Why you shouldn't mix in the RED in SONAR X1!!!!!!!

you're also driving your amplification too hard, which might sound "exciting", but in reality just means that underneath it all your mix is going to sound like ass at low volumes. 

I did a video about this in the old Singapore studio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nik1sJzQME

You can tell that it's old cos I'm using Sonar 8.5 

It is correct to point out that within SONAR, in between your hardware inputs and your hardware outputs, that you can ignore the track, bus, and EFX meters and peg just about every meter into the "red" and not experience a digital over.

I'm suggesting that it is bad "practice".


best,
mike

On my last song, "UnderPressure", just to try it, I kept all my individual tracks under the red but my master went over and it still sounded good in the headphones (I hear most frequencies but just quieter than other people, in short I like it LOUD) so I exported that way and I must say I was pleased with the outcome...I got very loud, punchy mix with no noticable distortion, check it out:

http://www.trustmedia.tv/UnderPressure.mp3

This may be my new mixing technique!

(Look- No Control Bar...learn your keystrokes!)

I  usualkly keep all tracks and the master under the red...this time I let the master go over to clarify... : )

You can be in the red on your main outs and still not get digital clipping.

Don't forget, the RED indicates that you're getting CLOSE to 0dbfs but not actually exceeding 0db.

I suppose 'good' is relative, because you've got an average RMS of -7.9dB overall, and -7.8dB in the loud bits. No dynamics at all, just a big wall of sound. And you also have truncated peaks caused by digital clipping in the loud parts, which is not good and is causing harm to your amps and speakers. 

How any amplifier "handles" a square wave is the ultimate test of its transparency; most aren't (transparent). That can be a "good" thing or a "bad" thing.
For "high" fidelity (your monitors for example) we should probably avoid square waves...

The hidden square waves are exceptionally effective at melting the compression drivers in a big disco system.

Burning out $300 drivers can get expensive.

The first thing to do, when you want to flaunt the square wave, is to decide who owns the compression drivers. ;-)

One of the neat things in X1 and past Sonars is the level flags on tracks and master buss. I use them often enough and it is helpful.

As for "mixing in the red" Mike is right its not a good idea. It is far better to lower all tracks going to the buss and use a good limiter there to raise the level as needed. Never ever go to 0db. 

Keep an eye on the hardware outs too. Don't let it go to the upper end of the scale. Its so easy to get a supper hot mix with Sonar that we tend to do just that. However to get a great sounding mix keep it at the crossover from green to red. 3 to 6 db below 0 db peak. If its going to mastering lower is even better.

Also try not to quash the peaks for a good dynamic sound. Too much compression is a very bad thing. Bad for the music, bad for the listener and bad for speakers.

I just checked an Armin van Buren CD

The things we do for love...

mike_mccue


It's simple; it's a bad habit, and while you may be able to get away with it on a 64bit floating point mix engine it is a bad practice.

If you take that sort of laissez faire technique and sit down at a real life console... you're going to be in for a rude surprise and a night of pain.

It's best practice to get some good practice... just in case you end up outside the 64bit floating point mix engine.



Food for thought? Maybe?

Agreed 100%.. the whole "it doesnt matter cos of floating point" is a bit silly to me.. after all..the music has to come out of the digital domain at some point :)

Now running X1C and I loaded up the project and fixed the mix, no more RED!

http://www.trustmedia.tv/UnderPressure.mp3

Buy a 23,000 watt per channel amplifier and bridge it into the sub woofer?

;-)




still working on spelling and reading and writing

mike_mccue


Buy a 23,000 per channel watt amplifier and bridge it into the sub woofer?

;-)

pfft, I drive my earbuds with twice that.