A mastering question

[bonzerboy]

I have a mix and made it a stereo track. the leveles are kind of low. The stereo track says it is 0 with the fader and track but if i put the gain in audio suite and analize it is about -15 db. I am in pro tools 10 would it be best to grab the clip gain and make it louder then master it or try to make it louder only during the mastering process? Iguess my question is how loud should a final stereo mix be when going to maser?

[dave911]

Not sure what you mean by the "track says it is zero" do you mean the master fader meters?.

Anyway you will need to leave some headroom to master because some processes (EQ, exciters, compression, etc. ) may increase the level.

Most of the time mastering (often unfortunately) involves limiting.

The only plugin on the master fader should be the final limiter/dither.

[albee1952]

Pretty sure mastering engineers want the mix to peak around -6. You can always run the bounce again and push the master fader up a bit You didn't mention the session parameters, so be aware that 24 bit is preferred for the extra headroom, regardless of sample rate. If the project is going to a mastering engineer, bounce at the session settings and let the ME do any SRC or bit depth change at his end. BTW, Bob Katz' book on The Art and Science of Mastering is a great read, even if you never plan on mastering

[bonzerboy]

yes it is in 24 bit and what I meant by lower level and o is the track fader is at 0 but if you put gain from audio suite and analize it it is really -15 db, the wave is kind of small so I figure before i do anything I would not use the gain in audio suite but grab the gain clip control and raise it

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by bonzerboy

yes it is in 24 bit and what I meant by lower level and o is the track fader is at 0 but if you put gain from audio suite and analize it it is really -15 db, the wave is kind of small so I figure before i do anything I would not use the gain in audio suite but grab the gain clip control and raise it

That will certainly work, but don't push the level all the way

[dave911]

Would be best if the mix ended up around -6db as albee1952 said, but if you don't want to remix to that level it probably won't make a difference.

Audiosuite processing has a lot of differnt options including using dither on the rendered files.

Can't recall if rendered clip gain uses dither but unrendered clip gain and using the faders are just scaling functions so it doesn't matter which you use.

[bonzerboy]

Where i am having some confusion as well is take a wav and say it is at 0 db or less. Another wave can be 2 or 3 x bigger and still be at 0 db? I dont understand that.

[SlimRey13]

This may not be your problem but have you checked you post or pre fader metering?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEYlEt-dCQ

Hope this helps.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by bonzerboy

Where i am having some confusion as well is take a wav and say it is at 0 db or less. Another wave can be 2 or 3 x bigger and still be at 0 db? I dont understand that.

Are you comparing your mix to a commercially released song? Those will have brick-wall limiting, which makes the wave really fat(big), but still not exceeding -0. That limiting, if overdone(like it often is) removes the dynamics of the song. You have 2 things to consider, the PEAK level and the AVERAGE level. Mastering can make the average much higher without going over on peaks.

[groundcontrol]

I agree with Stewart.

It is a bit low but it won't affect quality. It's much better than having it too high.

If you don't have any inserts on your master track, you could push the master fader up to +6 dB and bounce the track again. It should now peak at -9 dBfs.