FXpansion BFD Premium Acoustic Drum Module Mixing with BFD - Manual (Page 18)

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Mixing with BFD www.fxpansion.com
• Mixing into the headroom of the system
On a digital system, it’s very easy to make the mistake of running each channel peaking
at close to 0 dB. This may have been sensible in the past, when 16-bit DACs were quite
noisy when driven at less than their maximum resolution. However, in today’s pristine 4-
bit world this is no longer an issue in real terms, with even cheap converters being pretty
decent in comparison to the early days of digital home recording.
When mixing drums (or anything else for that matter) in the digital domain, it’s a good
idea to mix into the headroom of the system. In other words, to keep all individual
channel gains at sensible levels, peaking between -1 to -15 dB. This means that when
you sum a lot of channels together you will still have enough headroom on the master
outputs. Pulling your host mixer’s master fader down to compensate for excessive levels
of individual channels can often destroy the sound of a mix. It’s better to mix into the
headroom provided by the system - in this way you use the summing engine as intended,
and you will achieve the optimum sound quality. Your mixes will be cleaner and more
punchy. Slapping a limiter across the master outputs is NOT the solution!
Running your individual channels at sensible levels also means that any EQ and other
processing that is applied will be less likely to clip the channel.
A further advantage of using sensible levels is that you can keep the channels’ level
faders close to the 0 dB mark, where the highest fader resolution exists. This gives you
the finest control over final adjustment of levels when mixing. If you have tracks that have
been recorded at very high levels, (or plugin instruments which operate at high levels), it’s
a good idea to put a Trim plugin across the channel to reduce the levels to peak at around
-1 dB while the channel’s level fader is at the 0 dB mark.
3:7. The mixing environment
It’s important to monitor at volumes that are neither too loud or too quiet. At very quiet
volumes, the human ear does not respond optimally to bass and treble. Therefore, there
will be a danger of you over-compensating for this effect in your mix. Incidentally, this is
the same reason for the existence of the ‘loudness’ button on consumer hi-fi equipment.
If the monitoring system is too loud, there is a very real chance of permanent hearing
damage in the long term. Also, your speakers may not be able to handle such loud
volumes while preserving a flat frequency response, and they may clip or distort.
A level of around 90 dB is a good level to stick to, as this is the level at which the human
ear starts to respond to audio with a relatively flat frequency response. However, it’s good
to periodically check your mix at very quiet and very loud volumes, to make sure that it
still works when played at different volume levels.