How To Optimize Your Mixing Gain Structure
As an engineer who operates an online mastering studio it is common to see many audio mixes that have exceeded clip point or 0dBFS. Within a digital audio workstation the numbers in a digital system are a finite method to accurately represent the audio signal.If your output signal hits the end of the meter (stereo master bus) then you need to consider your gain structure when mixing your tracks. Accuracy is no longer present when you hit the end of the meter as the numbers have run out.
Historically, optimizing gain structure has been very important in audio recording and mixing from the days of multi-track tape machines and large format audio consoles. Gain structure means ensuring that your audio signal is out of the noise floor of the equipment and avoiding the distortion when the equipment has hit it's electrical signal path limits.(overload distortion) Digital recording has allowed many people to learn how to record at home but sadly not everyone has been trained as well as a pro engineer. Explained within is how to optimize your mix gain structure. This explanation is going to be based on the assumption that you are starting a new mix of a piece of music in your (Digital Audio Workstation).
If you normally use limiting on the master output please remove it and make sure that your project is set up at 24bit resolution. Firstly use your fader for the kick drum channel and peak the kick drum to -15dBFS on the master bus output. Then you can start building your mix around the kick drum. (Make sure you do not push the kick drum level up as it will defeat the object)bring in your other mix elements and build your mix just as you would normally adding compression, eq etc. to enhance the sound. Your mix will be peaking much lower and this is good, it means less distortion and more clarity. You can turn up your volume control to compensate for the lower levels. Make sure you are working at 24 bit resolution and also export at 24bit. Once you have exported the mix you can send the mix for professional online mastering or enhance the level of the mix yourself using the normal means/ faders/clip level or limiter etc. etc.
Want some technical details?
On a big mixer (analogue) the mix output level was often aimed at 0vu. 0vu = -18dBFS(on a digital meter), it is equivalent to ref 1.23V RMS or +4dBu, you can see there is no need to mix your audio to the end of meter on your DAW. At a level of -15dBFS your music will still have a theoretical signal to noise ratio which is 33dB better than if you operated at sixteen bit resolution in your DAW. Peaking low at twenty four bit prior to online mastering. A twenty four bit res has a theoretical 144dB dynamic range minus 15 is 129dB. 129dB - 96dB (16bit dyn range) = 33 decibels.So you can see mixing at a lower level has a number of benefits, much less chance of clipping, no need for a limiter which means your music is more punchy when played at the same volume to
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