Pre-mastering levels on the 2 bus

[Armistice]

Generally speaking, what levels are you hitting on the stereo bus before you start applying limiters, compressors, EQs and whatever other magiks you use in the louderising process?

I've not really thought about it much until now, as all my tunes don't generally go too close to 0.0 on the stereo track, so I start doing what I do and everything seems hunky dory.

I have one tune, an earlier one, that's been recorded probably a bit hot, with lot of tracks of various sorts, so by the time you add it all up... I seem to have little mastering headroom.

I'm undecided whether to turn the stereo track down a fair bit via the master fader and then do what I normally do to raise it up again, or just apply a much softer touch with what I normally do. My ears aren't really good enough to know, but I think I'm preferring the former result over the latter. But possibly it makes no difference at all and I'm hearing things.

Any thoughts?

[rayc]

Interesting!
As you know, I don't master my own stuff - I "have it done" for me. The general vibe/instruction/nudges I received form the two mastering engineers I've worked with was just keep it lowish. I, generally, keep things around -10 on the outer measure of the Reaper stereo Buss and that corresponds to -18 on the inner measure. I have no idea why there are tow meters or why/how they differ.
Both MEs were/are happy with that amount of "headroom".
Don't ya love my totally ignorant use of terminology. Where's the style guide and lexicon for the forum?

[JD01]

What are you using on your master buss? Event Horizon?

[jonny deep]

It's all just numbers. You pull the master fader down to halfway, it halves all the numbers (or whatever rule it uses). Then your limiter's make up gain multiplies them back up again. Your plugins would have to specifically treat the same ratios but with higher numbers differently for it to matter. If you need some resolution to work with, you can pull the fader down, but it's the same as using a higher threshold, lower reduction ratio and less make up gain. I think. Maybe.

[vomitHatSteve]

I'm pretty bad at logarithms.

So I just mix close to 0 and hope it works.

[Tadpui]

I always start out shooting for peaks at -6 and RMS at -18, but I always end up going hotter than that as things stack up. If I notice it peaking above about -3, I'll start to rethink my mix and start pulling things back. It's probably not a big deal to exceed 0 by a little at the master bus because I think there is some headroom allowance in there somewhere (not exactly sure how that works though, TBH).

[Farview]

I never really look at the master bus, unless it's clipping. But my un-mastered mixes end up averaging around -18dbfs or so, and peaking around -4dbfs.

I tend to mix very dense music, so my rms is generally pretty high before mastering.

It really doesn't matter where the mix peaks, just set the threshold on the limiter accordingly.

[Armistice]

Thanks all - logically I was telling myself "it shouldn't matter" - nice to know that it doesn't.

JD. Yes. Event Horizon plus GClip in front.

[Tadpui]

This thread prompted me to google for info about how Reaper handles headroom and the master bus. I got sucked into some of the worst mastering-related forum threads ever conceived by humankind. I now know less about the subject than before I searched.

[Armistice]

This thread prompted me to google for info about how Reaper handles headroom and the master bus. I got sucked into some of the worst mastering-related forum threads ever conceived by humankind. I now know less about the subject than before I searched.

LOL - it's a topic I admit to knowing absolutely nothing about and not having the ears and set up to do very well - so I'm not going to do that same Google search as I'm coming from a very low base and might just give the whole thing away...

[Farview]

Theoretically, if you record at proper levels, you really shouldn't have clipping problems at the master bus. At least not until you hit 50 or so tracks. Obviously, that depends on the instrumentation and style.

As long as the master bus doesn't clip, it shouldn't make a difference. You just need to set the threshold accordingly.

Mastering engineers like having the extra headroom because they tend to add level with eq, so they have to turn down the input to keep from clipping. Also, if they use analog equipment, they have to worry about the gain staging.

None of that is an issue if you are simply slapping plugins on the master. Floating point summing handles all that.

[SweetDan]

TLDR: mix bus peaking at or under -6 dB (digital scale in the DAW) for me

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Not speaking from experience ('cause I've never really "released" any of my tunes/recordings), but I watched a video the other day (linked below), and the approach the presenter took made a whole lot of sense. I'm going to try this approach as I'm wrapping up my current 5-song EP project. My plan:

1) mix each song such that it's never peaking above -6dB (digital scale), while not worrying about RMS level, but instead just trying to make the mix sound "good"; I probably won't add a limiter to the master bus, at least not with the intention of pushing levels -- if the level creeps up and the whole thing needs to be quieter, I'll group all the tracks and bring their faders down (simultaneously) as needed to keep from going over that -6dB mark; I do intend, however, to put a compressor on the master bus, but it will also depend on whether or not the song needs it

2) render out the mix to a *.wav

3) start the DIY mastering process with all those *.wav files; bring them into a new, empty session in the DAW, and go from there (so no more "mixing" in the sense of tweaking individual tracks)

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned from watching the video was that any tweaks you make during mastering should be made in the context of the songs around it -- it doesn't make sense to approach it one song at a time, in isolation. Anyway, enough rambling; the video:

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_T-C0-cbyk[/BBvideo]