Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
The -6dB Rule
Original blog post here -> http://innerportalstudio.com/the-6db-rule/
Been seeing a lot of new producers asking why they should keep their DAW master meters around -6dBFS (or -3dBFS, -4dBFS, etc). While a lot of mastering engineers are the ones asking for mixdowns this way, there seems to be some confusion that this is something that is needed for mastering. In truth, mastering engineers could care less what the headroom of your tracks is, as long as there is some.
The real reason you want to try and keep some headroom in your mix downs is to make sure that you’re not inadvertently clipping. A lot of synths and effects use random modulations, even some dynamics processors are designed to mimic analog processors and thus might have slight variations each time you process audio through them.
By aiming to keep roughly 6dB of headroom on the master channel as you do your mix, you’re just ensuring that some of this randomness doesn’t clip. Just because your mix peaks at exactly -1dBFS one time when you play the song, doesn’t mean it will peak to that same value each and every time. Leaving some headroom just eliminates having to worry about this, it’s a safety net, nothing more.
In a perfect world if you’re 100% sure your mix is not clipping, you can render it as close to 0dBFS as you want. But that doesn’t mean that you’re going to gain anything by doing so, your mix won’t sound better. So there’s really no need to push things that hard and risk clipping your file permanently.
As you can see, I tend to tell people to aim for roughly -6dBFS, but that’s just a personal preference. Some people recommend -3dBFS as well, either will work fine, just be sure you’re also working at 24bit or higher.
So what if your mix is too hot, and you don’t know the best way to fix it? In general I tell people it’s best to get in the habit of leaving the master fader at 0 and just lowering all the tracks by the same amount until you have the headroom you want. But there’s really nothing wrong with just lowering the master fader too, if that works better because you have a lot of track volume automation for instance. Use whatever is easiest for you, the key is just to get that safety in place.
I hope that helps clear some of this up, let me know if you have any questions!
Comments
Thanks for posting this! I don't have a great knowledge of even basic mastering (nor do I really need one, I suppose), but find this very interesting. Plus, when I first got into iOS music, I was just mixing everything by ear to sound loud and powerful - my SoundCloud waves looked basically like a rectangle. Haha.
So, the explanation is interesting and appreciated. After I figured out that there was such a thing as "clipping", I was probably aiming for a lower point anyway, just to be safe and because some meters are hard to read or inaccurate.
@Tarekith - I read your guides a couple of months ago, really helpful. Given your experience, how do you find the results you get working in iOS compare to other mixing environments? Do you have any iOS specific advice on workflow or app combinations that you'd recommend?
I don't find any difference in terms of the end result, though obviously there's ome workflow differences. Personally I use Auria and the Fabfilter IAPs for most of my serious DAW work on the iPad, never once thought it was inferior to my work on the laptop for instance.
Good contribution @Tarekith. Thank you.
@StormJH1 said:
actually it's about mixing. Mastering is another story. But I'm like you, I also don't have great experience there.
What I find surprising is that there is no mention of a limiter. Also no mention of subgroups. If you have automation on your tracks, you simply route them to a subgroup, and lower the level there while leaving the master level at 0.
There's multiple ways to achieve the same thing, I wasn't trying to cover them all, merely the theory behind it.
Thanks Tarekith. I thought you were supposed to set levels at 0.
Wouldn't adding a brickwall limiter on each track and/or a super fast compressor (same thing I know) fix this problem? Also on a diff note, have you messed with Ozone and/or other computer software programs? How do they compare to Auria fabfilter plugins? Thnx!
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Why keep it at only 6db headroom?
Since a couple of years i aim at -18db thanks to this thread:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/463010-reason-most-itb-mixes-donat-sound-good-analog-mixes-restored.html
(just read the first couple of pages only)
Bitwig has the option to display the meters at -20db. Very handy.
If the sound is too quiet there is always the volume knob on your amp.
@gjcyrus said:
Using a limiter or compressor permanently alters the dynamic range of your audio. Not worth it when all you need to do is pull down some faders.
Yes I have used most of the usual software apps for this sort of thing. Fwiw, I use Fabfilters Pro-L every single day in my mastering business, they make awesome plug ins. Ozone is great too, it just encourages people to use more processing than they need IMO.
thnx Tarekith
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@Tarekith said:
That's good to know. I'm still getting used to the iOS way of things but have been surprised by the quality of a great many apps and the relative ease of getting a half-decent mix. I haven't gone down the Auria path yet, I started with Cubasis, but given the number of people on here who seem to rate it it's on the list.
Nothing wrong with Cubasis either
@Tarekith said:
Agreed. I'm impressed with it overall. The fx are simple but with careful use can be effective. I'd like to see them tweak some elements of the user interface, eg the scroll and zoom behaviour. But that's a minor thing when balanced against the cost vs. functions it provides.