Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to see a trick used to have a visual reference to improve how the low end in our mix will translate from our DAW to any other source.
Let's start by saying that we're going to need a VU meter, a metering plugin that recreates the one of an analog mixer (or a real analog one), and by specifying that 0db in the VU meter equals to -18db in the fader of our DAW.
Now that we have clear this concept, let's get to business:
The idea is to get right the balance between the kick and the bass, and then to balance all the rest of the mix around these 2 elements.
Let's start by loading the VU meter in the Stereo Buss and by setting at zero the kick and bass faders. The first thing to do is to play the kick track (or group of tracks) and raise the gain until it peaks at -3db on the VU meter.
Now it's time to bring in the Bass: let's raise the gain until the peak of Bass and Kick combined reaches 0db in the VU meter (when they play together).
Why 3db of difference? Because if you would duplicate the kick track and play the 2 kick tracks together there would be a 3db in volume increase. By making sure the bass adds 3db to the total, means that the bass is equal in volume to the kick, balanced, and that if we mix the rest of the instruments around this equilibrium there's a good chance that our mix will translate better in the real world.
Once the 2 tracks are connected, you can raise and lower them in volume together to fit them in the mix but try to keep the same proportion, so that the equilibrium remains stable.
I hope this was helpful!
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