I have been noticing lately that I have been trying all sorts of weird ways of butchering my mix in order to get the master loud ENOUGH. Using ozone, and I know some professionals do, but I really can't push it loud enough without distorting and making a lot of random pops and clicks.
Something I have been noticing lately, is that the main peaks in a tune are when the snares hit while the sub is playing. Everything is eq'd fine and they are clear out of the way eachother, but sometimes I have been sidechaining even just a little of the sub to the snare. Is this a valid technique? Am I the only one with this problem and do others do this? Or am I just terrible at flattening out the sound until it's wicked loud.
Thx for any help
See I've been meaning to talk about this as its something I had a lot of trouble with when i first began making tunes.
So first let me address what you have said and then ill move into my own techniques in mixing down. Be prepared for a ramble...lol
Sidechaining your sub to the snare imo doesn't seem like a correct thing to do (it could work in some tunes) but unless your doing it cause you have a weighty snare in the low end then I don't really see the point it cutting the sub out for headroom?
The way in which I work personally, is a confusing way. However, it does get me the results i'm after and I've tried MANY different techniques to achieve my own way. (which is completely different to the way the other guys in my group produce)
So if you're an FL user this is going to be a lot more helpful to you, but I think you could easily apply the same techniques to any daw. Some act differently to others so maybe my technique won't work for it, just compensate from the idea behind this to implement it into your daw.
So the first thing I did, as FL is generally a quite sounding program, was to establish how loud things can go in relation to FL and my PC.
To get some basic figures I took a song I respected and stuck it in FL. I took my PC volume and started raising it until the song just started to distort, this was roughly at the 80% mark. I then played that same song in the vlc and done the same thing with the PC volume and found that the distorting place had changed to 50% volume. So with that in mind I deduced that FL was lacking in the volume department so now each time I make a track in FL I have my PC volume up to 80% and all the elements in the track I push until they start to distort, apart from my sub bass and drums, I turn them down slightly less compared to the other elements. The drums go lower than the sub bass for me. Obviously this shit changes as you do each tune so compensate etc
At this point once im happy with the track and have got it to a place I like, I will export.
Also I need to mention, on my FL master, I have a paramatic eq cutting the highs and lows (in paramatic eq2 there is a preset cut of low end and highs) I also have Camel Phat on a default setting and an anylser...in that order.
Now depending on how its sounding I will either leave the master where it is and export or raise/lower it accordingly. It's at this point ide take the track and stick it in Soundforge or Wavelab and use a Waves L2 limiter and simply lower the input until it starts to distort. It's usually just below the lowest peak of the main drop. The trick here is when going from FL to Wavelab you must go from 80% PC volume back down to 50%.
Now this is the point where you will have to use your ears and its a case of whatever isn't as loud as another element....go back into FL and up the channel you think is too quiet in the mix export and repeat until your mix starts sounding good. Don't ask me why but FL doesn't do the same thing with L2 on the master in the DAW. It's as if FL has its own built in limiting which doesn't allow you to push it as much.....
If you've done things right then you should manage to be pushing the mix to a professional (ish) level. If not, then you have gone wrong in your mixing down process in FL before the export.
In essence what ive done here is just made a song sounding its loudest (as if its being limited) in FL so that when I export and do go to push it. Everything will all be levelled correctly as I've technically been mixing it this whole time at its fullest sounding (i can still turn my headphones down outside of the pc so I dont blow my ears though lol) The main thing here is to get you in the habit of learning how to mix a track from the beginning and getting it all levelled before limiting, as it will then bring everything together. If it's done right...You still need to use your ears and judge snare levels etc..
But as a bonus to doing it this way, that export you have made after FL (before L2'ing it) is ready for a professional to go ahead and master it, as long as you've not compressed the shit out of it on the master or done any unnecessary processing on the track as a whole IN FL's master if you keep it simple a professional or even yourself can push the track as much as you want and add your ozones or maximisers whatever technique you got.... do them at this stage....
Hope this helps at least one person!
If anything is incoherent or you don't understand a part of it feel free to ask questions i'll be happy to answer you. OR even if you have something to add or pick a flaw in what im doing then please speak up! I'd love to hear from you as im 100% sure this isn't the be all and end all in mixing down (in FL). As I said the other guys in my group get similar, sometimes better sounding results doing their own thing...so its not gospel what I've written here.....
Safe!