This single video has has explained to me what I have been worrying about for the last 8 months getting back Into production . Cannot thank you enough.
So blindingly obvious once it's explained! Now to go back and adjust all of my 8-bar masterpieces and hopefully they'll sound nice enough to inspire me to complete the songs!
Someone once asked Ray Charles how he kept his music from clipping when he couldn't see the meters. He said "I use my ears and when I hear clipping I turn the fader down. " I think we could all apply the same principle.
+Matt Rushton If that's true, Matt. That's an awesome story. Yes... using ears and not eyes is one of my core mixing principles. :) Thanks for watching! /ryan
@@RyanHarlin but I bet he was working in the analog domain not in today’s digital world of digital DAWs. I don’t think this is comparing like with like
@@waynevdk1 Well actually this story would apply even more to the digital domain where clipping is more easily heard. And either way, the core principle here is that if it sounds good, it is good. A universal truth.
Yea exactly. On analog mixers back in the 90s n early 2gs, I could hear the distortion n clipping. Then of course you'd hear it when u mix it to a cassette. Wit these digital daws n mixers, I can't hear when it clips. N distort. I can only tell by sight. I would like to learn by my ears tho if possible.
Several years ago I noticed what I thought was clipping in the meters, but I never heard the clipping. I always thought that was strange. Your video just explained why. Thanks for that!!! Thanks for being AWESOME! I just discovered all these videos and learned quite a bit in the last few days. Wow, this is a game changer for me.
OMG, this is probably one of the most simplest yet effective ways to really bring my music recordings up a major notch! Thanks so much for making this video!!
New to Reason. It was actually my last desperate choice...but I love it. The DAW, the RACK, is perfect for my brain. Thanks Ryan for putting this together in 2016 so that many of us coming on board to REASON can benefit from it in 2021. There will be a little bonus in your paycheck!
I was guilty of freaking out over my levels on the mixer. Thank you for clearing this up for me. Now I can relax and get back to making music without fear of creating a wall of noise.
These tutorials are really great. They are really well presented, well explained, and they don't waste time. Thank you and please make more like these! Super helpful!
You are literally the FIRST person I've met that has FINALLY agreed with me on this! In fact, I've had artists turn away from using me to produce their songs because they fight with me on seeing red LED's. Mind you my music sounds 10x better, more clearer than the "Producers" that they end up giving their money too.. I have subscribed, and will finally start pointing out this video to all my nay-sayers I've met over the years of producing music. #MISTA808
Go team Red!! ;) This video has been really useful for me too because people still comment on my other videos about red LEDs they see and now I can just refer them here say "go watch this and then come back and say you're sorry." LOL And you know how I already know your production is good? Because you've already displayed your convictions to trust your ears and instincts instead of book learning and internet myths. Well done and thanks for the subscribe! /ryan
Wow!! Thank you!! I, coming from an analog background, came back to what I love and hit a wall with the digital world of production and engineering. Everything I did sounded so thin. Well had i not tweeked the life out of my works in the mixer channels... outstanding info bro!! Thank you!
This is way more important than you think, sooooo many people get way confused about volume and gain staging the final bounce etc.. this video is great.
Nice tutorial - What isn't mentioned here is the RMS level and using reference material as a good guide to setting "How loud" something should be. At @9.00 - Many ozone presets recommend a certain RMS level at input - usually -12 dB RMS, -3dB peak - which I'm guessing the RE version doesn't show, so ideally you'd have a pre-gain knob just before Ozone, set that to get to the recommended input level , then your Ozone insert (to get the most out of the maximizer without sounding squashed).
the sound of the levels is most important... listen more look less. have good monitors, and a treated room and you can be accurate. which is what you want. LEAVE as MUCH headroom for you mastering engineer... to crunch out the last bit with the nice expensive gear they have... which will make things sound VERY nice :)
This is the finest video on this topic I've watched. I am very guilty of smiting down a mix channel because it sees red. Its something I've always done with DJ'ing, I'll keep my EQ's flat and just boost the volume until it sits neatly in the amber. But this video is essential for folks like me how know how make a tune, but not really know how to improve its sound.
it wasnt a topic for you ryan? what wasnt? explaining mastering in reason for reasoners, cmon man we should be getting more on this!!! ive bneen with you guys since reason 3 and you know damn well audio clips inside reason 15 years ago or more! you should give a complete mastering class share your knowledge for us faithfull reason users. im rebboting my hobby on music!!! lets go reason studios love you guys!!! Ryan keep up the great work!
You might not have envisaged doing this tutorial, but for someone who's been using reason since reason 1, that was very revealing. And sorted out a confusion I'd had between channel strip behaviour and master strip behaviour since the beginning. Thanks!
I was having clipping anxiety just yesterday haha. This video gave me an idea for a refill. Call it "Bit by Bit," a bitcrusher that can go from 1bit to max by increments of single bits. I imagine you could get some versatile clipping out of it.
Thanks for "turning on the lights" for me. I had assumed that this was true when adding output buses because almost always when I output several channels to a new bus, it would end up in the red. I figured what good would that be if it was now clipping (and it didn't sound like it was clipping). But now knowing that all channels are not clipping just because the level is in the red is a HUGE piece of knowledge for mixing moving forward. Great video!
thanks for the info. I pull all of my channels down til I see no red. but now this video has changed that...somewhat. I've learned something new and hopefully my mixes will be better for it.
They should make the LEDs orange at the top if they don't mean you are clipping the audio. Running into the red is for old fashioned analogue gear where you could sometimes clip to taste.
ArthurKnoqOut I am a visual learner as well... but remember you are using your ears to hear the results.. using your eyes while mixing may get you confused
Some plugins is optimized to work optimally at around -18dbfs, especially those which models real hardware, but the beauty of it is that you can DRIVE plugins like a real analog gear and get some very pleasing results! Try it out for your self and you will find out cases when you will get amazing results.
If I hit lotto (or finally get a hit song) I'll pay Propellerhead to have you produce daily videos. You're too good. MC hammer says no one "Can tough this".
Thank you for being entertaining. The main reason I've never bothered watching tutorials is because they're always so boring. It's funny this is the second video I've seen from you, and on the first video I noticed all the clipping, and was like "what the what?".
Well that is just awesome to hear! Any tutorial topics you'd like me to cover in the future? I'm thinking i'll do one on chord progressions and maybe I'll even tackle the subject of mastering. /ryan
Hi Ryan, thanks for getting back to me! I'm starting to experiment in Reason and I'm looking forward to becoming competent with it soon enough. I have 2 (hopefully) quick questions. I understand that the gist is to not worry about clipping and levels until later in the mixing process. However, if the VU Offset meters are not meant for testing for clipping, then what is their purpose? Also. at 5:09 if there is an output of -1db, why is the VU offset meter for Thor showing 8db? I know not to worry about it, but it seems strange. As for ideas, chord progressions (jazz chords would be sweet) and mastering are good. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the difference between mixing and mastering is. From what I understand, mixing makes a song sound coherent while mastering makes the whole album sound coherent from song to song. Perhaps a lesson on some considerations on how to mix a rock song (using real guitars/bass etc.) since most of these tutorials are focused on more electronic genres. Maybe showing off the potential of hocket (aka Klangfarbenmelodie or "tone color melody") arrangements in Reason and how to mix that appropriately could be neat and be a way to use many different synth sounds and finding a way to make them all fit nicely in the mix. Thank you for taking the time to make these tutorials!
I wish I had a great answer for you that I fully understood myself! I'm not entirely sure why the designers of the program made it this way, but I'll break it down for you as best I can. VU Offset means just that... first VU... it's a VU meter which means that it's not responding to every single amplitude value the way a Peak meter would bounce. Instead it responds to a moving average of the signal. This is how older analog meters work because in the analog era, tape was far more forgiving of overloading than digital was so it was more useful to see the averaged volume being shown on a meter's needle than the transient volume. So one could make the same argument for audio inside Reason and therefore it seems the designers chose to represent signals in the channel meters with VU response instead of peak. Now for the second part of the term VU Offset... the offset. This one I really don't understand personally. I'm not sure what the advantage of being able to set a universal offset would be for your channel meters. But that's just kinda how it is. For what it's worth, that offset is actually adjustable in Reason. So if you look in the Rack at the top rack device where the big meter is you'll see a knob for VU offset where you can change the amount of VU offset displayed. So in your example above in my video, if you changed the VU Offset value that 8db Thor signal could be 4db or 12 db depending on where you set the offset knob. But being completely honest, I'm not sure why you'd want to do that either! :) In my years of audio engineering experience I've never wished for that ability but surely someone has and so it's in there. As for your description of mixing and mastering... that's a good way to think about it. I've avoided doing a mastering tutorial because it's a really subtle process and so making a tutorial where the changes are obvious would mean I'm probably overdoing it just for the sake of illustration. But I have some ideas that I'll probably put into a video.
The design of the VU meters in the mixer could be due to them emulating those on an SSL 9000 console. The first model (J) had an analogue VU meter for each channel strip. VU meters traditionally mark the segment above 0 VU in red. The second model (K), the one Reason emulates, had digital meters, but in every photo I can find of them, the LED segments are green and red.
I barely hear at all after years of mixing in the cans/headphones. So it's all good. "What? What's that you said/played" lol Thanks. Great videos. Makes music production fun again like the we all started out and didn't know a fader from an EQ. Thanks bro.
Love these videos! They help a lot! I'm an aspiring music producer and I was wondering if you could do a video on getting that "full sound" in a track. More specifically panning and getting depth to your sound and that sort of stuff... all while giving an artist room in a track. I'm looking for a way to transform from making beats, to making instrumentals. I bet Justen Williams could help out a lot too, after Sallie May Back.
Thank you very much. Im all the way back in reason 6 but I can still produce radio quality songs with it now that ive worked in the same program for almost 11 years. im thinking about upgrading soon to get all the new toys but for now im glad with what I have now. Had the clipping issue and would reduce the volume on all my levels but now i dont have to worry thanks to you. Subbed.
Thankyou so much for this explanation. I'm guilty of leaving my master fader at 0db and having all my channel faders way low down for fear of clipping in the mix bus (a habit from using low quality hardware mixers in the past). Not that my mixes weren't bad, mind - I just gave myself less headroom to work with. I'm gonna try and force myself to mix differently from now on :)
This is a terrific video with a lot of fantastic info. Also, very nicely put together. Thanks Ryan! I just have one critique, at about 8:51 you recommend pulling the Master Fader down while you’re producing and mixing to prevent your audio interface from clipping. I understand what you’re saying, but I think this is a really bad habit to encourage. If instead you set up Reason’s Control Room Out and use this for the level going to your audio interface you’ll have the best of both worlds, you’ll be able to see what’s really happening on your Master Fader meters and stop your audio interface from clipping without reducing your final mix output level. Anyhow, this is obviously a whole other video to explain the Master Section’s inserts position relative to the Master Fader and how it’s the Master Fader level that’s exported to disk. Fun stuff! :-)
+A “me2you1” Yes, I'm going to do a video on this topic. Give me a few weeks to get to it, got some other projects I'm wrapping up right now. Stay tuned :-)
+A “me2you1” Shaw No I didn't, but I should. I've had a few people ask so I guess there's some interest. Thanks for the reminder, I'll put it on my list.
This was a very, VERY good video. Coincidentally (and this isn't a positioning / troll / discussion trigger!), this is the same situation in FL Studio. Brilliant info.
