low it matches the volume of the previous track, so people tuning in on the radio or computer dont have to keep turning their volumes up and down.
This works out ok for the dj’s playing pop, rock, reggae and whatever as all these tracks come from different compilation cds and downloads so the volumes are all over the place depending where the track came from.
But i gotta agree with Ant here, from a dj who is beat mixing tracks, controlling you’re volumes is basic mixing skills, I may be wrong but it sounds like you have never mixed 2 tracks together outside of a computer.
Do you have a midi controller, just assign 2 knobs/faders to the 2 tracks the songs are cued in and just use you’re ears.
On a side not Traktor will do the same as the program I was talking about at the start automatically.
Yes, you can use a pluggin in Ableton to tell you the RMS of each track to give the the perceived volume, but you will still need to set the levels for each track - but you shouldn’t do this, you should do it by ear.
Traktor has auto gain which tries to do this (although it isn’t as good as a person)
[quote]Mr. Nobody (25/04/2012)[hr]On our radio station we use a program (cant think of the name of it off the top of my head rite now but ill look at it on saturday and get back to you) but what i dose in a nutshell is read the volume of the first track, locks that volume in so if the next track comes in to high or to low it matches the volume of the previous track, so people tuning in on the radio or computer dont have to keep turning their volumes up and down.
This works out ok for the dj’s playing pop, rock, reggae and whatever as all these tracks come from different compilation cds and downloads so the volumes are all over the place depending where the track came from.
But i gotta agree with Ant here, from a dj who is beat mixing tracks, controlling you’re volumes is basic mixing skills, I may be wrong but it sounds like you have never mixed 2 tracks together outside of a computer.
Do you have a midi controller, just assign 2 knobs/faders to the 2 tracks the songs are cued in and just use you’re ears.
On a side not Traktor will do the same as the program I was talking about at the start automatically.[/quote]
[quote]Mr. Nobody (25/04/2012)[hr]I may be wrong but it sounds like you have never mixed 2 tracks together outside of a computer.[/quote]
Been mixing for about 17 years, but ok lol.
[quote]TheAnt (25/04/2012)[hr]Yes, professional CDs are mastered[/quote]
Great! This is why I disagreed with the opinion that you don’t master mixes.
[quote]BUT the mastering proccess DOES NOT make the tracks the same volume. That is not what compressors or limiters do.[/quote]
It makes your mix the same volume throughout. And I think compressors and limiters do reduce dynamic range and even out levels.
Ah, this is handy, I just looked up a video I remembered from Max Graham, showing how he puts together his Cycles Radio show each week. I hoped he’d show the master but he doesn’t. However in the comments is this:
Q: Hey Max, you dont apply any compresson/multiband, eq, limiter at the master???
A: I do, but i don’t master in this one, i do that in 8 with the voiceovers later on.
To the OP:
You have two different ways of solving your problem. You can use my way, which is to fix everything in the mix and leave the mastering out (I maintain that unless you are a talented mastering engineer you will just make your tracks sound worse).
Or you can use the methods sqwirral lay out.
As a demonstration of a mix using the techniques I mention, I have attached one I did last weekend. It isn’t done in Ableton (I use 1210s and a mixer), but the principal is the same.
Is it perfect? No - it was done by a human. Is it good enough? Well, you can be the judge of that.
<EMBED height=81 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=“100%” src=https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F43898890&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700 allowscriptaccess=“always”> Slight Return (Live DJ Set 2012) by Special A[quote]sqwirral (26/04/2012)[hr][quote]Mr. Nobody (25/04/2012)[hr]I may be wrong but it sounds like you have never mixed 2 tracks together outside of a computer.[/quote]
Been mixing for about 17 years, but ok lol.[/quote]
Thanks for the quote but I was replying to the original post.
It would actually be great if Phil did a tutorial regarding this