Jump to content

Logic Mixing "Rule"?


seanmccoy

Recommended Posts

Hey all! Had a client come in for some Logic mixing pointers yesterday, and he showed me a line in Bobby Owsinksi's Mixing book that stated "Rule Number One" of mixing in Logic is that all channel faders must be lower than the master output fader. What gives with that? The book came out in 2006 and may be making suggestions based on an earlier Logic engine, but I told my client I thought this was completely bogus. Thoughts?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reflecting on this... imagine the time and complexity required to ensure that all faders be set below the 'master'. Anyway, I stand by what I said above. However, I'm going to keep my own personal jury out until we can get some clarification. I've seen it happen before that this kind of thing gets quoted out of context, or quoted incompletely.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a somewhat idiosyncratic view on this. Lagerfeldt, who is brilliant IMHO, wrote on Gearslutz: "If you're mixing strictly ITB then the advantage of using lower levels is that you can avoid overloading certain plug-ins. But apart from that there's no sonic advantage in a floating point system where you can simply drop the master fader."

 

Which is true, of course. But "over-loading certain plug-ins" can be a bigger deal than you might think. So I responded, " I still recommend in my book that folks get in the habit of using pre-fader metering and controlling levels from their source, even in a 32 bit floating app like Logic Pro. It is good standard mix practice and serves one well going from 32 bit float to fixed point to analog. If nothing else, it makes you really aware of the details of your mix, probably leading to a better mix."

 

So maybe this is where Bobby is coming from also, meaning not literally the fader position but the incoming levels to the channel strips.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So maybe this is where Bobby is coming from also, meaning not literally the fader position but the incoming levels to the channel strips.

 

Let's hope this is what he means, because it's the only interpretation that makes any sense.

 

I haven't read his books, but I did notice that his mixing book boasts a section on getting really loud mixes, which doesn't sound good to me. Really loud masters would be ok, but he's got a seperate book for that.

 

Anyway, I won't judge the guy on 3rd hand hearsay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
Cool, then I'm not totally crazy. Yet. I am baffled by it, and I think I'll try to get ahold of Bobby to see what his thinking was. I've had some exchanges with him in the past regarding surround sound and have found him to be very friendly.

 

Please report back if you get an answer from him, I'm intrigued.

And so I did! Here's Bobby's response:

 

"Hey Sean,

 

Regardless of whether you're in analog or digital, floating point or fixed, the rule of thumb is that the master should always be above the other faders to keep the signal path clean so there's no overload in the signal path.

 

That said, it's not going to matter if you have to keep backing down the master during a mix and it ends up 5 or 6dB lower; it can make a big difference if it's down 25dB lower though.

 

But if it sounds OK, then it is OK either way.

 

It's not an unequivocal rule, just a rule of thumb to keep everything clean sounding.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Bobby"

 

 

So it's more of a suggestion than a rule, though in the book it is clearly stated as "Rule Number One," accompanied by mixing diagrams labelled "right" and "wrong."

I think the basic concept is a sound starting point, even in a floating point system, as it will likely lead to less unnecessary hotness, thereby reducing the need for hyper-compression and limiting. But for beginning mixers like my client, I think it would be wise to soften the hard and fast aspect of it in Bobby's next revision.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for following up with this Sean.

 

Regardless of whether you're in analog or digital, floating point or fixed, the rule of thumb is that the master should always be above the other faders to keep the signal path clean so there's no overload in the signal path.

 

Sorry, but that still doesn't make any sense.

 

Case in point: you automate the master fader to fade out an entire mix. As that fader's physical (or graphic) position starts to move below that of the other faders, is the "signal path" (whatever THAT is) going to start overloading?

 

I think not!

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On an analog console, gain staging is all about setting the gain pot in the preamp section of a channel for the purpose of achieving an optimum level of signal amplification without introducing excessive noise in the process, and, without causing the input of the channel to distort. The same applies for the input to an audio interface which has gain controls on the input.

 

Another type of gain staging is "unity" gain staging, where the inputs of a console are calibrated so that the level of the input signal = the level of the output signal of that channel with the fader at zero and any inline EQ or other FX bypassed. This doesn't always result in the best signal to noise ratio or the optimum amount of amplification, but it's useful all the same (for reasons that are kind of extraneous to this discussion).

 

Now, with all that said... since Logic doesn't have gain controls at the input stage of its channels, gain staging doesn't come into the picture.

Edited by ski
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks. I was the neophyte mixer in Sean's post.

Bobby's, response, that -5 or -6 db might be okay is surprising after reading his book. I was going to great lengths to make sure the master wasn't -1 db lower than ANY track. It was a lot of trouble. I still like Bobby's books, I've learned a lot. But it just goes to show....

 

I like the Mod's point that if that were true, you'd hear distortion when you did a fade out on the master fader. I should have thought of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regardless of whether you're in analog or digital, floating point or fixed, the rule of thumb is that the master should always be above the other faders to keep the signal path clean so there's no overload in the signal path.

 

Sorry, but that still doesn't make any sense.

 

Agreed. You can perfectly well have a clean signal path with the master WAY below the other faders, and on the other hand you can perfectly well have an overload in the signal path when the master is above the other faders.

 

If Bob uses Logic, he is wrong.

 

Agreed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agreed. You can perfectly well have a clean signal path with the master WAY below the other faders, and on the other hand you can perfectly well have an overload in the signal path when the master is above the other faders.

 

Exactly.

 

In other words - it doesn't matter a fig where you have *any* the faders as long as the signals are being passed through the mixer and plugins at reasonable levels, preferably with a fair bit of headroom, and definitely not clipping at the outputs.

 

It's about the signal levels, not the fader positions.

 

Very weird thing to write in a book, though... ( ! )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a somewhat idiosyncratic view on this. Lagerfeldt, who is brilliant IMHO, wrote on Gearslutz: "If you're mixing strictly ITB then the advantage of using lower levels is that you can avoid overloading certain plug-ins. But apart from that there's no sonic advantage in a floating point system where you can simply drop the master fader."

 

Which is true, of course. But "over-loading certain plug-ins" can be a bigger deal than you might think. So I responded, " I still recommend in my book that folks get in the habit of using pre-fader metering and controlling levels from their source, even in a 32 bit floating app like Logic Pro. It is good standard mix practice and serves one well going from 32 bit float to fixed point to analog. If nothing else, it makes you really aware of the details of your mix, probably leading to a better mix."

 

So maybe this is where Bobby is coming from also, meaning not literally the fader position but the incoming levels to the channel strips.

 

Just to clarify, this would be true if dropping the fader of a channel had any effect on the volume of insert effects, but it does not. Remember that inserts in Logic are PRE-FADER, so the volume dropping must occur via a gain plugin insert (or the gain function in the region parameter box which are also pre-insert). So the idea of using faders for the goal of gain-staging is incorrect as it occurs at the end of the channel, at least in Logic, which unlike all other DAW's does not offer "post fader" inserts.

 

As for metering Pre-Fader, Jay, do you simply add a meter as the first insert on your channel strip, or is there another way I'm not aware of? I get tired of having meters and gain plugins as the first two inserts in all my tracks. :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Remember that inserts in Logic are PRE-FADER, so the volume dropping must occur via a gain plugin insert (or the gain function in the region parameter box which are also pre-insert). So the idea of using faders for the goal of gain-staging is incorrect as it occurs at the end of the channel, at least in Logic, which unlike all other DAW's does not offer "post fader" inserts.

 

Maybe I don't understand your statement correctly, but the attached image shows what I think makes an insert post-fader.

42289966_Screenshot2011-09-14at2_18_47PM.png.95cf63f8f372debfc3f2653330e99d0e.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe I don't understand your statement correctly, but the attached image shows what I think makes an insert post-fader.

 

Those are not inserts, but sends. All inserts on a channel strip are pre-fader, always.

 

The only built-in pre-fader metering option is under Options > Audio > Pre-Fader Metering, but it's also post inserts, so I'm not exactly sure how that would help anyone overloading a plug-in.

 

The only way to make sure you're not overloading a plug-in is to meter the signal going into that plug-in. Not two plug-ins before, not three plug-ins before, not after the plug-in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to keep things in perspective, the premise of this "rule" was that all faders must always be set lower than the 'master', and that's just pure silliness. The idea of working with signals that stay at or below certain levels in each channel is a whole different subject.

 

I've only had one occasion where I heard a channel strip distort due to high levels: I had Logic's phase shifter inserted on a channel on a bass sound coming from the E/W "Ministry of Rock" library which was hot at its output (thus feeding hot signal into the phase shifter). And indeed it is entirely possible to get distortion from the phase shifter itself, particularly when the warmth parameter is enabled. So other than plugins that themselves distort (which doesn't seem to be a common occurrence) I don't see the merits in adopting analog signal level paradigms when we're working in a 32-bit floating point format that can't distort.

 

Jay wrote: "It is good standard mix practice and serves one well going from 32 bit float to fixed point to analog." Thing is, per the best of my understanding, we're not going from 32-bit float to analog. We're going from 32-bit float to 24-bit and THEN to analog.

 

Discuss! :mrgreen:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only built-in pre-fader metering option is under Options > Audio > Pre-Fader Metering, but it's also post inserts, so I'm not exactly sure how that would help anyone overloading a plug-in.

 

The only way to make sure you're not overloading a plug-in is to meter the signal going into that plug-in. Not two plug-ins before, not three plug-ins before, not after the plug-in.

 

I always use Pre-Fader Metering for exactly this reason. If you bypass all the plugins on a channel strip, the level meter will indicate the level coming into the channel strip from the source (either an input source or audio file). Then you simply work your way down thru the inserts, activating them one at a time. The output level of the first plugin is the input level to the next plugin, and so on. If the level is too high (or low), adjust the output level of the previous plugin. If the final level going to the fader is to high (or low), adjust the output level of the last plugin in the chain or add a Gain plugin and adjust as needed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...