Jagged Rocks on the Perimeter

[user151]

Thanks!

This is a demo right now so it's just the framework for the song. The levels in the final mix get brought up to "radio" volume.  In 24 bit digital recording you have to make sure no tracks get hotter than about -6db to leave plenty of headroom for the entire mix as a whole. It took me forever to understand that because I come from the tape-recording era.

In tracking, you should get as close to 0dB as possible without clipping. This is to ensure you're getting as much of the 24-bit resolution as possible. It's admittedly hard to do, since even top musicians don't have precise control of the dynamic range of their instruments. This doesn't affect what the mix engineer has to work with. The mixing environment is a completely different system from the recorder. All he needs is nice, clean tracks. He can start mixing with all of the tracks pulled back. The extra 6dB you're talking about is left by the mixing engineer so the mastering engineer will have some wiggle room. It isn't affected by what you do in tracking either.