What dB should I have my faders on while making a template?

S

S0UNDMACH1NE

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I thought putting all faders on around -6 was fine. I saw a video of another producer much better than I am making a track (I think his name was volzugg). He has around 70 tracks in his amazing mixes, and each one barely gets to -20 dB. When playing simultaneously however, his records sound perfectly loud and clear.

I'm not looking for the deep mechanics and knowledge of this stuff, I can find that in the stickies. I would like some input on general guidelines concerning headroom and achieving that dynamic range sound. What should I aim for (dBs) for individual tracks to get the most control over sound?
 
The best thing to do is trim from the sound source, because you have to understand signal flow.
The chain starts from the source (VSTi, sample etc.) feeds into the the mixers fx slots, then to the channels fader and pan, then to master bus.

If you just turn down the fader, you can still clip in the instrument internally and in your plugins.

So to get the cleanest signal flow in FL, I turn down all the knobs on the channel rack by 12db and leave my mixer faders at zero. (In other daws, trim the instrument master levels, or with sound files the waveform event.). Then if I need a little bit more headroom, I'll bring the faders down (usually only by 1-2db).

The second reason why this is the smartest method of doing this is because fader values are logarithmic, meaning that the value differences increase more with smaller fader movements as you bring the fader down - in otherwords its much harder to go from -30db to -30.1db versus 0db to -.1db. I use motorized faders so I want my faders to hover close to zero so I can have the highest precision.

Gainstaging is everything.

PS: The reason why his stuff still sounded loud was because he had a limiter on the master channel, and fader levels in the digital domain have nothing to do with punchy-ness or tonal fidelity as long as you're not clipping anywhere in your signal chain.
 
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a further point about -20dBfs this is roughly 0VU or 100% modulation; i.e. -20dBfs is what you should have as your ideal average level for every track not -6dBfs as some would have it - so yes his mixes will sound clear because they are, but punchiness has nothing to do with levels whether digital or analogue, but to do with "correct" use of compressors and limiters (less is more in most cases)
 
mycbeats said:
The best thing to do is trim from the sound source, because you have to understand signal flow.
The chain starts from the source (VSTi, sample etc.) feeds into the the mixers fx slots, then to the channels fader and pan, then to master bus.

If you just turn down the fader, you can still clip in the instrument internally and in your plugins.

So to get the cleanest signal flow in FL, I turn down all the knobs on the channel rack by 12db and leave my mixer faders at zero. (In other daws, trim the instrument master levels, or with sound files the waveform event.). Then if I need a little bit more headroom, I'll bring the faders down (usually only by 1-2db).

The second reason why this is the smartest method of doing this is because fader values are logarithmic, meaning that the value differences increase more with smaller fader movements as you bring the fader down - in otherwords its much harder to go from -30db to -30.1db versus 0db to -.1db. I use motorized faders so I want my faders to hover close to zero so I can have the highest precision.

Gainstaging is everything.

PS: The reason why his stuff still sounded loud was because he had a limiter on the master channel, and fader levels in the digital domain have nothing to do with punchy-ness or tonal fidelity as long as you're not clipping anywhere in your signal chain.
Click to expand...

I see, so basically lower the power of the signal from the source rather than focusing on fader levels. Is that the right idea?

Also, I checked out your soundcloud just to see if I should listen to your advice. Good work, is all I can say :)
 
bandcoach said:
a further point about -20dBfs this is roughly 0VU or 100% modulation; i.e. -20dBfs is what you should have as your ideal average level for every track not -6dBfs as some would have it - so yes his mixes will sound clear because they are, but punchiness has nothing to do with levels whether digital or analogue, but to do with "correct" use of compressors and limiters (less is more in most cases)
Click to expand...

So I should fade it down as much as it takes to keep sounds at -20?
 
no, use your gain structure, as mycbeats advised, to achieve that level with your faders at a nominal 0dB gain point on the throw
 
bandcoach said:
no, use your gain structure, as mycbeats advised, to achieve that level with your faders at a nominal 0dB gain point on the throw
Click to expand...

Ok, so basically the faders should be at 0, and gain should be managed from the source (at least until mastering)?
 
again not what was said

gain structure should be set before the instruments get to the channel strips

once in the channel strips you can adjust levels (channel faders) as needs to balance the levels across all aspects of the mix
 
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