I'm so noob

[ac]

Can someone please define the term "mixdown"?

 

[Nutek]

basically it's getting all the levels correct so the tune sound's clean

 

[ac]

So no clipping?

 

[Sammy Dexcell]

spot on, dont need any more explainin than that really!


clipping is ok to some extent as long as it doesnt sound shit. use your ears, as silly as that sounds its tru. if ur bass clips but still doesnt sounds distorted then leave it just make sure the drums arent affected by it. i tend to leave a gap of about 2 db so that after the mixx is done, u can push it an it wont sound shit. they call this headroom or headway i dunno?!?! either way get all the drums an fx an bass sittin right an the mixdown is done.

 

[subprime]

Um, I'm new too but the way I heard it, if you're working with digital, clipping is shite. No Clipping. Clipping just chops off some of your perfectly crafted sound. Try and get the level of each track as high as you need but don't push it too far. Bring other tracks down if need be. Keep it all clean now and you can amplify the crap out of it later with a good system. Once you've mixed down, no frequencies should be spiking way above the others, so you can boost the whole signal evenly. If I'm misinformed let me know cos I'm learning too.

 

[naw_dj]

likes subprime says, clipping in digital is badd, in analogic you can clip a bit because the little compression
but in digital you need to put the masster at 0db
you can comprime more the sound of each channel. if you want that the master listens in hight volume,
if you keep an space, in the master vumeter, to 0 db (this is "headroom") you can increase this level after to rise up the master volume more.
but you miss Dynamic range so you need to be cautious with the compression to keep the good sound.

 

[logikz]

mixdown is often confused with mastering. theyre two very different things.
mastering is what you do with the finished song in wave format,
mixdown is the levels of all the individual channels, so dynamics and equalization and whatnot.