Mixdown Solutions: CD Mastering
The optimum solution to preparing your mixdown for cd mastering would be to be sure that the channel output levels will not be excessive and that there is not any clipping on the track. Clipping happens when the sound levels being mixed in to the main output bus end in extremely high audio levels, that, in digital audio, merely get truncated off at the zero attentuation point (clipped). The simplest way to make sure that you don’t have this condition is to observe the following suggestions.When you are all set to implement your mix, be certain your stereo system, amplifier, earphones or perhaps pc speaker system, or what ever it is you might make use of to hear your track during the time you mix, is actually turned up entirely. Then, go to your mixing unit and solo out a single channel, for example the bass kick, and pull it’s slider all the way down. Next, go to the slider for the main output bus and make sure it is all the way up to the zero attentuation point. At this point run the song and little by little increase the kick drum track slider till you can hear the part clearly. You won’t need to turn it up very high in order to hear it ok, because you currently have your playback system turned up on 10. Now, one after the other, very carefully add the other tracks and gradually raise their sound level until finally you may hear them all ok. Again, you won’t have to push the sliders upwards very far, because your playback system is on full loudness.When you have got your track mixed implementing the preceding pointers, it will be easy to output your track at a level that will not clip the output channels, and will maintain plenty of headroom. The exact result will certainly be a spotless, punchy master, after the track is sent to our cd mastering studios and our engineers perform their valuable magic.
