Gain Structure

[studiojb]

This question has caused me grief for a while. I have mixed my drums to taste, but theyre a bit to loud. I have five drum tracks grouped and going to a drum buss aux input (except the overhead which is going straight out). All the subs and the drum buss are at 0 with the leveling having been done with the plug-ins.

I want to drop the drums say 3 to 6db.

1) If I pull down the drum bus to -3 while the subs are at 0 would that mess up the gain structure.
2) If I pull down the grouped subs, how much would I need to pull them down to eqaual a 3db volume reduction?

Thanks in advance.

[M.Brane]

All the subs and the drum buss are at 0 with the leveling having been done with the plug-ins.

Ouch.

Are you using pre-fader metering? If not I would highly recommend it. Unless you are in the habit of running faders above 0 (which is a bad habit IMHO) it's a much better way to work.

If nothing is clipping before the aux turning down it's fader will be fine. That's a big if if your metering is set to post.

Just curious, but why would you not route the overs to the drum bus? They are after all part of the kit.

[studiojb]

Thanks for the reply. I've been learning from a guy whos great, but I sometimes misunderstand things. Basically I squash the heck out of everything with compression and I believe the cymbols get a little breathy, so we rout them out. It definitly sounds better than what I used to do.

As far as the leveling with plug ins, they're all digirack plugins with in and out levels that I don't let go into the red, so aren't I ok?

I might try the prefader monitoring though, but I still just can't quite grasp the concept of that and the gain structure.

[andrewSF]

Using pre-fader metering just means the meter shows the level of the signal before it hits the fader. Say, for example, you were adding a bunch of gain with an EQ or a compressor and it was hitting red (going over 0) but your fader was down 6db. If pre-fader metering is off the track meter might not be hitting red and you might not realize you were getting so hot. If your faders are set to zero, you are seeing the same level that you'd see with pre-fader metering on.

If you have checked the plug-ins on your tracks and they're not getting overs, then, yes, you're fine.

[bobwitte]

Be careful doing this when mixing:

Basically I squash the heck out of everything with compression

I seldom squash (to me that sounds like a lot of compression) when mixing. I may have "some" compression on a few tracks to keep levels in line. After bouncing stereo (still 24 bit) with a good sounding mix, then I will add compression/limiting to the stereo file bringing the overall average volume as needed (again, only as "little" as needed) for the final stereo file.

Your loud drums may be because they are overly squashed and do not have the dynamics of the rest of the mix.

[M.Brane]

Yes a little compression at each stage will likely net you better results than squashing everything to death in mix.

I like to run pre-fader metering because it allows me to see exactly what's going on headroom-wise on each channel, and since I use the faders to adjust the mix the level after the fader is irrelevant since I never run them above 0.

Beware of running stuff right up to 0dbFS in mix though. PT metering is not oversampled, and you can have a signal that shows no clipping yet causes the converters to try to reconstruct an illegal signal. Always leave yourself some bit headroom, and leave the final overall loudness for the mastering stage.

If you want things louder overall in mix turn your monitors up or better yet calibrate them to a standard working level.

[andrewSF]

If you want things louder overall in mix turn your monitors up

Words to live by! And yet so often overlooked...