fresh out of audio school

[Esoteric Fortune]

it's good for building character and relationships with artist if your just a runner sometimes

i've also heard of guys who get hired by an artist or engineer just because they got a food order correct and did it with a smile then they get hired on and get platinum records.

yea that's true. I would rather work at a big studio where estalished artists come through more often. If i get a shot i will take it though. until then, i'll eat the crumbs off this table

and @bullet...It depends on what your using. I mean, Pro-Tools comes with some good plug-ins, The Waves mastering bundel has a nice selection(. But, when it comes to mastering you have to know what your listening for cause to you it can sound good, but to someone else it can be blah.

a quick rough mix i use for vocals is:

LinMB multi band comp

LinEQ Linear phase eq

L2 brickwall

but this is pre-mixing and mastering. Good for a low budget mixtape

[Extinctor Draconis]

yea that's true. I would rather work at a big studio where estalished artists come through more often. If i get a shot i will take it though. until then, i'll eat the crumbs off this table

and @bullet...It depends on what your using. I mean, Pro-Tools comes with some good plug-ins, The Waves mastering bundel has a nice selection(. But, when it comes to mastering you have to know what your listening for cause to you it can sound good, but to someone else it can be blah.

a quick rough mix i use for vocals is:

LinMB multi band comp

LinEQ Linear phase eq

L2 brickwall

but this is pre-mixing and mastering. Good for a low budget mixtape

i'd rather work with unknown artist who are talented and have no egos believe me i been around big artist which working in a big studio doesn't allow you to disclose. Working with them not so great.

and ew at using a brickwall limiter IT'S CALLED DYNAMICS MUTHASUCKA IT'S YOUR FRIEND!

[Esoteric Fortune]

i can imagine. & i think you underestimate that brick wall limiter combo. that combo sounds dope. I mean for Acid Pro. Which is what i use on my Laptop.

on me & my homies home studio i use
AC1, Phoenix, and Magneto

[Extinctor Draconis]

depends on the genre man i wouldn't use a limiter on a song thats very dynamic it would feel right to have whispering parts sound just as loud as yelling parts. plus i don't engineer rap i guess with rapper you could use a limiter because their performance isn't dynamic.

i don't use plug in's much either only if i'm doing rough mixes on my laptop.

For vocals i don't do any dynamics processing usually if anything i'll run through something like a LA2A and have it on bypass just so that it get slightly colored by passing through the circuitry

[Opie M.]

I mix mostly hip hop and I avoid limiters. There's no need for hard limiting like that. I'd rather have the dynamic range in tact. Limiting in the mixing process also annoys the shit out of mastering engineers.

[Extinctor Draconis]

I mix mostly hip hop and I avoid limiters. There's no need for hard limiting like that. I'd rather have the dynamic range in tact. Limiting in the mixing process also annoys the shit out of mastering engineers.

because they want to limit the shit out of the mix :hosea1:

[.Bullet.]

lol so what you suggest I do as far as getting the peak of the whole mastered mix to sit @ 0db, or as close to that as possible.

[Opie M.]

Mix it down and normalize the peaks to 0dB. That's the easiest way.

[.Bullet.]

Should I normalize my individual tracks aswell instead of what I was doing and using dynamic pro. then using the compander....

[.Bullet.]

btw is their a normalize in the waves mercury? I've got normalize in aa3 but I can only access it in edit mode.

*thumbsdown*

[Opie M.]

Normalize the final mix. Not individual tracks. Normalize is built into every DAW. And yes... It's a destructive effect that you apply to the actual waveform in edit mode.

Also, you should just follow the rule of thumb that if you don't know what a plugin is or how to use it then don't. Sounds like you're using a lot of crap that you don't need or know how to use. Pick a compressor, eq, reverb, and delay. Use those and nothing else. Once you can actually make good mixes with those then you can move on. Trust me... You don't need a million plugins. You need to focus on using the basic ones.

[.Bullet.]

lol I barely use plug-ins. Only ones I use are waves waves 10 eq, and I was using compressor on all...and I hate reverb. But yeuh I just tried normalize in edit mode, it works fine. Most of the time whe I USE to try things in there it would freeze my whole program. As far as plugins, its just what I said, and then what ever for masterring.

[Opie M.]

Sounds like you're using dynamics pro, compander, ozone etc etc.

Why do you hate reverb?? Lmao

[.Bullet.]

I don't know. i jsut hate the sound I get with it in aa3. Like hate to the point I wish I could shit on it. lol Well in dyna pros. the "compander" is what the pre-set is called, then I click to make it a spline curve, and adjust it from there. I knnow you guys like prolly like "oh, wtf is this guy doing", but I just mix my stuff to what sounds good. Like for example, when eq'ing certain freqencies should be this and that, but I do mine until I like the final sound.

[Opie M.]

Ok. You hate reverb because you don't know how to use it. That's dumb. Learn how to use it. I don't know how you're using no reverb at all in your mixes.

And what you just said is like telling a chef you bake a cake by throwing a bunch of shit together until your cake tastes good. Just like the cake, your mix will never sound good. You'll just fuck it up until you have to start over.

How are you going to build a studio and charge for studio time and tell people "I'm just gonna click on shit till it sounds good."

You wonder why I refused to help you with that shit lmao... This is why. Learn how to do what you're doing. Or stop asking for advice on how to half ass it. Shit is mad annoying.