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Thread [Getting started] It's Your Gain!

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Nantho Valentine

Author

First post

1 Posted on 11/13/2014 at 13:18:41

In this installment, we will examine the first practical task of your mix, which also happens to be the last purely technical one. Once you've done it, you will finally be able to confront your vision of the song with its "reality" in order to establish a mixing strategy.

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2 Posted on 11/14/2014 at 07:59:54

The other parts of this series have been too abstract for me relative to the Mastering series, but this article is much better, thanks!

Mike Levine

Author

3 Posted on 11/15/2014 at 11:24:13

Glad you liked it. I haven't seen the next installments yet, but my assumption is that like this most recent one, they'll be focused more on the practical and less on the theoretical than were some of the early articles in the series.

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4 Posted on 07/30/2015 at 14:36:11

Hi Mike,

Quote
" First of all, make sure that (all the tracks) are at unity gain, which means, (all faders) ought to be set to zero."
Unquote

Does (all faders) include the Master fader? ( this would be a different result )

Cheers
Bryan

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5 Posted on 07/30/2015 at 14:39:46

Quote from Congadude:

Hi Mike,

Quote
" First of all, make sure that (all the tracks) are at unity gain, which means, (all faders) ought to be set to zero."
Unquote

Does (all faders) include the Master fader? ( this would be a different result ) Master currently -12db.

Cheers
Bryan

Mike Levine

Author

6 Posted on 08/01/2015 at 05:40:31

Quote:

Does (all faders) include the Master fader? ( this would be a different result ) Master currently -12db.

Hi Bryan,
Yes, the master should be at 0.

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7 Posted on 08/01/2015 at 06:04:24

Thanks Mike, will sort that tomorrow, even as it was the result was cleaner so looking forward to this ..
Cheers
Bryan (kiwi) :D:

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8 Posted on 05/11/2016 at 13:45:34

Hi Mike,

Re Gain-stage

I have a PC Laptop Win 7 running Reaper, and work almost exclusively within the midi format.
My plan is to create the perfect starting template within Reaper covering the dedicated instrument tracks.
I am following the short tutorial "It's Your Gain" in your series of articles.

All tracks at 0bd, + or - gain to -12db max

This is an individual drum per track mix using "Superior drummer". The level of -12db was obtained with the instrument at max velocity of 127, but the result following that did not have enough level when trying a mix.

Here is the question
Should the test velocity be lower?
The software "SD" master output is about 2:00pm which should be more than enough.
Using the same process with piano achieves a similar result, so clearly I am missing something.

Look forward to your comment
Cheers
Bryan

Mike Levine

Author

9 Posted on 05/12/2016 at 07:25:38

Hi Bryan,

Quote:

This is an individual drum per track mix using "Superior drummer". The level of -12db was obtained with the instrument at max velocity of 127, but the result following that did not have enough level when trying a mix.

I would suggest turning up the SD master to start with. Since you're not getting enough level from the instrument, and it has some headroom (which it does since you said the master is at 2 o'clock), then by all means turn it up higher. You should be able to get plenty of gain out of SD. As for the "test velocity," I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I will say that you do want SD to be able to produce notes using its full dynamic range, so I see no reason to limit it to below 127 (unless you're trying to achieve a compression effect using velocity).

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