EZMIX MASTERING PACKS – SHOULD TRACKS VOLUME BE 0DB OR BELOW?

[Zenmasteril]

Hi,

First, I must mention that I’m a total noob in home recording and of course with all Toontrack stuff I’ve bought (EZDrummer, EZkeys, EZmix).

I’ve recorded the first piece, which came out nice, but when trying to master it using EZMix with both Mastering 1 and Mastering 2 packs,

most of the presets I’ve tried (pretty much all) didn’t sound so good, and were pretty much unusable.  Recording is Ok so that’s not the problem.

Style is hard rock to metal.. Lots of distortions.

Working on my second piece now I’ve realized that in the first one most of the tracks were bigger than 0 db (to even +8db), before i’ve applied EZMix on it.
General question – Is it normal? or should I keep the tracks volume below 0 db (0 maximum)?

And specifically for EZMix mastering packs – Should I keep tracks volume below 0 db, because it automatically adjusts levels by the instruments?

Thanks

EZmix version: 2.1.5
Operating system: Windows 10

Topic

[Scott]

In a digital system, anything above 0 dbfs is poop. A chopped off square waveform. Probably sounding like a mess.

A good range for mixing is -5 to -2 below 0. This will give mastering a chance to make eq and compression improvements.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[onewayout_1]

Zenmasteril wrote:

Hi,

First, I must mention that I’m a total noob in home recording and of course with all Toontrack stuff I’ve bought (EZDrummer, EZkeys, EZmix).

I’ve recorded the first piece, which came out nice, but when trying to master it using EZMix with both Mastering 1 and Mastering 2 packs,

most of the presets I’ve tried (pretty much all) didn’t sound so good, and were pretty much unusable.  Recording is Ok so that’s not the problem.

Style is hard rock to metal.. Lots of distortions.

Working on my second piece now I’ve realized that in the first one most of the tracks were bigger than 0 db (to even +8db), before i’ve applied EZMix on it.
General question – Is it normal? or should I keep the tracks volume below 0 db (0 maximum)?

And specifically for EZMix mastering packs – Should I keep tracks volume below 0 db, because it automatically adjusts levels by the instruments?

Thanks

EZmix version: 2.1.5
Operating system: Windows 10

This might help…. https://youtu.be/p7336oHMAbY

[Zenmasteril]

Thank you very much!
That explains it 🙂

[Author]

Replies