Danny, what a novel concept.  Use your ears?

For an engineer, it is good to know electronics and ratio's such as the above scaling info.

It is also good to have some idea of music, too.  Structure, etc.

But the best thing to understand is your system - how to make it sound good to your ears.  Because you are making artistic decisions during the recording process.  If it doesn't sound good to you, you won't be able to make your own decisions.

I (almost) always find it easier to mix loud sounds.  It is easier to simply turn a track down rather than massage it louder w/o any of the crunchyness or crunchy peaks.

But if you don't have high-end equipment it is probably better to leave more headroom than stress the hardware you do have.  Pro equipment, the kind w/ too many zeros after the dollar sign, are made for running close to the edge.  The typical home recorder's equipment isn't so much.  The car analogy is good here.  A big-engined car and a 4-cylinder " coupe will both hit 100mph.  The former will get there smoother and quicker.  Or down in the pasture a truck or jeep won't bottom out where your family sedan gets hung up.

hitting -6 dB is a goal, not a god.  If that level "crunches" your system, for whatever reason, don't hit it.  If you find signals at -20 dB are too hard to get up to a usuable level record louder.  Use your ears and the science behind sound will come.

AT


Danny, what a novel concept.  Use your ears?

For an engineer, it is good to know electronics and ratio's such as the above scaling info.

It is also good to have some idea of music, too.  Structure, etc.

But the best thing to understand is your system - how to make it sound good to your ears.  Because you are making artistic decisions during the recording process.  If it doesn't sound good to you, you won't be able to make your own decisions.

I (almost) always find it easier to mix loud sounds.  It is easier to simply turn a track down rather than massage it louder w/o any of the crunchyness or crunchy peaks.

But if you don't have high-end equipment it is probably better to leave more headroom than stress the hardware you do have.  Pro equipment, the kind w/ too many zeros after the dollar sign, are made for running close to the edge.  The typical home recorder's equipment isn't so much.  The car analogy is good here.  A big-engined car and a 4-cylinder " coupe will both hit 100mph.  The former will get there smoother and quicker.  Or down in the pasture a truck or jeep won't bottom out where your family sedan gets hung up.

hitting -6 dB is a goal, not a god.  If that level "crunches" your system, for whatever reason, don't hit it.  If you find signals at -20 dB are too hard to get up to a usuable level record louder.  Use your ears and the science behind sound will come.

Well said AT....100% agree there. :) It amazes me how much time people put into meters, reading about them, the K-System and all that other stuff. I mean don't get me wrong, it's good to be up on all that stuff...but to live religiously by a meter, graph, chart or sticking to guidelines that become "laws" just doesn't sit well with me. I arm my tracks, set my levels...if it sounds good and my sound is a good sound....I win...end of story, ya know? Just my personal opinion though.
 
-Danny

well, i can understand it....

people are looking for an aesthetic.


and there is old school, where levels were not an issue, and punch and dynamics were...


and new school, who have been trained to hear hyper compressed drums and vocals and music that has no dynamics.




you will find, that if you track at very conservative levels (assuming good gear, low noise, and you know how to gain stage)...
you will find that your mixes will sound much cleaner, much more vibrant.

you will get your PUNCH back!

once you have compressed and limited your punch and dynamics out of your mix, 
you will not get it back during mastering.


all of this is tied in one way or another, to tracking levels, and choice of effect on the incoming track.

I adopted Danny's suggested -6 Dbfs a little over a year ago and it has worked well for me. In many cases I find I still end up better off if when I am done tracking I pull everything down another 2 db before I start mixing. This way by the time I am done with compression, EQ tweaks, and everything starts to sum up at the 2 bus I am still left with a little more headroom. There's nothing I hate more than having a mix nearly perfect but needing that snare to crack a bit louder and not having the room to turn it up... I rather have the required breathing room and turn the master fader up when I am done. I should try a -8 tracking just to make it that much easier on myself! =)

actually, take it down to -12


IF

you have good solid RMS levels.

you'll be amazed at how much your mix opens up.



(not applicable to mixers who like the sound of modern hyper squashed dynamics and mega compression)


YMMV