Amplification and clipping issue

[HeavenWraith]

First of all, good evening ladies and gentlemen of OCR, this is my first time posting in these forums. Pleased to meet all of you.

So far I've been learning my mixing techniques all by myself by just trying stuff out in FL Studio and seeing if it works, however, now that I've decided to register here, might as well ask some crucial questions people, who will know the certain answer.

The goal I seek is to make the volume of my tracks as high as possible, however, obviously, without clipping. The way I've been doing things until now was producing a mix with a limiter (I'm using FL Studio), which makes the wavelenght's maximum amplitude 0.0 dB. Afterwards I open my track with Audacity and amplify the whole thing approximately 2.0 dB. The sound then is just about right (I'm comparing the output volume with professional mixes), however in some cases the track start clipping in some places. Moreover, sometimes I can even amplify the track up to 3.0 dB and it won't clip, so I'm not sure as to what the general rule is.

My question is - is there a hit-confirm way to make the output gain as high as possible, but without clipping. I've searched through the forums for a similar topic since I figured this is an important issue for any mixer, however either I've failed to select the right keywords or there's no information regarding the matter. Pardon me if I've made a duplicate thread.

Thanks in advance.

[ebuch]

Adding gain on tracks might help, but you're probably going to want to try adding some compressors. Keep your main output at 0.0dB and throw on a multiband compressor (or regular) and play around with it until you find something that sounds good. Too much compression and limiting will crush the hell out of your mix, so be conservative and use your ears.

I mostly make orchestrations, so I'm not sure what it's like to mix for other genres. Always trust your ears.

[GarretGraves]

ebuch pretty much said it.

But what I personally use is a limiter to raise the volume of tracks to keep from clipping. Massey's l2007 limiter works great AND it's trial version allows you to use it forever. It just won't save ur settings for it. Which I've been getting away with all year since I found out about it. I will eventually buy it though because the limiter is damn good and deserves compensation. I THINK they make it in VST form im not sure. Slap it on the master track, adjust the ceiling to about just under -1db. Then set the threshold to however loud you need. Check your headroom on your Master meter to see how much you should use.

Also, another thing to keep in mind, (and I always thank Moseph for this) EQ plays HUGE factor in cleaning up your mix. Getting rid of frequencies you don't want and notching ones up that you do want. What I do for my mixes (I'm a prog rock guy) is cut the mud off of virtually ALL of my instruments. If you use a parametric EQ and roll off or cut around 250 or below for, let's say, a guitar. You'll find that it'll clean it up a bit and give more room for the other frequencies above it to flow. That's pretty much the first thing I go for now when mixing is EQ. Then compression or multi-band compression if I need it. (If you have 200 american dollars, Waves.com has their C6 MB Comp that'll do WONDERS!) Getting rid of mud will give you more headroom to work with so you can gain more loudness without sandwiching the shit out of it.

EDIT: I should also mention that all limiters work virtually the same way. They have Threshold, Ceiling and Release knobs on them. So if you find a free VST one, grab it. Some work better than others so shop around and try a few and see the differences and which ones work to your liking.

[Chimpazilla]

Getting rid of frequencies you don't want and notching ones up that you do want. What I do for my mixes (I'm a prog rock guy) is cut the mud off of virtually ALL of my instruments. If you use a parametric EQ and roll off or cut around 250 or below for, let's say, a guitar. You'll find that it'll clean it up a bit and give more room for the other frequencies above it to flow. Getting rid of mud will give you more headroom to work with so you can gain more loudness without sandwiching the shit out of it.

This, totally. Also, for your bass instruments, make sure you do the opposite (cut everything ABOVE 200-250Hz, leaving higher frequencies in only for attack or click, for example on a bass guitar) That will allow your low end to breathe too, and keep the mud out of your midrange. For bass you don't want much activity between 200-800Hz.

And if you're trying (in whatever way) to "master" your track to go above 0db, you're going to get some clipping or other distortion somewhere. Unless I'm really wrong here... 0db is the maximum ceiling you want to hit when mixing your track. (-0.1 to -0.3 is probably a safer target) Raising your track above 0db is the job of your stereo amplifier (home music system, car stereo, boom box, etc), not your mixing setup!

Another way to check your levels is to use metering. Voxengo's SPAN is my go-to meter (it's free). Put it as the last plugin in your master chain, after compressor and limiter. Play your song and watch how often it hits 0db, if it is there full time and always hitting red it's probably too loud, listen for clipping. And here's another tip... check your RMS levels. A good level to hit is between -14 to -12 RMS. Anything higher than that will probably indicate some clipping or distortion will be occurring.

You can always raise your overall volume in the mastering stage (up to 0db) by raising the gain on your compressor or limiter. But generally you want to mix your track such that the levels get close to 0db (like, -6 to -3db) before you hit your mastering tools... your compressor and/or limiter should only have to give a tiny boost to get there.

[Rozovian]

Hi and welcome to ocr, HW.

If you can boost your tracks after limiting them to 0dB and not have clipping, then you've probably got some other effect pulling down the level afterwards, or just forgotten to turn the output of the effect/channel to 0dB.

The loudest parts of a mix are the transient attacks of drums and other percussive instruments, so they're the ones first to get clipped. Few ppl will notice those being hard clipped, altho there are other tricks to reducing transient levels.

After that, your loudest instruments, probably bass, kick, snare, and lead are likely to clip when their peaks coincide (interference). This is noticeable, and should be avoided. You can side-chain a compressor on the bass to duck under the kick (kick hits, bass ducks), which should yield a little more room and won't be noticed if the compressor is quick enough.

The remaining peaks, whether transients or interference, can be done away with using a limiter, just make sure it only cuts peaks, not half the waveform or something.

The rest of it is just regular mixing. Get rid of frequencies the instruments don't need, as Graves and Kristina already said. Use compressors to get things louder between loud peaks. Learn the toolbox. The professional mixers do. They have good tools, but they also know how to use them, and could probably do something close to the same level with the tools you have.

And yeah, you can't make it go over 0dB, that's the digital maximum. Dunno if you know computer graphics, but it's like computer colors that go from 0 to 255. You can't making it brighter than 100% white. That's how digital audio works.

TL;DR: To answer your question: no.

[HeavenWraith]

I see, I tried cutting off the mud in the tracks of my mixes and it worked really well. Even though the output gain is 0.0 dB, it sounds a lot louder that it used to. Thank you all for the replies, it helped a bunch.

[timaeus222]

Raising your track above 0db is the job of your stereo amplifier (home music system, car stereo, boom box, etc), not your mixing setup!

Hm, I just want to clear this up. I believe when you increase the volume of a stereo system, it only multiplies the volume, and doesn't add to the dB. e.g. -0.2dB peaks will always be -0.2dB peaks, but you'll hear it at a louder volume.

Or were you saying something different?

[Rozovian]

Raising your track above 0db is the job of your stereo amplifier (home music system, car stereo, boom box, etc), not your mixing setup!

Hm, I just want to clear this up. I believe when you increase the volume of a stereo system, it only multiplies the volume, and doesn't add to the dB. e.g. -0.2dB peaks will always be -0.2dB peaks, but you'll hear it at a louder volume.

Or were you saying something different?

Tho Kristina's point was to say that raising the listening level of your speaker setup is better than trying to squash your audio into something excessively loud, I'll clarify this for you all.

Digital audio uses dBFS - dB Full Scale, with 0dB being the max level of the stored file. -6dB is half the max amplitude. Real world audio is measured in dBSPL - Sound Pressure Level. It's defined with the audio threshold at 1kHz being 0dB. As an example, wikipedia lists conversation-level voices at 40-60dB.

So no, a file peaking at 0dBFS will not be played out of your speakers at 0dB, it'd probably be played at around 40-60dB, depending on your listening level. When that level (the amplitude of the sound waves) is doubled, we're dealing with 46-66dB audio. 6dB is double the amplitude.

I've added a section on decibel to my guide. It's in the next update, whenever I get around to uploading that.

[timaeus222]

Tho Kristina's point was to say that raising the listening level of your speaker setup is better than trying to squash your audio into something excessively loud, I'll clarify this for you all.

Digital audio uses dBFS - dB Full Scale, with 0dB being the max level of the stored file. -6dB is half the max amplitude. Real world audio is measured in dBSPL - Sound Pressure Level. It's defined with the audio threshold at 1kHz being 0dB. As an example, wikipedia lists conversation-level voices at 40-60dB.

So no, a file peaking at 0dBFS will not be played out of your speakers at 0dB, it'd probably be played at around 40-60dB, depending on your listening level. When that level (the amplitude of the sound waves) is doubled, we're dealing with 46-66dB audio. 6dB is double the amplitude.

I've added a section on decibel to my guide. It's in the next update, whenever I get around to uploading that.

I found my sister's old textbook, "Audio in Media" (pre-2007), and it turns out what you said was somewhere in that book. I wonder if you've read that before, because it's awesome. xD