I'm working on my first ever mix (heavy rock) and just have a simple
question about levels. A few articles I've read have mentioned that in
mastering, multiband compression is often used to compress bass frequencies
before the limiting stage because they normally constitute the peaks of the
final mixdown. I've remixed my material several times and in order to make
the snare even reasonably audible I need the level up such that peaks in the
final mixdown are very predominantly caused by it - bass instruments don't
come even close.

Just wondering if I should be concerned by this, and/or what I should
consider doing to correct it. The mix sounds good the way I have it (though
I haven't gotten to mastering it yet) but it concerns me that the snare
shows up so high on my VU meter (relative to all other instruments) yet has
very little volume to it. FWIW I have a low pass to remove any very high
freq transients, and I've fiddled with a number of different compression
settings (including "invisible" compression).

Any suggestions/comments appreciated. Keep in mind I'm pretty green.

Thanks,

Dave

Do you have the low pass on only the snare channel or the whole mix?
Either way, I think I'd take it out. It seems more likely to me the
snare would be artificially pushing the meters because of excess low
frequencies. See what happens with a high pass filter on the snare
channel around 100hz.
Are you using a vu or peak meter?
Do you have some sort of real-time frequency analysis tool? This may
help show what frequencies could be cut a little.
Always experiment.
Good Luck!

You need to compress the snot out of that snare and squeeze out any
unnecessary lows. Basically do whatever you need to to get the sound
you want. You want to keep the apparent loudness, but control those
transients. The only way to get a really hot level on the final is
to reduce the dynamic range. Anything too spiky will knock it down.
If you can afford a good mastering engineer you'll learn tons. Good
luck.

I ran a normalized non-realtime spectrum analyzer on it... there's a sharp
16 dB peak at 230Hz. The rest of the spectrum is pretty continuous. Later
I'll see how it sounds with some of this eq'd out.

Thanks,

Dave

wrote in message
ups.com...
Do you have the low pass on only the snare channel or the whole mix?
Either way, I think I'd take it out. It seems more likely to me the
snare would be artificially pushing the meters because of excess low
frequencies. See what happens with a high pass filter on the snare
channel around 100hz.
Are you using a vu or peak meter?
Do you have some sort of real-time frequency analysis tool? This may
help show what frequencies could be cut a little.
Always experiment.
Good Luck!

Dave,
Also, don't completely disregard the artistic judgements you make on
your own. Your personal mastering style is as much a contribution to
the record as the musician's. As this is your first mix, definitely
don't limit yourself to only doing the orthodox techniques (though if
you're pressed for time, follow suggestions above to finish ASAP, then
experiment more on your own time). If you think the mix sounds good,
then bring in someone who's never heard it before (someone not in the
band) and have them give a listen. If you have some engineer friends,
see what they think. But also, follow your gut. It sounds like you
know enough about this to experiment and figure it out on your own.

Best of luck,
Mike

Thanks Mike...

I found cutting at the peak frequency took away from the body of the sound
too much. The snare sounds very pingy to begin with (with no EQ/compression
at all) so with low removed it's even worse. Cutting higher up doesn't seem
to work too well either somehow. I'm contemplating replacing it with a
sampled snare as I'm getting frustrated trying to mould this one into
something I like.

Dave

"bsuhorndog" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dave,
Also, don't completely disregard the artistic judgements you make on
your own. Your personal mastering style is as much a contribution to
the record as the musician's. As this is your first mix, definitely
don't limit yourself to only doing the orthodox techniques (though if
you're pressed for time, follow suggestions above to finish ASAP, then
experiment more on your own time). If you think the mix sounds good,
then bring in someone who's never heard it before (someone not in the
band) and have them give a listen. If you have some engineer friends,
see what they think. But also, follow your gut. It sounds like you
know enough about this to experiment and figure it out on your own.

Best of luck,
Mike

David Grant wrote:
Thanks Mike...

I found cutting at the peak frequency took away from the body of the sound
too much. The snare sounds very pingy to begin with (with no EQ/compression
at all) so with low removed it's even worse. Cutting higher up doesn't seem
to work too well either somehow. I'm contemplating replacing it with a
sampled snare as I'm getting frustrated trying to mould this one into
something I like.

Dave

"bsuhorndog" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dave,
Also, don't completely disregard the artistic judgements you make on
your own. Your personal mastering style is as much a contribution to
the record as the musician's. As this is your first mix, definitely
don't limit yourself to only doing the orthodox techniques (though if
you're pressed for time, follow suggestions above to finish ASAP, then
experiment more on your own time). If you think the mix sounds good,
then bring in someone who's never heard it before (someone not in the
band) and have them give a listen. If you have some engineer friends,
see what they think. But also, follow your gut. It sounds like you
know enough about this to experiment and figure it out on your own.

Best of luck,
Mike



Did you try some fast attack and fast decay compression ON THE SNARE
ONLY, not on the entire mix? Take the peaks off the snare, then you
can raise the average level of the snare relative to the rest of the
mix.



Mark

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 09:58:23 -0400, David Grant wrote:

Thanks Mike...

I found cutting at the peak frequency took away from the body of the sound
too much. The snare sounds very pingy to begin with (with no EQ/compression
at all) so with low removed it's even worse. Cutting higher up doesn't seem
to work too well either somehow. I'm contemplating replacing it with a
sampled snare as I'm getting frustrated trying to mould this one into
something I like.

Dave

I don't know if you are using a DAW but the free digitalfishphones
dominion VST plugin has saved many a snare for me. It lets you reshape the
envelope of a sound in a way compressors don't, particularly is the
playing is a bit uneven. I often put a limiter after it too.

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/mai...em=2&subItem=4