Pre-Built Mastering Patches

[Sanova]

u don't have to watch the mixer and see the volume jumping and try to catch a quick flash in the red.

true, though if your playing thru the beat to see the light at the bottom, you can just as easily play thru the beat and watch the mixer in real time, that way you can see the tracks animating simultaneously, you can litterally just look at the center of the mixing console and be able to identify which tracks are clipping, and even that would be more work than usual - just saves you from having to mute thru every track and doing a blind trail and error. =]

 

[Cell 2Dee]

true, though if your playing thru the beat to see the light at the bottom, you can just as easily play thru the beat and watch the mixer in real time, that way you can see the tracks animating simultaneously, you can litterally just look at the center of the mixing console and be able to identify which tracks are clipping, and even that would be more work than usual - just saves you from having to mute thru every track and doing a blind trail and error. =]

I guess that's a whole easier way. That's just common sense too, why didn't I think of that?

 

[krysolite]

true, though if your playing thru the beat to see the light at the bottom, you can just as easily play thru the beat and watch the mixer in real time, that way you can see the tracks animating simultaneously, you can litterally just look at the center of the mixing console and be able to identify which tracks are clipping, and even that would be more work than usual - just saves you from having to mute thru every track and doing a blind trail and error. =]

if u have alot of tracks to keep track of it gets harder to do that. i have 3 different mixers. so you watch the bottom left, and at the point where it clips you look at the mixer. lol. combining techniques. there you go.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I see.

Well all I did with the mix at the moment was checked the icon bottom left to see if it was clipping like krysolite said, and each point it was clipping I muted different tracks to see what it was, then just looped it and looped it until I had the volume right. Then I burnt the track to disk and threw it in the stereo and it sounded OK to me, all the levels sounded right.

You could go through al the tracks individually and find no clipping, but when the tracks are combined they clip.
Its just a matter of bringing all the track faders down a bit until there is no clipping at all.
Mix at a lower volume, then volume can be brought up when you add the mastering suite to fine tune the final output.
I normally add an equaliser to every instrument and get each instrument into its sweet frequency, cutting unwanted frequencies to avoid frequency overlap with other instruments. But the more eq's you use the more cpu intensive it gets. With reason its a matter of finding the right balance between quality and performance.

 

[Cell 2Dee]

You could go through al the tracks individually and find no clipping, but when the tracks are combined they clip.
Its just a matter of bringing all the track faders down a bit until there is no clipping at all.
Mix at a lower volume, then volume can be brought up when you add the mastering suite to fine tune the final output.
I normally add an equaliser to every instrument and get each instrument into its sweet frequency, cutting unwanted frequencies to avoid frequency overlap with other instruments. But the more eq's you use the more cpu intensive it gets. With reason its a matter of finding the right balance between quality and performance.

I've never used an equaliser, how would I use it to my benefit?

 

[krysolite]

I've never used an equaliser, how would I use it to my benefit?

some tracks are gona be strong in the same frequency, causing muddiness. or they're gona drown each other out. boost / drop eq in certain freq for each track (if you need) so you don't have alot in the same freq. happens with bass alot for people who don't use eq usually.

i think i've said this before, but try to cover alot of frequency ranges with so the beat are more.. full. dam i don't know how else to explain it. eq's help ALOTT in sound quality. they can be the difference in using a drum sound after you tweak it to sound nice. just use them.

 

[Shonsteez]

Let's not forget Reason is 3-5 DB's too quiet. You can have a track that clips in reason but when you export it (w/o bypassing your processing) and have it in Pro tools or other daws it wont be clipping.

XT's right. Reason's sound engine does have a reduction in gain at the master buss of about 3-5 dB....

So what I would suggest is make your mix sound good without clipping in the red while leaving your master fader at unity (0)...and then once your happy with it, you can raise the entire mix 3-5dB, not on the master fader though, but on all your track faders, you will clip red again a tad but youll still be safe. Just make sure its not excessive.