Mixing With Levels
Jump to Peak, LUFS, Stereo Field, Loudness Range, Dynamic Range, Bass Space, Presets, Settings.
Overview
The home display has six sections labeled PEAK, STEREO FIELD, LUFS, LRA, DYNAMIC RANGE and BASS SPACE.
LEVELS assesses your audio as it passes through. If there are no issues with your mix, the sections will glow green. If there is an aspect of your mix that needs to be fixed, the section will glow red.
The six section icons are clickable and open up a new dedicated central display. These dedicated displays give you a relevant insight into the technical details of your mix. If an issue has been resolved you can reset the section from red back to green by clicking the section icon.
You can navigate back to this home display by clicking LEVELS in the top left corner. You can reset all six sections back to green simultaneously by clicking ‘RESET’ in the top right corner, or by navigating back to zero in the transport of your DAW.
Mono, Left, Right, Mid, Side
Mono
The MONO button sums your dual stereo signal into one single output. This summing process can cause dramatic changes to your master. Many listeners will experience your music in mono when they are in clubs or bars. When auditioning your master in mono it is advisable to listen through one monitor. This is because the low end can feel 'hyped' when listening in mono through two monitors. Select MONO and then either the [R] or [L] [right or left] buttons to limit the output to either the right or left monitor respectively.
Mid
The Mid button [M] isolates the center of your stereo image. When listening exclusively to the Mid channel you might decide to make specific EQ changes to bring out individual elements in the master. You can use a mid-side EQ to make precise changes to the tonal balance of your stereo field.
Side
The Side button [S] isolates the edges of your stereo image. This can highlight if elements in your mix are sounding too harsh. It can also reveal if you have low frequencies placed too wide in your master.
PEAK
The central display has a peak meter which gives you a reading of how close your track is to 0dBFS [decibels full scale]. Each bar represents 1dB [decibel] and the central threshold is set at -3dB for all mixing presets. When mixing, the goal is to keep the peak of your audio under at least -3dB and in the lower green half. If your audio breaches the threshold of -3dB the meter will start moving into the upper red half and it will turn the PEAK icon red, as seen in the image above.
Why Is The Threshold -3dB For Mixing presets?
You want your track to peak no higher than -3dB to give the mastering engineer plenty of headroom to apply appropriate compression and EQ enhancements. You can change the threshold at which the bars start going into the red in the settings (cog wheel icon top right corner). You can also switch from dBFS to dBTP (decibels true peak) in the settings. You can reset the section from red back to green by clicking on the readout or by clicking on the PEAK icon.
How Can I Give Myself More Headroom?
If the peak level of your mix breaches the threshold of -3dB, then you need to lower the overall level to give yourself more headroom.
There are a number of ways to do this. My personal favorite is to select all the channels in your session and lower them simultaneously. By keeping the faders relative to each other, you won't change the balance of your mix. Remember to keep the output and master fader at 0dB. Note that this method is only possible if you have no volume automation.
Mix Peaking at 0.4dB on the output. There is NO headroom and there is digital distortion.
Mix peaking at -6.2dB on the output. Ideal amount of headroom
Another way to do this is simply loading a gain plugin on your output channel (before LEVELS) and lower the gain until your mix peaks at -6dB.
The LUFS Meters
The LUFS [loudness units relative to full scale] measurement scale was standardized in 2011 and is incredibly accurate in displaying the perceived loudness of audio material. It’s an extremely useful insight to have whilst mixing and mastering. Navigate to these LUFS meters by clicking the LUFS icon. There is a short-term LUFS meter on the left (Short) and an integrated LUFS meter on the right (Int). Similarly to the peak meter, each bar represents 1 unit. The mixing presets have various loudness targets. They range from a maximum of -12 to -16 LUFS. These aren’t necessarily targets, more like thresholds that if breached could have a negative effect on your music.
The short-term meter will display the LUFS measurement over the last three seconds. The integrated meter shows the accumulating LUFS level of your track. You can reset the meters by clicking on the readouts, the LUFS icon or the reset button. You can create your own settings using your plugin wrapper to suit your needs. If your material breaches your set LUFS thresholds, the LUFS icon will turn red.
STEREO FIELD
The vectorscope displays your audios placement in the stereo field. When the image is spread out across the circle, your mix is wide. When the image is simply one thin line down the middle, your mix is mono.
The L-R [Left Right] meter at the bottom of the central display area shows how even the left and right outputs are. If the pointer is central, then your music is evenly balanced between the two speakers. If you have an unbalanced output the pointer will hover either too far left or right and will glow red, this will also turn the STEREO FIELD icon red.
The correlation meter on the left side of the circle shows the degree of similarity between the left and right channels. A reading near +1 indicates a well-balanced mix. If the pointer hovers passed the central point towards -1 it indicates that the mix has phase issues. This can cause the mix to fall apart when played back in mono. A breach of the stereo correlation threshold will also cause the STEREO FIELD icon to turn red.How To Fix Issues Shown By The Left/Right Meter
If the L-R meter pointer starts moving too far left or right from the middle, it will glow red. This informs you that the output of your mix is too unbalanced. You need to balance the stereo field evenly to have a solid mix that translates well in all environments.
Have a look at the core elements of your track and make sure the panning isn't dominating one side over the other. Try using a stereo placement plugin to place the low frequencies of your kick and bass in mono.
How To Fix Issues Shown By The Correlation Meter
When the correlation meter heads down towards -1 this shows that the left and right channels are producing opposite audio signals. This can lead to phase cancellation meaning that your mix might sound thin and won't translate well when played back in mono. Use the MONO button to regularly check your tracks mono compatibility.
A good way to reduce phase issues whilst recording is to use the 3:1 rule. Place the second mic three times the distance from the first mic that the first mic is from the source. So, if your first mic is 10 cm for the source of the audio, the second mic should 30cm away from the first mic. If you're at the mixing stage and can't re-record you can try a phase alignment tool. Alternatively, you can try just nudging the audio a few milliseconds forward or back. Even a small adjustment might have incredibly positive effects on the phase of your mix. Do this whilst listening in mono through one speaker and listen for the sweet spot where the audio stops phasing.
What causes phase issues?
Phase issues can creep into your mix when recording audio using two or more microphones. In a nutshell, this is because the ‘nearly identical’ audio signals induce comb filtering. This makes the sound weak and thin rather rich and full. Phase issues can also be introduced by certain synth patches and the built-in effects within synths. Different elements of your mix that have overlapping frequencies can also introduce subtle phasing issues.
LOW PASS
The FILTER in the Stereo Field section allows you to isolate certain frequencies in the mix to view their stereo placement. This is useful to see which frequencies are placed more centrally in the mix and which frequencies are placed wider.
Having low frequencies placed very wide in your mix can have negative effects on your mix. Wide bass frequencies might suffer from phase cancellation when played in mono, making your mix sound weak. Bass also takes up a lot of space, so by keeping it mostly mono, you can utilize the rest of the stereo spectrum for other elements in your mix. When you engage the FILTER (by clicking the ‘FILTER’ button), and you set the high-cut to 250Hz or less, you can see the low frequencies that are too wide glowing yellow and red in the vectorscope. The goal is to keep the low frequencies in the more central green area. This will lead to a more powerful and balanced mix. If you have wide low frequencies, you could try using a stereo placement plugin to place the low frequencies of your kick and bass in mono.
DYNAMIC RANGE
The oscilloscope in the central display circle will react to the audio material passing through LEVELS. The visuals will immediately show you how dynamic your music is. If your music has a dynamic range above the set threshold, the oscilloscope will glow green. If your music approaches the threshold it will begin to turn orange. If your music breaches the threshold, the oscilloscope will turn red.
LEVELS creates a ratio of the ‘short-term LUFS’ to ‘peak level’ of your track and gives you a DR [Dynamic Range] reading. The lower the number, the less dynamic range your track has. The dynamic range is not relative to the loudness of your music, so if your music is over compressed the oscilloscope will turn red regardless of how quiet the track might be.
A small dynamic range can come about from over compression and limiting. This can suck the life out of your music. It can also reduce the clarity and punch of the transients in your music. So to get a great final mix, you'll need to make sure that the dynamic range is on point.
To get a more dynamic mix, look at the compressors and limiters in your session and make sure they aren't working too hard. I usually don't compress any material with a ratio exceeding 4:1. If things sound too quiet in parts of your mix, automate to get your levels and then apply lighter compression. Mastering can lower the dynamic range of your track so it's better for your mix to be over dynamic than not dynamic enough.
Loudness Range
Loudness Range [Measured in LU (loudness Units)] will tell you the statistical measure of loudness variation of your entire track. This long-term reading will give you an idea of the difference in volume between the verse, chorus and other sections of your track. If your track has a loudness range of less than 3LU for more than 30 seconds than the section icon will turn red.
If there is a big difference in loudness between the various sections of your track then your loudness range will be a higher number.
If the loudness of the various sections in your track are very similar or equal, the loudness range will be smaller.
A loudness range between 6 LU to 12 LU shows that a track has a considerable difference in loudness between the various sections.
Tracks with a loudness range below 4 LU could be considered rather static in loudness.
As a general rule, I would recommend aiming for a Loudness Range above 5 LU if you wanted to create a track with tension, release and an epic chorus that explodes out of the verse. But this suggestion can be taken with a pinch of salt! If you’re aiming to create a track with a consistent energy throughout then, of course, you would end up with a lower loudness range.
Loudness Range isn’t like true peaks where most people can agree that clipping doesn’t sound good. Loudness range is subjective and totally depends on the material you’re working on.
Understanding what loudness range means can help you achieve your musical goals. For example, if you felt your chorus didn’t give the track enough of a lift, and your loudness range was a low reading, that might encourage you to add some automation to create a more dramatic dynamic difference. On the other hand, if you were looking to create a track with a relentless drive, or any other constant vibe, but your loudness range was over 5 LU, you might have missed the mark.
I’ve taken the average loudness range readings from various genres to give you an idea of what you might want to shoot for in your own productions.
|
Genre |
Average Loudness Range |
|
Pop |
6.4 LU |
|
EDM |
5.9 LU |
|
Rock |
5.6 LU |
|
Country |
7.6 LU |
|
Hip Hop |
4.0 LU |
|
R&B |
5.5 LU |
|
House |
5.3 LU |
|
Electronic |
7.2 LU |
|
Ballad |
9.9 LU |
BASS SPACE
BASS SPACE identifies if any channels within your mix are outputting unwanted low frequencies. You will only be able to use Bass Space on a stem master (music bounced into groups with kick and bass separated), not on a stereo master (just one audio file).
For your kick and bass elements to sound powerful and clear, they need as much space as possible. To use BASS SPACE first mute your kick and bass elements within your DAW. The frequency bars in the central display area will give you a reading at 40Hz, 80Hz 120Hz and 160Hz. They will jump into the upper red half of the circle if there is too much low-end energy. If this is the case you need to identify which channels are outputting the excess low frequencies. Mute the individual channels one at a time until the bars drop into the green to find the culprit and then use a high pass filter to clean up this excess low-end rumble to maximise the clarity and power of your track. Be careful to not remove the material you actually want to hear in your mix.
PRESETS
The presets are located in the bottom left corner of LEVELS. Click on the text to open the drawer, and select the preset that best suits the needs of the track you’re working on.
Creating more than one master
It is customary to create one final master and use it in all scenarios. However, given that music is consumed in many different ways, it’s more appropriate to create a few variations to best suit the distribution mediums you will be using. This might sound like a lot of extra work, but in reality, the minor tweaks might take an extra 10 minutes. When you’ve spent so long on the songwriting and production, this final step is the icing on the cake to a job well done.
Apple Music -
Apple transcodes the lossless file given to them to AAC (advanced audio codec) at 256kbps. They then stream this file through Apple Music. During this transcoding process, the peak of the audio will almost always increase. For the best result, bounce your audio at 24 bits with a maximum peak of -1dbTP (decibels true peak).
CD -
If you’re going to be pressing your master to CD this is the preset for you. CDs are not subjected to any normalization so you could push the loudness a bit further than streaming playback scenarios. I would recommend not breaching a threshold of -9 LUFS and -6DR as this is the point at which the audio can start to sound distorted and lifeless. A good setting would be from -9 to -13 LUFS with the dynamic range reading on LEVELS not exceeding 8DR.
Club -
This preset is get your track sounding great when played back through large sound systems. The louder club tracks sit around -4 to -6 ST LUFS during the drops. I master club tracks to about -6 to -8 ST LUFS for my clients and they work perfectly in their mixes. They might not be quite as loud as other tracks in their genre but they have superior dynamics & transients which make them hit harder and sound punchier.
Composer -
Composing covers a very broad spectrum of sounds and textures. For this reason, the dynamic range and stereo field sections are very forgiving. This is the ideal setting for composing for adverts, TV, film, and games.
MFiT -
The iTunes Store converts audio to AAC (Advanced Audio Coding). For the best result, bounce your audio at 24 bits with a maximum peak of -1dbTP (decibels true peak). You can use the free AAC Roundtrip plugin to preview your audio as AAC. -9 to -13 LUFS would be a good target for the iTunes Store (even though they don’t normalize music before it’s purchased).
Soundcloud -
Soundcloud has over 175 million users. Most artists utilize the Soundcloud platform to present their audio to their fans free of charge. Soundcloud streams audio in MP3 format at 128 kbps (I hope they change this soon as 128 kbps is extremely poor quality…) You’re able to upload a high quality 24 bit Wav file to Soundcloud but it is transcoded to MP3 to make streaming faster for its users. I would recommend mastering your track to -0.5dbTP for Soundcloud to minimize the artifacts that WILL happen when your track gets transcoded to MP3. Regarding loudness, A good setting would be from -9 to -13 LUFS with the dynamic range reading on LEVELS not exceeding 8DR.
Spotify -
With over 100 million people using Spotify, it’s crucial to make sure your music is heard in its best light. Consider this, the loudest your music will ever be heard on Spotify is about -14 LUFS. So why submit a CD master or Club Master measuring -9LUFS when it’s just going to be turned down. It’s better to make good use of the opportunity to provide a more dynamic master. Lay off the limiter and go for a setting of around -13 to -15 LUFS with the dynamic range reading on LEVELS not exceeding 5DR and a true peak of -1dbTP (as recommended by Spotify here).
If you do decide to go for a LUFS reading louder than -14 LUFS, then Spotify recommends lowering your true peak to -2dBTP.
Youtube -
Youtube is still one of the main places people discover and enjoy the music they love. Youtube normalizes music to around -14 LUFS so the ideal settings for your YouTube master would be -13 to -15 LUFS with the dynamic range reading on LEVELS not exceeding 9DR and with a safe true peak of -1dbTP.
Crazy Loud -
This is the preset for people who want to keep an eye on their levels but are shooting for ‘as loud as possible’. This preset will only trigger sections to turn red when the audio under extreme circumstances.
SETTINGS
To access the settings, click the cog icon in the top right corner.
You can adjust these sliders and save your own presets using the plugin wrapper. For example, if you want your track to peak at -6dB rather than the default -3dB, simply change the ‘Peak Threshold’ box to -6.0 or use the slider Or, if you have a large amount of panning and want the Stereo Balance (L & R meter) to be more forgiving, simply increase the value from 0.3 to something more forgiving like 0.6.
Compact View
Click the icon in the top right corner to switch to compact view. Click again to return to normal view. You can also click on any of the icons to open that specific section in normal view from compact mode.
TOOL TIPS
You can enable or disable tooltips from settings.
When you hover your mouse over the icon, the tooltip display will pop up. This shows you your current reading along with the threshold of the selected preset.
If you’ve breached the threshold, the tooltip will give you mixing advice on how to correct the issue.
The tooltip hover feature is also available in compact view.
Why We Created LEVELS
At Mastering The Mix, producers were constantly sending me mixes with the same reoccurring technical issues. I was repeating myself during phone conversations with new and existing clients about how to get a technically excellent final mix. This information isn't some kind of secret sauce that I only give to my paying customers. It’s a simple yet crucial checklist that many people overlook in the final stages of their mix. The majority of these people weren’t using metering plugins because they are difficult to understand and can smother creativity. It seemed to me there was a vacuum in the market for a producer-friendly plugin that had all the tools to get a great final mix and master.
Software developer 29 Palms joined Mastering The Mix and we developed our concept for a revolutionary metering plugin that would be incredibly easy to read and understand. The visuals on LEVELS are engaging and informative without being intimidating. The plugin will only draw your attention to elements that need fixing, which makes the user experience completely unique. Our goal was to make assessing technical information as painless and enjoyable as possible.
A piece of software will never replace an audio engineer as a great pair of ears are irreplaceable. LEVELS will empower producers and songwriters of all standards to accurately assess the technical details of their mix, helping them to make more informed mixing decisions. Finally, an effective, efficient, intuitive, engaging, and accurate metering plugin!
