Broadcast level, compression, loudness...

[TheMixShop]

Maybe I'll get more responces here:

I want to get back to having my dialog group, sfx group, and music group to equal my final mix!
As it is now, I have my groups, I mix all the individual tracks as I go (routed to the group masters)... but I goose up the volume on a master fader to get my "hot" 2 mix level. What a task: to limit with the L1 to -10 but get my volume back without everything sounding smushed!
For example on my dialog group I've been trying to eq, compress and de-ess only there but and not on each channel totaling a zillion plug-ins (comps & eqs). I throw that favorite L1 on there so it doesn't clip (you must lower all individual track levels so you don't get that crackle when words hit the compressor too hard). Then I'll only eq or compress individual tracks that really need more.
1) Cool?

Sound effects don't seem to be a problem for me... the sound designer gives my stereo bounces of amb, monsters, and fx. They get routed to the SFX group which has (you guessed it) an L1 on there to.

Music wise, I just started to try the "Upward compressor" C1. With a pultec eq to bring out some highs, etc...
But back to the problem; IF YOU PUT MY SUBS TOGETHER (Dialog SFX and Music), THEY DON'T EQUAL THE LEVEL OF MY MASTER MIX (without a serious boost).

Now if I don't do the boost on the Master (which I do Fairchild 660 & an L1 set to -10) then my show doesn't come close (level wise) to everything else on the air!

2) Help me out here guys (get me back to basics).
Side note: The bad thing is the Dub house gives us QC reports that tell all of our mixers - "levels are constantly at -10, could distort when dubbing to analog".
Come on guys, I use to be able to do this right back when I mixed using a console!
Summary: Dialog group = Focusrite Red band, L1, Waves De-ess
Sfx group = Focusrite Comp/limiter, Fairchild 660 or sometimes L1
Music group = Pultec EQ, C1 upward
Master = Fairchild 660 & L1 Ultra (-10)

Individual dialog; EQ and 1176 gets added to individual dialog tracks as needed.
Dialog, SFX and Music Masters (not subs) have L1 on them too. Then we feed the 8 tracks from the one 888/24 to the Avid or lately I re-record my final 8 and OMF those to the Avid. The 8 being 2 mix, dialog dry, dialog sweet, st SFX, st Music.

I was just thinking how 10 years ago I was on an 8 track SSL Screen Sound using a large console and several hardware devices. Guess I'm just trying to re-evaluate my "All in Pro Tools" plug-in skills.
No shame... there's always room to learn something and get things right in my opinion.

[Doug Ring]

I'm in Broadcast not Post-pro, so I don't really get some of what you're asking. If you could simplify the question it might help for me.

But I notice you're setting levels to -10. I assume you mean your absolute peaks on your overall mix are therefore at -10dBFS? This would be correct for a broadcast mix in Britain where we would set our reference tone (which is 8dB below peak) to -18dBFS for a mono mix on a digital system. Be sure that you're not confusing the line-up levels for mono with those for stereo, however: you need to reduce levels by 3dB per leg for stereo so that when you combine the legs (which will add 3dBs to the mono signal) the mono signal still peaks at -10dBFS. Maybe you could try setting your limiters to -13 per leg?

I may be shooting in the dark here, especially since many people use different reference levels. Or maybe it doesn't answer your question at all! Hope it's some help.

[emf1138]

Hmmm... I'm a little cloudy (or maybe just really tired) on what yer set up is.. I'm mixing everything with a C24 and an HD3, PT 6.2.3 to LTRT stems and here's the chain I use most of the time....

-Renaissance Comp, Filterbank F2, Focusrite D2 on each DIA channel (in that order)
Usually have a maximum of 8 tracks
-3 submasters (DIA,MSX,FX) each with a Dolby encoder and an L2 (set to -11 for FX & MSX and -16 ceiling/-20 thresh for DIA)
There are times when I'll ride the L2 faders when I need a little more room without going over.

That's pretty much it. Most of the TV shows I do have a broadcast spec. limit of +14VU and this setup gets me in the pocket everytime without losing any fidelity. I can A/B betweeen my stems and a comp (when I print them in box) and there's absolutely no difference.

I know you're trying to use as few plugz as possible, but hey, I figure if I got the horsepower, I'm gonna use it.

Don't know if this helps at all, but it's another perspective.