Trubadurex Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 I have used Logic for composing and mixing music for some years now. And I still discover new sides by the program that I do not understand. One of the things I am struggling with is level adjustment. Yesterday I found that the instrument mix of one of my songs were to load. And that I did not have enough headroom for the vocals. But because the instruments sounded so great I decided to make a copy for reference and take down all the tracks to a much lower level and start all over again. Now I had no problems with the levels of the vocals. But ... When I listened to my acoustic guitar it sounded very thin and had nearly no bas and had a much sharper treble. From my early days as a musician on the road I learned that you always should set the master levels on the mixer as high as possible to catch the full flavour of the sound. It´s not necessary to think like that working on the computer - I am told. Now I am confused ... I had to take the level of my guitar down by around 6 db (and all the other instruments too) And with exactly the same settings on the guitar track(and master out) it now sounded poor. And most of my tracks had lost both bass and richness. Why? I therefore wonder how important is it to create the mix in the top of all levels in Logic as long as it do not peak? And why is this happening? AcGuitar 2.2_level..mp3 AcGuitar -4.2_level.mp3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 1 hour ago, Trubadurex said: From my early days as a musician on the road I learned that you always should set the master levels on the mixer as high as possible to catch the full flavour of the sound. Yes, thirty or forty years ago. In a DAW? No, it's not the same at all. You *should* work with some headroom, and there is no quality or signal-to-noise penalty for doing so, unlike back in the older days. 1 hour ago, Trubadurex said: I had to take the level of my guitar down by around 6 db (and all the other instruments too) And with exactly the same settings on the guitar track(and master out) it now sounded poor. And most of my tracks had lost both bass and richness. Why? You've turned your volume down. Did you turn up your monitors/headphones to compensate? Humans hear differently at quiet volumes compared to loud. The point is to work at levels in the DAW that make sense, and monitor at levels that make sense. If you need to turn down your mix, but this is too quiet to hear, you need to turn up your monitors to compensate for this volume loss, otherwise you will perceive the mix differently. Note - the reason hi-fi amps had a "loudness" button was to compensate for the loss of bass listening at quiet volumes. This button simply boosted the bass to make up for the perceive lack of bass when listening quietly. Humans are complicated, and music doubly so... 😉 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 Thank you for answering me! 🙂 But the thing is that I did not in any way alter the mix. I just lowered the levels with about -6 db by dragging down all tracks but the vocals. Then I bounced out the guitar track from the original project , and then a separate bounce from the new level reduced project. So what can then be the reason that they sound so different? Have you listened to the attached sound files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 Do you have any plug-ins on your Stereo Out channel strip? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 Hi David! No - I have no plug-ins on my Stereo Out. I have made a video reconstruction of how this sounds where you can see all the settings and hear the difference as it plays off in each of the projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 Your video link is a dead link so I've removed it. You can make small videos using LiceCap that you can embed here. See this post for instructions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 I listened to your two samples and there's definitely some processing other than gain change between the two. If you can share the original project and give us the exact steps you took to reduce the level and get that second sample, we can try to reproduce? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 Well this is why I tried to use a video to show that there are no other settings than gain ... If you take a look at the video just by pasting the address into your browser you can see what is happening. https://balbertsen.no-ip.biz/main/hus/difference.mp4 And to be absolute clear - the plug-ins used at the tracks have absolutely identical settings. That's why I do not understand this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 To reduce the levels on all tracks other than the vocal, I selected these tracks and used the up most track to take all these tracks down with about -10db. Then I just saved the project with another name and started re-mixing the song. And then I discovered that something was wrong with the guitar sound ... That's how I did it ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 25 minutes ago, Trubadurex said: And to be absolute clear - the plug-ins used at the tracks have absolutely identical settings. So how are you bouncing exactly? It looks like you may be processing through the plug-in chain and panner twice on the second sample. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 1 hour ago, Trubadurex said: To reduce the levels on all tracks other than the vocal, I selected these tracks and used the up most track to take all these tracks down with about -10db. Then I just saved the project with another name and started re-mixing the song. And then I discovered that something was wrong with the guitar sound ... That's how I did it ... @Trubadurex My bad, re-reading this now I realize that you never bounced anything, you just changed the level of your automation curve, and are using the same Sålstrenger#33 merged audio file in both case. However, looking at your video closely I can see that in the second project the channel strip has a stereo input format whereas in the first it's a mono input format. At what time did this change and why? What is the format of the plug-ins in both projects? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 Yes I did bounce! I bounced one file from each project. Now I have done this over again with less tracks involved. And there is a noticable difference in the sound of both my guitar and other instruments if I first take them down with about 10 db, save it as a new project and then open both projects to compare. I am loosing richness and bass in the new mix when I bring the output level up to about the same. I have not bounced anything yet but I can hear the difference just by swapping between them. I wonder if my soundcard can have something to do with this? For input I use Scarlett 18i20 but for out I use a cheap mixer from Behringer called Xenyx Q802 ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 I don't believe the soundcard could have any effect here. There's most likely some kind of pilot error somewhere in the process. In order to continue troubleshooting, we need to stay focused on one specific operation and try to figure out what's wrong with it. So back to the soloed guitar... can you answer my question below? 2 hours ago, David Nahmani said: in the second project the channel strip has a stereo input format whereas in the first it's a mono input format. At what time did this change and why? What is the format of the plug-ins in both projects? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markno999 Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 David is right, sample 1 is mono and sample 2 is stereo guitar track so not an apples to apples comparison. Personally I have no problem slamming the channel levels pretty hard (not clipping) but harder than -18db that many "experts" recommend. IMHO,the Acoustic guitar track level in your original is fine, if you want to pull back the level to accomodate vocals, you have a number of options, 1) create a music submix bus and send everything not vocals there, you can always adjust the volume there, 2) create a guitar bus and adjust the volume or automation there. Then you preserve what you have accomplished on the individual channels. I have seen many pro mixes where the channel levels are set much higher than you hear is acceptable by the YouTube experts. Lastly, try changing your Pan to Stereo Pan rather than Balance (Red Arrow in attachment), that will add some body back into your Stereo bounce (sample 2). Right Click the Pan Knob, select Stereo Pan. It is currently set to Balance. Regards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markno999 Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 On closer look, your clip is Mono, your Channel setting is stereo. Try the above but you can also revert your channel setting to Mono and that may resolve the thinness. Again, your original levels in Mix 1 example are fine in the original mix, I wouldn't change them. You have other options that are much more manageable and won't mess with the sound you already have. Regards 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 The reason it was in stereo format was just to test if something changed. But nothing did change. When you ask for format of the plug-ins - do you mean if they are mono to stereo or ... ? They are set to the same in both projects since all settings were copied when I saved the project to a new file. But when I try to disable a plug-in in one of the projects this will also disable the same plug-in in the other project ... Is that normal or? Look at the attached video ... Buttons.mp4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 6 minutes ago, Trubadurex said: When you ask for format of the plug-ins - do you mean if they are mono to stereo or ... ? Yes. The format is mono, or stereo, or dual mono, or surround, etc. 6 minutes ago, Trubadurex said: They are set to the same in both projects since all settings were copied when I saved the project to a new file. They're probably not set to the same given that the input format of the channel strip is not the same. To check, click-hold the right-hand side of each plug-in's insert, and place your mouse pointer over the name of the plug-in at the top of the pop-up menu. For example the following Channel EQ plug-in is stereo: 6 minutes ago, Trubadurex said: But when I try to disable a plug-in in one of the projects this will also disable the same plug-in in the other project ... Is that normal or? Look at the attached video ... No, that's not normal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 Ok - this is interesting ... If I disable a plugin in the main project(the first project) and then switch to the copy project, the plugin stays off. If I disable a plugin in the copy project it stays off until I again switch to the main project file. Then it is auto enabled again. So maybe this have made me believe a plugin was switch off when it was not or the opposite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trubadurex Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 I now have compared two projects with only the guitar track and with no plug-ins involved. I did reduce the level with 10 db and now the two guitars sounds the same. But another thing - when I put a compressor into project 1 it does not open in project 2. But if I put the same compressor into project 2 they will be turned on or off simultaneously if one of them is operated. But this will not affect the ajustment of the two compresssors! They will have and keep two different settings ... So something is a little strange. But maybe these things have made me believe that things were the same when they were not. I just don´t know! 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscwilde Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 Do you have two projects open at the same time? Don't do this!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution Trubadurex Posted April 26 Author Solution Share Posted April 26 No - oscwilde - I normally never have more than 1 open project at the time ... Thank you so much David and markno999 for following me up on this! 🙂 Always important to have someone to discuss with, when there is no one else around. And you were right - it was most likely some kind of pilot error somewhere in the process. And I think I was fooled by the plu-ins going on and off by them self according to which project I was doing changes in. I am aware of that now and therefore, will not do that again. But it's strange though, that this is happening. Is that a bug or? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 38 minutes ago, Trubadurex said: But it's strange though, that this is happening. Is that a bug or? Yes, it's a known issue that you will experience unexpected behavior including possible Logic project file corruption when you open two or more projects at the same time in Logic, so it's considered a big no-no (it is still a bit of a mystery why Apple still allows the user to do this considering it's quite dangerous). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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