Rendering a track - Beginner

mada999

Hi folks,

The band have recorded a tune ourselves (drums in a rehearsal space, and then the other tracks vocals, bass and guitars at home), when i'm rendering it it looks like it is peaking the wave form (i've attached a pic)... is this ok or should it be lower to the middle of the wave ? I'm a guitarist in the band and beginner at recording. The master track slider is very low and i've had to volumize some of the bass tracks (and slide their volume to max) to hear the bass in the mix..

thanks lads..

i57dwun4yb1pt8

i would say if you are peaking in the red ,
and your master fader is below 0 then you are recording or mixing each track too hot

mixing - try to PEAK at these levels as a guide where 0 = top of scale

snare = -14
kick -15
toms -14
oheads -18
hats -28

overall drums group = -12
bass -18

guitars group- 18

vocals - 16




if you recorded to hot , then put a trim or volume plugin on each track and pull them down to hit the levels above

overall master track to peak around -12 with RMS at - 20
eq the master slightly to tweak and glue it


then you need to master it up to peak -0.2 / rms approx - 12
- using a good limiter

but these are very rough guides .


if tracking - its best to PEAK around -18 to -16 on each track you record
particulary for beginners - you can make up the volume with the limter later

just turn your monitors up to hear it for the moment


dont forget you need to high pass most things bar kick and bass - from approx 150 to 200 hz up
and pull down the mud area a bit on snare , kick , toms , guitars, around 350 / 400 hz as a start .



then render using extreme in reaper to 44.1 / 16 wav or mp3

mada999

nice one DaDumTish, a lot of great info there to digest!! thanks

mada999

DaDumTish wrote: »

i would say if you are peaking in the red ,
and your master fader is below 0 then you are recording or mixing each track too hot

mixing - try to PEAK at these levels as a guide where 0 = top of scale

snare = -14
kick -15
toms -14
oheads -18
hats -28

overall drums group = -12
bass -18

guitars group- 18

vocals - 16




if you recorded to hot , then put a trim or volume plugin on each track and pull them down to hit the levels above

overall master track to peak around -12 with RMS at - 20
eq the master slightly to tweak and glue it


then you need to master it up to peak -0.2 / rms approx - 12
- using a good limiter

but these are very rough guides .


if tracking - its best to PEAK around -18 to -16 on each track you record
particulary for beginners - you can make up the volume with the limter later

just turn your monitors up to hear it for the moment


dont forget you need to high pass most things bar kick and bass - from approx 150 to 200 hz up
and pull down the mud area a bit on snare , kick , toms , guitars, around 350 / 400 hz as a start .



then render using extreme in reaper to 44.1 / 16 wav or mp3

hi again,

what are good high pass and low pass filters are out there

i stumbled upon this site that has high pass filters but not sure what one to use

http://freemusicsoftware.org/category/free-vst-effects-2/filter

anyone got any recommendations ?

thanks,

Adyx

mada999 wrote: »

hi again,

what are good high pass and low pass filters are out there

i stumbled upon this site that has high pass filters but not sure what one to use

http://freemusicsoftware.org/category/free-vst-effects-2/filter

anyone got any recommendations ?

thanks,

ReaEQ included in Reaper is fine.

mada999

Adyx wrote: »

ReaEQ included in Reaper is fine.

cheers!