Hopefully this is the right place to post this.
So I've just finished a pretty large mix and have it sounding the way I want. I know that before sending to the mastering engineer that it should be below 0.0db. BUT Oops! of course, I forgot that half way through my mix.
So now that the highest point that it peaks at is +0.5, I'm trying to find the best way of turning it all down. grr.
Firstly, here's how my project is set up: I have a Drums bus, Synths bus, Vox bus, etc.
They all route to a Mix bus. The Mix bus then routes to the Master Fader (stereo output).
The Mix bus has automation (volume and eq) while I left the Master Fader (stereo output) alone.
So...
I know that you can just pull the individual faders down BUT since I have automation on almost all the individual tracks and buses I'm trying to figure out how to bring the overall volume down for the mastering engineer without having to go in one-by-one to each fader. I've done that before and what happens is that while you bring the individual tracks down (and volume automation), the FX bus volumes are all still set to the same volume and levels. Basically bringing the tracks down but when the effects come in, they are super loud. So this won't work.
The only other thing I can think of is putting the gain knob plugin on the Mix Bus (not the Master fader) but THEN I read that it isn't really doing anything for turning the levels down, its just turning down the sound. So I don't know anymore. Is there any truth to that?
Any advice?
Also I'm trying to figure out this loudness metering plugin. What is the best RMS/LUFS/etc to be peaking at? There's so many conflicting opinions that I've read but I'm just curious what you all think