| How Much Mixing Headroom For CD Mastering Should I Leave? | | Print | |
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There are two factors to consider when exporting your final mix for mastering. 1. Peak level - The absolute highest level the output signal reaches. 2. Dynamic range - The range between the highest level and the lowest level of the output signal. PEAK LEVEL Most of the music we master peaks a -3db to -4db. This is perfect. We also get a lot of music that peaks at -5db to -6db. This works fine too. Never go over 0db on the master fader, AND never go over 0db on any of your individual instrument or vocal tracks. We receive songs that are under 0db on the peak level meter, but the vocals are distorted because the individual vocal tracks were mixed at +3db (over 0db). Nothing should ever go over 0db on any channel of the entire mix. DYNAMIC RANGE What's most important when getting your mix ready for mastering is leaving some dynamic range. When looking at the master output meter, a normal mix we get in might peak at -4db when the snare or kick hits, then drop to -7db or -8db for the rest of the song. You have roughly 3db to 4db of dynamic range in this example. If you have 5db or 6db, that's normal too. If there's a big kick drum, even 8db dynamic range is common. When you look at the .wav file this creates, it has nice peaks and valleys. But sometimes a client compresses and normalizes the final mix and we get in a song that peaks at -0db and drops to -1db (or less), having only 1db of dynamic range. Basically, the main output level meter never moves! Since the transients of the instruments and vocals have all been cut off, there's nothing left for the mastering studio to work with. The .wav file will look like a solid black line. No peaks or valleys, just a black line. HERE'S WHY THIS IS A PROBLEM When a client compresses and limits their songs before mastering, leaving 1DB of dynamic range, if it was all done correctly, that would be one less step in the mastering process we'd have to do. But this is very rarely the case. It's usually just a hack job. The bass and low end is loud but muffled, and the high end is much sharper than it should be. Then the meters are pushed to the limit and the top is cutoff (limited). So now we can't phase correct the bass for clarity and give it the "correct" punch, and if we try to reduce the high end on an already compressed/limited song, it just compresses it more. Forget about adding that clarity and sparkle. We can't add anything. A lot of people do this because they think in the mixing process they have to get that "radio" quality PUNCH in their bass (if it's a hip hop song) and that super sharp clarity. This is all done during the mastering process. Listen to a few of our "before" samples. Notice how all of the before samples have NO bass punch and are slightly muffled. These songs are like raw clay. We can mold them into great final masters. But if you start forming the clay yourself and let it get hard, you're going to pretty much be stuck with whatever you messed up. We can only work with whatever you didn't touch. Related Articles
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