Putting reverb on everything is useful on occasion, if something needs to feel like it is in a cathedral for instance. Instruments have different resonance - I almost never reverb a bass for instance - it just doesn’t need it. back to front depth, so that’s the way I use it, while also trying to be true to the instrument being mixed.Ģ. The purpose of reverb is to help determine placement in the mix, i.e. I think this is a lot less important than people think it is. And then the vocalist has likely been put through board effects, which are different again. Thus, if you monitor too loudly, then you will mix your music with too little bass and treble, and if you monitor too quietly, then you will mix your music. Most digital pianos will have their own built in reverb (beyond the sustain pedal) that is entirely unique from what the guitar player will have on his amplifier. Nothing wrong with master bus effects.ġ.) Isn’t analogous to what happens live. I like to keep my tracks dynamic so I keep the bus clear, but thats my personal preference. I put delays, ping-pong delays, grain delay, etc.
By putting all the tracks through one reverb bus it sounds as if they are all in the same space. If you put reverb on each track, it will sound as if they were recorded in separate rooms. My meters are there pick out things I should be listening for, my ears are the final decider. You know how you can decide to listen to say the bass, and you hear the bass. If I am putting more than 6dB changes then I begin to think the individual tracks are not correct and go back to check my mix. At this stage I also adjust the equalizer to enhance the track. I switch the mono on and off and listen for any parts of the mix that seem to get fainter at low, mid and less importantly high frequencies.įor mastering I put all those effects back in and use the limiter to get the track gain until I get just a little clipping (gain seems to end up around +10db). At this stage I do all the corrections and tweaks. If I composed differently, using fewer instruments, more compression or more widely spaced bands then I would use less metering.įor mixing I remove the Pro-Q equalizer as it still seems to delay the track, turn off the mastering equalizer, turn off the compressor (if used), turn off the gain and mix the master to -6dB. As a result I get lots of loud transients and so my master bus has lots of metering to look for transients. I don’t use a lot of compression on my tracks, I like them to be dynamic. I don’t put reverbs on a Track unless its an effect. I put all my ambient reverb on a separate bus. I try and get the individual tracks right first, then check for conflicts when I may, in order, set volume, alter velocity of a note or two, equalize, add a side-chained high pass or a side-chained compressor. If I do find a problem I go back to the individual Track and fix it. I am looking for peaks, dynamics, max and min volumes. I turn this up until a little clipping occurs.Ī Utility that I switch to mono to check for phase problems.ġ - Nu Gen Visualiser used as a level meter.Ģ - Fast Spectrum analyser to look for peaks that may cause clipping.ģ - s(M)exoscope Waveform visualisation so I can watch the waveforms.
The most important part is a hard Limiter set to -0.3 dB which I use as a gain control so I can get a decent volume without too much clipping. It works on some tracks not on others, so use with care. Its a very light compression but can gel the mix together.
I've been looking for 64 bit plugin which shows audio waveform, like smexoscope, but no luck yet. Half of my plugin aren't working in 64 bit, so it's kind of pita. Remove this for composing as it causes a delay.Ī final mastering equaliser for some gentle boosts and cuts. I just upgraded my memory to 16gb and have been trying to do something in 64 bit. It's too bad that more of its controls aren't available there.Īnyway, it's a pretty good work-around for now, and I thought you might be interested in looking into it.On my master bus I put a FabFilter Pro-Q set to 48db/Oct slope, at 22Hz and 19KHz to remove inaudible frequence, set to Linear Phase. You can also disable/enable it via bus automation or manually in the editor, which is a nice little feature. That's at least better than the a-Inline Scope plugin, which only allows the display of the last 5 seconds, max. If you turn the plugin "Time" knob down to zero, you can monitor about the last 45 seconds of the bus output waveform. So, unless you have humongous monitors you can only have a few visible at the same time. It accomplishes at least part of what I'm looking for regarding waveform monitoring, but of course has to be placed in the plugin area of each mixer bus.
There's also versions available for both Windows and macOS.
Just found a pretty nice free plugin called "s(M)exoscope" that was previously only available in 32-bit, but has since been picked up by "Smartelectronix" and re-coded for 64-bit compatibility.