Definitely wouldn't hurt to add a compressor to control your peaks but also raise the average volume. So when you're turning down the drums to where they peak at -16dB, your perceived loudness might be as low as -35dB or less. Drums are short, sweet, and to the point, and I believe that the meters in Mixcraft show the peak volume, not an average. I mean honestly, Myran pretty much covered everything here. And it seems to all work out fine in the end, especially after I use a matersing plugin like Ozone.īut I still have to wonder why the drums get lost if I try to keep it at -16, when every other instrument comes out clear and distinct. So maybe I should just carry on and not look. OK - this is the part where I hear the voice in my head with yet another tip - "mix with your ears, not your eyes". What this does is the overall drum track (not the individuals) push up well higher than -10db, and then master track gets there as well. I adjust the gain for each microphone in the EZ Mixer as it plays in Mixcraft, but in order for them not to get lost, the drums need to be up quite a bit. I don't know why, but if I keep the level at that -16 or so, I really can't hear it very well. OK - this all makes sense and has worked great EXCEPT for EZ Drummer. Then I add the effects and again try to keep the levels all fairly consistent in the suggested range. Of course there are spikes (be pretty boring otherwise) but the idea I think is make sure those spikes don't go in the red. So what I've done based on a suggestion is trying to keep all the tracks around -16dB (again, I realize there is no magic to any suggestion - but this has always set things up well.) The other is keeping the master track around -10dB.
I used to put a Blue Cat gain plugin on most of my tracks, but it's even easier with the pre-effects gaon knob on the mixer. While I realize that hard and fast rules, or even rules of thumb, are not to be taken too seriously, I've had good results with one that I've used - I guess part of gain staging.