Need Some Advice for Mixing to Video

[element35]

Hey all,

New to the forums here and I have a few questions about mixing for video projects. I'm an assistant editor for a video production company and since I have a small LE rig they have me doing the sweetening and mixing for our projects.

I went to school for audio, but my school focused a lot more on music production as opposed to post.

When I'm handed stems (no OMF's since I don't have translator) I basically just have to sweeten interviews, throw some effects in and level everything. I have a few problems I run into:

First, I'm not sure what to calibrate my meter to in Pro Tools so I can keep my levels safe for Final Cut when we spit out our finals to digibeta or hdcam. I keep my eyes on the master fader and it never clips, but when I use the metering plug in, I'm not too sure what to set it to.

Second, my mixes come out sounding so quiet. Our online editor has told me to I'm safe at around -12dB in FCP for the quality control reviews. I've mixed a few webisodes and when I watch them up against the other videos on this site, the other ones sound a lot louder.

How can I get the best punch in my mixes and still stay in that "safe" area for FCP output? I would imagine using a limiter and some compressors is a good idea, but I'm also keeping in mind that once our tapes arrive at authoring houses there might be more compression and whatnot happening for different mediums (web, dvd, blu ray, etc).

What advice can anyone provide me with so I can improve my work?

Thanks a lot in advance,

Mike

[Craig F]

start with the room cal sticky in this forum
then we can help with more developed and pointed questions