5 Steps To Better Music Production and Recording - Mixing

You need to ensure that all of the songs you record will be playing back at the appropriate volume for the listener. To start with, set your monitor level. The better way to do this is to first listen to a song you are genuinely familiar with. Be sure it is a zero peaking song. Have it at the level it's suppose to be at. An enjoyable listening level. Once youre at this stage, don't change the monitor levels but instead adjust the master track of the song you are working on. It is suppose to sound at a suitable level for listening. Then check the meter levels to make sure they're not on over-load. If it is on over-load then consider placing a limit rather than turning the level down. Make a note of the level setting that's on the monitor. You'll have this in future to refer to.

Try to remember that it is not how high you get the volume to, but the quality of the volume that will make the recording a success. Ideally, it would be to show the level of the instrument that it is meant to go to not beyond it's means. Technology is a wonderful tool but it doesnt beat common sense and instinct.

Remember that you don't need to record at the max volume. Various people will argue then why is it necessary to have a 16 bit dynamic range it you are not going to use it. A come back to that remark would be why bother trying to record the cabasa at exactly 16 bits when its never going to represent more than twelve bits anyways.

Several other issues of not wanting to have the sound cranked up to max is in the event you have to use a favorite. These're not exactly user friendly when having to be utilized at low level. But if you record at logical and practical levels you could avoid extra time consuming concerns such as these.

You can end up with numerous large mixing problems if you are utilizing an analogue mixing desk long with some thing like hi-hat recorded at max, on digital multi-track. If numerous of the items are constantly peaking at 0 then when turned off, you'll still hear them in the background. This's in reference to items like hi-hats, cabasas or cymbals for instance

In this case, you should not be surprised to find every of that electrical leakage being reverb on the hi hat, as just one cause. Items like bass drum and snare drum are meant to be played loudly but not the top kit items or the quiet instruments.

The bottom line is to keep in mind to find the average levels. From there youve a couple of leverage to work with, either up or down as the situation or sound or instrument dictates. At the very end, youre going to end up with a superior piece of recording. After all music is every thing about sound.