Distorted Mixes

[Rhodesholar]

I got a question for any gurus out there that are willing to help.

I am on Pro Tools 11.3.1. I use Slate Digital plugins.

I am not an expert by any stretch but I can get around.

The issue.

When I am doing a mix especially with the guy I am working with who has a very large dynamic range the more instruments added to the mix it's like the mix begins to get overloaded or something and doesn't stay nice and smooth and clear. It almost starts to distort and doesn't keep it's clarity.

Ok first off I am not recording to hot. I have plenty of headroom on all tracks and nothing anywhere is clipping or even close. I use subtractive eq-ing and am not using heavy compression or anything. I don't know where I am going wrong here. This is on the main mix. No limiters, no mastering plugins just the raw mix tracks. The master fader reads no higher then -10. I just don't get it. I am hitting something to hard but I have no idea what it could be.

I am sure more info will be needed but I wanted to keep this short for anyone who reads it and will provide any info requested.

Thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction.

[Darryl Ramm]

Much more information needed.

First question is what SPL are you monitoring at? On what exact playback equipments (amps, monitors, etc.)? In a well treated room? What type of music? etc.

Have you tested with headphones.... what ones? what exactly is driving them?

What the master fader dbFS reads at does not really help anybody here understand possible analog issues in your monitoring chain.

Can you reproduce issues without using plugins or using very few plugins? just playing with master fader output levels? If it's not a simple issue, like playback level then you'll need to play with and tell us much more what you are doing with plugins etc. and what level you are actually tracking at. Easy to get plugin chains set up so you are hitting plugins too hot and getting bad effects from that. Remember that plugins are pre-fader so you can't pull down the level on a track to lower inputs to the plugins on that track.

Saying things like "nothing clipping or anywhere close" does not tell us much useful information, everybody has wildly different ideas what that means, inclusing lots of misinformation worrying about silly red vs. amber etc. Telling us what dbFS levels you have on input and at each plugin is much more useful.

[YYR123]

This happens from time to time

I am assuming that the term Gain Staging means something to you?

I also would start with calibrating your monitor system. It doesn’t have to be a Mastering Studio Calibration but you need to be in the ball park so something simple can work wonders.

Your partner needs to do this too...
I am sure there are people who can explain it a million times better on YouTube

Now all your tracks should be mixed again....what do they sound like?

[The Weed]

As stated above, if you have plug-ins on a track and lower that track's Volume, the output of a track will be lower than the signal going into the plugins as they are pre-fader. Best practice is to buss the track to an Aux track and put your plug-ins there so any volume changes on the track will be before the plug-ins. You also need to gain-stage the signal going through the plug-ins as it may clip in the plug-in chain, but not show at the output.

Alternatively, you can put a Trim plug-in in the first insert on the track and automate that, which will change the signal going into the plug-ins - you still need to gain-stage them - or use Clip Gain, which is real-time and the signal change will be before the plug-ins - and again, you still need to gain-stage the plug-ins.

Personally I prefer to buss to Aux tracks, use Clip gain for individual clips and Volume for balancing a mix, either per track or in Groups. As always, YMMV.

[Southsidemusic]

All this talk about gain stage here and gain stage there ...

We make 100% sure that the audio recorded into out sessions are the best they can ever be so we don't need a slew of plugins compromising the actual audio, the more plugins you need to put on the tracks the more you can kill all the transients and overall sound.

We use VERY expensive gear yes but it pays off extremely well in the end. Except for a few effects plugins on one or two aux tracks we usually only have one eq and one compressor from UA like Pultec and LA2-A and "maybe" a tape sat somewhere on drums and vocals but thats it.

If we done our job from the first take of accoustic instruments we only have a maximum of 2 plugs on each track or less if possible.

Great mucs into great preamps and thru our SSL 4056 G and then into great interfaces. We use Apollo X8P now on our new Macbook Pro 2018 laptop as our two trashcans aren't working with UA Apollo X yet due to some driver issue at UA but as we have a few Apollo 8 and 16 interfaces black face mk2 we use those.

This is just how we do it as we are blessed to be able to buy anything we need but investing in a few GREAT pieces from the start like a mic, preamp and interface you will save quite a lot of time and frustration not having to go thru these issues with bad signal chains.

A well treated room is a no brainer and good monitoring along with great headphones if you work in an apt or at home is also very important.

Counting up how much many of my friends in the business have spent on plugins they never use they could have got quite a few nice outboard gear and have had money left for a few awesome goto plugins and VI.

[YYR123]

This is all true about getting it right at the source....I agree

I would ask what levels the OP is recording his takes at?

Intersample peaks is a real thing.

Especially if you use a VI.....


Also cal your monitor control room


https://youtu.be/idGvZnSnPhs

[YYR123]

The first one is good enough.

I couldn’t watch this one

[Rhodesholar]

Sorry for the late reply I have been away and thank you to those have responded.

Ok where to start. Like I said I am not an expert and maybe I am doing something stupid here. That is why I am asking.

First off pardon me for being ignorant but the SPL I monitor at? It's comfortable loud. If I ventured a guess I would say around maybe 70-85 sometimes more sometimes less? I check my mixes at varying volumes if that is what is being asked.

My playback equipment is a pair of Tannoy active monitors and a delta 1010 interface. Yes I know hardly pro but I am a musician, not a sound engineer and again why I am asking here.

Ok first when I say non of my tracks are clipping. None of my tracks go above -15dbfs to maybe on peaks -10. I checked the mix. The master fader when I played the track was coming in at -10 on the mix. I have AUX tracks for the snare, vocal and guitar effects. I checked my plugins on the AUX tracks and everything is is similar to the levels on my tracks. I am not slamming any plugins if that is what is being asked. Look I may be ignorant but I am not stupid. I don't dime everything and wonder why it sounds bad.

This is why when I said nothing is clipping or hot that is what I meant. That should be plenty of headroom. One thing to mention is that the particular track I am working does have a very large dynamic range from the guitars to the vocals. I am using compressors on the vocals and guitars to try to get them under control but I looked at them and though there is substantial compression I don't think it is being over done. On the loudest parts of the tune the Attenuation comes in at maybe -4.5 on the meter. Input is coming in at -10 and this across all the compressors I am using. I am using Avid pro compressor if anyone is wondering.

As was mentioned here I have some effects/plugins on AUXs mostly reverbs and delays and some on the tracks as inserts. On the tracks mostly just EQs there and again when checked they are not being slammed. Everything comes in with plenty of headroom nothing getting slammed.

Here's the deal. When the tune really starts cranking and where everything would get loud it just doesn't sound as smooth and clear as the rest of tune when it is quieter.

Again I am not an audio engineer. I am an accomplished guitar player just trying to get his mixes to sound as best as he capable.

So if I am doing something here that is causing someone to face palm forgive me. lol

[Darryl Ramm]

You are repeating what you've largely already said and are clearly not reading the previous replies carefully.

It's not what any track meter tells you that you need to be worrying about here. As already pointed out you need to be worrying about the level going into every plugin (including into every plugin in every chain of plugins on every track). And the track meter does *not* tell you that, so it's disconcerting that you again want to state what the meters are showing after we've wasted our time to explain that to you.

And just to confuse you when we are asking about meter levels we are only meaning for the *recording* level, You need to do that with the track meter in prefader mode... which you should be using when tracking? are you? The Pro Tools Reference Guide explains pre/post fader modes. And start with tracking with no plugins on your input tracks, that will help avoid any confusion about what is going on with signal routing and levels.

And nothing may be "clipping" per-se, it's all a question of how hard are you driving plugin inputs that are simulating analog device and what they are doing at the level you are driving them at.

Please go and get a good book on DAWs/audio engineering and have a very good read over the Pro Tools Reference Guide and understand the signal flow in Pro Tools and where plugins are in the flow vs. the track metering and fader. And pick apart carefully what folk above are suggesting to you with using sends to drive plugins, go and actually play with that on a test session (try what The Weed suggested above with sends) , messing around with stuff to see what happens. if you have to work on this now copy your session, get all the plugins removed or disabled and start putting them in one at a time, worrying about the levels gong into each plugin instance (again that's not the meter). And I'm . goign to guess you have chains of several plugn . on many tracks here and those chained plugins are what are tripping you up. Try following Chris' advice and try to just use less. It might sound better, even without plugin gain staging issues I think we are all guessing you have created here.

And please go and watch the video on how to calibrate your monitors/room. Your question there tells me you did not look at the video links provided. I'm not sure guessing what SPL you are playing back at is very useful. Get a system at least partially calibrated.

And the reason for asking what exact monitoring hardware you have is to understand if they are capable or reproducing a decent SPL without too much distortion. You have only told us the brand name... not useful at all.

I going to suggest if you want to be more of an audio engineer you need to get more focused here, pay attention to what people are saying, work to understand the technical stuff, be more precise with stuff, both in answers here and your own thinking/working though things.

[albee1952]

I will relate my own journey so you can maybe learn something new, or maybe even just think in a different way. I hit the distorted mix in 3 ways over the years and this is what happened, and what solved it for me.


#1-(the early years). Things seemed to be okay except when I played mixes back loud. That's when I heard a slight crunchiness. At the time, I was not mastering and never used a Master Track in my sessions(and all audio tracks were well below clipping). For whatever reason, I added a Master Track and found it was hitting the red a lot(so now I always have a Master track to catch that). It turns out that 30-40 tracks that are all well in the green, would combine to push the mix bus well into the red(if you work in 32 bit, this may not be an issue, but I am still working in 24 bit). The solution was to lower the level of all audio and instrument tracks. Problem #1 solved.


#2-was a bit of a surprise. As it turned out, I was getting distortion at the mic! A loud singer! I had great mics and great preamps, and nothing was showing red anywhere, but I could still hear distortion. This time the solution was as simple as switching on the 10db pad on the mic. Problem #2 solved.


#3-fast forward to last year and I happened on a tutorial video somewhere that mentioned inserting the Trim plugin(set to -10) on all audio/instrument tracks to lower the final level for mixes going to a mastering house. Since I am stuck doing more mastering these days(budget restraints), I thought I'd give that a try. Not sure if it was a shock or not, but I have to say, it did wonders for the quality of the final mixes. Now, my template sessions have Trim in the last insert on all audio and instrument tracks, but in bypass. During tracking, I don't worry about the master, and keep individual tracks in the safe zone(just into the yellow). Once I reach mix time, I enable the Trim plugins in one shot(modifier key) and the level drops, but without any major upset of the mix balance(effects are fed post-fader). Problem #3 solved(now I won't accept any red on the master at all).


Now I know about lowering the master fader, and will do that if I only need a slight adjustment. But it always made me suspicious and never felt good about it, hence the -10 Trim plugin method



Lastly, since I have 3 screens on my rig, I keep Fab-Filter Pro-Q2(on the master track) open all the time on the 3rd screen. The metering on this plugin(especially since you can make it big on the screen) tends to show red a bit sooner than the Master track metering. Not sure if any of this will help you, but it's made a huge difference in my work.