Mixing head room

[Matthew Seed]

Hi guys when mixing a track with the intention of taking it to a pro to be mastered how important is the overall level. How close to 0DB should I get with the transients, I am trying to leave in some dynamic range so my track could drop down as far as minus 6DB. Is it better to go minus 8DB to minus 2DB than . When taking it to a pro I take it there is no loss of quality when they boost signals back up.

Thanks guys
Matthew

[narcoman]

record at 24bit and peak at MAX -6dB(FS).

[th.v.]

agree

[Matthew Seed]

Hi guys, thanks for the response. Can i just ask why around -6DB for the peaks, what is the use in that large chunk of headroom above -6DB to 0DB. I understand dynamic range and the loudness war etc but if -6DB is the peaks then of course i have dynamic range from -6DB down.......i'm a td confused here, sorry guys.

Matthew

[Dark Fader]

It gives the M.E. some headroom to catch overs when processing. Otherwise he'd have to bring the level down, process and then output.

[Hugh Robjohns]

It also allows for the possibility of brief high level signal transients that standard sample-based meters fail to represent accurately.

These are often referred to as 'intersample peaks' and investigations by numerous manufacturers and academics put the potential under-reading of transient levels at anywhere between 1 and 12dB or so. TC Electronic have several white papers about this topic on their website if you're interested in learning more about it.

You are correct in saying that by leaving 6dB of headroom n your pre-master you are reducing your potential dynamic range. However, in practice the benefits far outweight the disadvantages.

The noise floor of even a modest modern converter will be around -115dBFS, so leaving 6dB of headroom means the system noise floor will be 109dB below the signal peaks. If you can find any real-world recordings that manage anything like that amount of dynamic range I'll be very impressed.

Hugh

[Martin Walker]

Agreed - even without exceeding -6dBFS, the dynamic range of your music is still going to be well within the capabilities of your 24-bit converters.

You’re not compromising your audio, but with -6dB peaks the mastering engineer won’t be compromising it either

Martin

[Matthew Seed]

Thank you Hugh & everyone else that is something i have wondered for a while and just couldn't make sense off.

Much appreciated
Matthew

[Frank Rideau]

Question :

In many types of song/music/mixes you often have a lot of peaks coming from sound like snare, kick or even bass that are the louder peak, so I often find that those are what I try to keep under the wanted headroom. The rest of the mix is finally and easily kept well under the 6db. So why not speak in term of RMS rather than peak and let some of these fast transient peak passed up to 2 or 3 db, like overmixing them a bit so they will be still alive after the mastering/limiting process ?

[Mixedup]

Question :

In many types of song/music/mixes you often have a lot of peaks coming from sound like snare, kick or even bass that are the louder peak, so I often find that those are what I try to keep under the wanted headroom. The rest of the mix is finally and easily kept well under the 6db. So why not speak in term of RMS rather than peak and let some of these fast transient peak passed up to 2 or 3 db, like overmixing them a bit so they will be still alive after the mastering/limiting process ?

Nothing at all wrong with metering via average meters. I often use PSP Vintage Meter or Zplane PPMulator for that. Would be nice if you had that option on your DAW mixer, though.

At the end of the day though, it is the peak level that matters to a digital system: if you clip, it sounds horrible. So it *is* important to make sure stray transients aren't causing problems - or won't cause problems at the D-A stage (Hugh's earlier point).

Thing is, I think you only really need an exception reporting meter for peaks in a DAW - ie a clip light, rather than a fancy light show!

Nothing wrong with monitoring peak *and* average. Or using your ears, for that matter...

[Frank Rideau]

It's also obvious to me that Matthew is maybe confused when he's relating the -6db with the loundness war issue. He's thinking like many people that -6db is "less loud" than 0db while at the mixing stage it's not yet a matter of being loud, it's a matter of being well balanced. If you wan't that -6db to sound loud, just turn up the volume on your system or configure your monitoring environment accordingly.