Awesome to hear! Thanks so much for tuning in. -Justin

A wise choice James, congratulations on your subscription.

Awesome to hear Darion! So glad to be of help. The free videos are good but I think the courses are even better :-) Hope you enjoy them! -Justin

Awesome to hear! Glad to have you tuning in. Very best, Justin

That totally works! Doesn't have to be complicated. If you shoot for your bass to hit 0 average on a VU you are likely hitting around -18 dBFS average on your digital peak meters. If you just do the bass to a meter and then adjust gains even by ear around that, you could be in a pretty good place. Kick can also work for this. Thanks for the good comment. -Justin

@@SonicScoop And if you execute a balanced static mix in this context, you will be quick and easy in a very good shape! Great piece of advice for the millennial engineers!!!

Thanks! I've touched on this in other episodes, but could do one just on this idea potentially yes!

Great point Collins! Shooting for -18dBFS AVERAGE level is great for sustained signals, but for bright transient percussive tracks (especially high percussion), that could be pretty loud, and you may want those signals to be a bit quieter. There, -18 PEAK could be more sensible. I kind of started to elude to that in the episode but could have hammered that distinction to make it even more clear. Thanks for the comment! Great addition. -Justin

@@SonicScoop Thanks Justin! And tbh with ourselves, this is all subject to taste. -18 avg. level happens to be what I consider "the most frontward part of my mix & production balance" but everything else can simply be lower than that and be fine balance-wise. It's just nice to have a measurement that some parts of the mix are "tapping" the -18 dbfs at minimum or in other words, tapping the front of the mix. I'm thinking about picking up one of your courses btw. I've really liked hearing your approach over the years.

Glad to hear Collins! I think you'll enjoy them. In the unlikely you don't, just ask for your money back, and I'll never even know about it :-) Thanks again for weighing in. -Justin

Yeah -12 is what I use so watching this was a bit strange lol. When he said max -14 I was like damn but each to their own

Can I get template

Hardly run-of-the-mill, as things go. Love her approach and the sounds she comes up with, with the rules discarded, or writing her own. Should read it, thanks.

I always aim for -14 ROFL 🤣

@@jeremybarnes7873 i do recommend it! there's so much stuff i never heard on youtube tutorials // gearspace chats etc. Really inspiring for creative engineering

Great advice. So a utility on every track to gain stage each track to eg -10db. What about the output faders on each track. Do you keep them at 0 or do you also put them to -10db ? What about the fader on the master track ? Do you keep that set to 0db or also to -10db ?

Not a pro but been at it a minute and I would say it is a good rule of thumb any time your running into any board wether recording or live. Having your average or RMS at -18 will give your peaks plenty dynamic range without clipping. If you don’t have your average at at least -18 it will usually wash out in the mix. Once you do this, if you have any peaks poking out, wether it be clipping or just poking out the mix, that’s when you apply peak reduction, be it a limiter, compressor or clipper. If you get these level for each track in this range it will all fall into place and the song will start to breathe. Don’t over compress or limit, that will only steal that breath. This is when your eq skills will make or break you. If at the start you apply these simple techniques of -18 RMS, I promise you will hear and feel the difference. Good luck and one more thing. Mixing is actually the easy part. Recording is the real challenge, it’s not as glamorous or fun, but capturing a performance at the right level, paying close attention to mic selection, mic placement and the sound of your environment is a thousand times more important than what compressor you’re going to use once you get to the mix. A lot of times when a track is recorded properly, very little processing is needed. Hope this helps and good luck! Don’t give up, it takes time and listen listen listen, “use your ears” will make more sense down the road

Rad Kenneth, give it a shot and let me know how it works out. Depending on genre and how you mix, a somewhat higher or lower target could end up making sense for you after some experimentation. But this is a great first starting place to try, and could end up being the place for you. Let us know what you find! -Justin

Thanks for the great comment Carlos. That's a totally fair way to go. If you are working with dynamic material, especially with physical instruments, and really want to avoid limiting and bus processing entirely in the mixing stage, an even more conservative approach like this is totally valid. Thanks for weighing in, -Justin

@@SonicScoop you’re right my man! I try to avoid bus limiting at all costs. I wish your podcast had a spanish version for my students.

Apologies, no plans for Spanish at the moment, but maybe someday if we get enough requests! Thanks letting us know.

There can only be two reasons for this: 1. Louder just sounds better! That’s it. Because of the Fletcher, Munson curve, listening louder also makes us hear more lows and highs. 2. When it’s mixed hotter you are hearing any limiters or saturators or other processors on the master bus hitting it harder. Sometimes, more limiting or saturation or other processing will sound better too. Hope that helps! -Justin

@@SonicScoop thank you for replying back, really apreciate it.

Totally agreed!

Never really much of an issue, but the latest craze as of late it seems. Maybe you can help though. What is the minimum rx product that supports this function?

@@NeilZ2k15 voxengo pha-979

@@NeilZ2k15 It's been done for a long time, and can make a big difference to end results, especially for itb mixes which are less forgiving of clipping plugins. It's just not spoken about enough. Minimum rx product that supports it? rx elements?

@@1337murk does it really? I'd buy it just for that function if you're right.

Dont you do this to the two track mix before starting mastering? How would you go about doing it to individual tracks?

Hi Michael, a couple of the biggest tricks here will be: 1 managing low end. It’s hard to get things clean and loud if the lows are excessive and 2. Applying more limiting. Most records that are as hot as -10 or louder are going to have a bunch of limiting applied. This might not be all at the stereo bus level either. Your individual subgroups and tracks may want compression and/or limiting. Records that are -10 to -5 LUFS are going to have substantial dynamic range control going on. More than they’re “supposed to”. Hope that helps! -Justin

@@SonicScoop Hi Justin, thanks a lot for your reply. That was very kind of you.

Thanks for the comment and the subscribe! -Justin

Hi Garrett-how hot you track should have little to no bearing on how lifeless/dark/bright/vibrant a sound will be all by itself. Whether you record at -20 or -2 peak level shouldn’t have much of an effect on that at all, assuming the only difference is your preamp gain. There may be a very slight difference in the sound of a piece of vintage analog gear at those two levels, but not enough for it to go from being “lifeless” to “alive”. The goal with tracking at -18 average level is so that transient peaks don’t risk going much higher than -12 to -6, keeping you away from clipping converters. You can feel free to track harder than this as long as you aren’t clipping converters significantly on the way in. But that’s not enough to make a lifeless sound stop feeling lifeless. My general recommendation is to track things so that each new instrument added sounds like it is part of a finished mix from the moment you record, without having to adjust anything significantly later. That’s the ideal. This requires good sound selection, and as you get more confident, potentially compression and EQ on the way in. The ultimate goal of recording with a DI and 2 mics on an amp should be to pick and choose and blend between them to get the perfect bass sound on the way in, with no need to juggle between them later. That said, if you are just starting out, or recording with the goal of giving someone else more options to mix with later on because you don’t trust yourself, you might ignore this advice for now and just record all three separately rather than trying to craft an ideal sound right now. But the ideal is to craft your ideal sound right now. You are unlikely to get that by having equal level of bass DI and three different amp mics all mixed together. You are much more likely to get that by using just one or two of those sources. The most common approach on 80-90% of your favorite records is going to be DI, or DI complemented by a small portion of just one mic. (Be aware that the phase relationship between these two sources can significantly affect the tone.) The other 10-20% of your favorite bass sounds may be dominated by one mic instead. This could be by itself, or complimented by DI, or a second mic in rarer cases. Or it could be a blend between effected and unaffected DIs or something. You definitely do not need two DIs and three mics going in to get a great bass sound, and in my experience this approach is more likely to hurt than to help. If you want a vibrant, finished sound going in, then it’s your responsibility to create one. Not to record everything possible and just hope for the best :-) Don’t worry. We all go through that stage! I hope this is helpful. Keep on tracking, Justin PS: multimic setups are more common on electric guitar, but once again are not necessary. So many of your favorite guitar sound recorded with a single mic. When you do record with multiple mics on guitar, the ideal is to pick between them or get a good blend of them to get the perfect sound going in. Not to just record them all the same level, cross your fingers and hope for the best. Most of us learn that the hard way! So you are not alone :-)

@@SonicScoop Hey Justin, I really appreciate the detail of your response here. I will most likely just end up utilizing 1 DI and 2 mics, but wanted to capture multiple end points for experimentation. I'd rather have the data to work with than not. Thanks

That can work too, yes. But it's made more awkward if you have any fader automation going already. And you'll potentially still be driving some types of inserted plugins harder than is optimal or convenient for workflow. In extreme cases you may even still clip the inputs plugins on buses until you make further adjustments. And if you're using motorized faders or a fader GUI, the control becomes a little less fine if the faders are tucked far down. But it can work, absolutely! I've done it many, many times. But I'd argue that the workflow benefits of doing this with clip gain, a gain plugin or trim plugin make those approaches superior and no more time consuming. Hope that helps, Justin

@@SonicScoop great, yeah that makes sense. Thx!

It was FUN to say. And even more fun when you say it wrong :-) -Justin

Thank you for tuning in Sharon! And for the kind words and your story :-) -Justin

The -14 target is generally a recommendation for delivering a very dynamic final master, not a a recording target, or even a mix target necessarily. However, in practice, the vast majority of commercial masters are much louder than -14 with anywhere from -13 to -5 LUFS being more common, depending on genre. Here's an episode with more detail on loudness targets for mastering: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rdqfdZmgz8Xcgqs.html Hope that helps! -Justin

@@SonicScoop Thank you for the clarification Justin.

The secret is that you let the limiter do some limiting :-) The other secret is that commercial releases have more dynamic range control on them at other stages than you might expect. There may be other stages of dynamic range in the mix even before mastering, as well as additional stages of dynamic range control in the master, such as saturation, soft clipping, fast attack compressors, de-essers and multiband processors and so on. The mixes that go loud the best are mixes that are hot at the mixing stage. This can be achieved by using sample augmentation, bus processing, individual track processing and the like so that whatever your average level is, your peaks are not 18 dB hotter than your average signal by the time you're done with the mix! Then, the mastering engineer doesn't have to do 7 or 8 dB of dynamic range control on the loudest transient peaks control to get you to -10 or -11 LUFs. But yes, to get final masters that loud, that dynamic range control has to occur SOMEWHERE. This can occur in the form of using sampled and electronic instruments as primary or supporting elements, it could mean compressing and limiting live played instruments more than you think you "should", and it could mean several layers of dynamics processing (individual instrument, sub group, mix bus, and mastering) to get there. The dirty secret is that vocals on most major commercial releases are generally compressed by at LEAST 10-20 dB cumulative... and that's BEFORE mastering! Mixing to average at -18 is a great place to START. But as you gain confidence with dynamics processing you don't have to stay there. And even if you keep your average level there, you don't have to settle for transient peaks that are 18 dB hotter than your average level. That would be practically unheard of in a final commercial release in any popular genre. I hope that helps! -Justin

-18 RMS is the often recommended target. Not -18 peak. A -18RMS target might get you peaks of -6, while a -18 peak target might get you an RMS of -30!

@@SonicScoop Thanks for clearing this up, its been a hassle for a while this

​@@SonicScoop Strange, Im using an averaeg EDM kick - calibrating my Waves VU meter to -18 and the Lindell SBC to -18dbFS (from -14 default) with it and both are smashing the VU meters +3 VU with a edm kick drum that peaks at about -8 db .. so please help me put this matter to sleep what do I do?

RMS!

@@SonicScoop thanks :)

Like, if my sound doesn't clip, is it ok to put a gain plugin and drop it to - 18dB, even if it has been recorded at -6 dB? thanks again

Yes, the idea is that shooting for an AVERAGE level of -18 should get you peaks that are below 0. (Potentially as low as -6, but it depends on the material.) Hope that helps! -Justin

@@SonicScoop thanks for your response!

It’s not a out getting everything individually to -18. It’s about getting the entire mix to -18. To do this your kick and bass might be close to -18 average, but your guitars and cymbals might be much lower than that on average. Hope that helps! -Justin

Plugins are usually before the fader. Also you can use clip gain to gainstage, which is likely the best way so that you can keep good fader resolution, which is another thing to consider (as the fader gets lower, it goes from 10db steps to 5db steps within the same amount of movement, so half the res).

@@1337murk all this relying on plugins input options = more processing + added noise floor. I’m sure things like clip gain or perhaps using the output of a plugin if it has output options. Either way you’re getting noise floor differences.

@@goseason2343 Noise floor is hardly an issue in digital

@@1337murk air is everywhere except digital.

@@goseason2343 If you think so

Hey there-I do remote coaching calls all the time for this purpose. Just get in touch via JustinColletti.com Hope I can help! -Justin

-18 on the DAW meter.

Good question

Use the "normalize region gain" function in Logic. Set it to regions, RMS, -18. Be sure you've highlighted all your tracks before doing this.

@@michaell.8938 wow never knew this function existed - thanks a bunch! 🙏🏻

Is it posible that you are measuring transient signals with RMS meter? I mean: high transient signals like drums are set at around -6dbfs PEAK. The rest of the signals (vocals, bass, gtr, etc) are set around -18dbfs RMS (average).

@@Paulnap Maybe? Id have to go back to that session and double check, I was kinda just experimenting with what he was saying by throwing on the VU meter on each channel and gain staging to that level, which is the result I got when I did it with the kick drum sample

-18 PEAK would be pretty quiet for things like vocals and guitars. But -18 AVERAGE (RMS) would not be quiet at all. There, you'd probably have peaks as high as -6 or so potentially. I did make that distinction in the episode but could have hammered it even harder. That said, you can track louder than -18 AVERAGE if you like to. But the hotter than that you go, the more likely you are to need a limiter or run into clipping buses down the line. If you DID misunderstand this advice and were recording -18 PEAK instead of -18 AVERAGE/RMS then your tracks would be fairly low.... but in the digital domain, that isn't really a problem at all. You can just turn them up from there with literally no issue. Hope that helps! -Justin

@@SonicScoopi cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to educate all of us and even responding to questions. Much respect and thanks!

BUH-Bye!

You’d probably find a LOT more nuance than that if you listened to the whole thing :-) Best wishes in your travels, Justin

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Yes it does apply to today's itb mixes

@@1337murk no it doesn't, and stop confusing analog with digital

When I do these things, my mixes sound better. Just my experience.

@@Rhuggins it's going to sound good on both, but it's a waste of time and energy and creativity when you apply those ( old school ) things on digital world

Dude is obv pro

If it sounds good it is good! These are guidelines to help keep you from clipping or from having to use a lot of limiting. But if mixing hotter is getting your results you love, keep doing it. But if your workflow is awkward and things are feeling too smooshed, try backing off and see if it helps. Genre definitely plays a role in how hot you can go too. Certain styles of electronic and hip hop productions can routinely be louder than this. Question: Are you talking about AVERAGE levels or PEAK levels? -5 to -3 peak level on your mix is fairly conservative, and fine. -5 to -3 AVERAGE levels is super loud and will rarely work for anything other than certain styles of EDM, and only if you don't load it with too much bass. Hope that helps, Justin

@@SonicScoop Hey Justin! Respect! Yes I'm talking Peak and I guess it's now sort of dawning on me that you were talking average lol 😆 Yes my genres (Hip Hop/Dancehall) are quite loud/bass dominant in general. I try to use very little limiting but I like the idea of having more room to shape the sound/feel etc. I'd love to bend your ear with a few tracks to see what you think if you're up for it?! I generally master aiming for as little clipped samples as possible too. I'm a latecomer to music so I try to close the gap by being the most open minded...