Technical Notes
Electronic Music Audio Production Technical Notes.
I will likely recombobulate these pages once I get my internal workflow in Bitwig Studio sorted out - I am still learning how to best manage this process.
Mixdown Optimisation & Gain-staging:
We want to prepare our project for mixing and mastering. Good practice is to leave some headroom on your audio for this process. A good level to work to is 4.0dB of headroom over the loudest transient peaks in your audio. Follow these steps to quick and easily do this in Bitwig Studio v5 and above (normalising is a newer feature).
Save a copy of your project which has live instruments and devices in it. We are going to bounce all the devices and VSTs with MIDI data to audio for mixing.
In my project settings I have set the Behaviour for Defaults and New Audio Tracks to have a level of 0.0dB. I have also set both of the Stretch modes to Repitch.
Select all tracks in the project and, in the inspector, set the Volume slider for all tracks to 0dB.
Work your way through the arranger and select each arrange part in turn and then Bounce these to disc. Bounce in place produces a hybrid track which can contain both audio events and midi events. I prefer to keep these separate and would rather simply Bounce and let Bitwig Studio make a new audio track in the Track Arranger. Right-click on the new audio track and choose Normalise. This sets a track event expression that raises the peak level of the audio inside to 0.0dB. Rather than do any maths I prefer to click the -6dB button followed by two presses of the +1dB button in the Inspector to correct the audio track to a normalised peak of -4.0dB. The actual represented value in the Expressions->Gain will be whatever is needed to achieve this. If you get lost, then you can easily renormalise and -6, +1,+1 again.
Apply names and colours as appropriate to the tracks generated.
Save your work and prepare for some mixing fun!
Project Organisation:
Select related tracks and group them together into folder tracks. Collect folder tracks as needed and nest them as grouped folder tracks. Name everything to keep track of what you are doing. Apply colours as needed. This step is usually mooted as I build my projects as nested groups using the following structure with a final mixdown as my top most level. A possible Arrangement Track structure in Bitwig Studio might look the following:
Mixdown - put mastering compression and final peak limiter here.
= Leads - EQ & compression.
= = Horn Bus - EQ & compression.
= = = Horn 1 - panning and fx sends.
= = = Horn 2 - panning and fx sends.
= = = Tuba - fx sends.
= = Synth Lead - panning and fx sends.
= Drums & Bass - EQ & compression.
= = Bass - fx sends.
= = Drums - EQ & compression.
= = = Loops - panning and fx sends.
= = = Kick - panning and fx sends.
= = = Snare - panning and fx sends.
Panning:
Adjust the panning and levels of your tracks to taste. Michael Stavrou (see name link below) has some great comments on panning.
Dynamics Processing (Audio Compression, Limiting, etc.):
The cumulative effects of compression are multiplicative - not additive. Try not to overuse it and keep in mind what this may do to the final mix.
Mortiz Klein has two excellent videos on making circuits to do this: Simple Compressor and Production-Ready Compressor. I find this helpful to understand exactly what is going on at a basic level in the various Bitwig Studio compressors and VSTs.
Michael Paul Stavrou has some excellent exercises for quickly dialing in the settings on a compressor. His book was first published in 2003 and much has changed with digital audio since that time, and as a result, the parts which deal with recording to analog tape, converting to digital audio and hybrid environments mean less to me as I spend almost all of my time "in the box" and remain in the digital domain. That said, concepts on mixing, EQ, balancing, dynamics processing and most importanly - the psychoacoustics of mixing are incredibly valid. You should get this book if you want to improve your techniques.
As a quick note to self: "Cracking the Compressor Code" is a 4-step process. Follow these steps.
Find the Attack (Start with: Release to min, Ratio to max & Threshold to 75%). Faster = thinner stick. Slower = fatter stick.
Find the Release. Slow enough to fit and emphasise the groove. Feel it.
Find the Ratio. Higher is more controlled and smaller. Lower is bigger and more chaotic.
Find the Threshold. Let it come up for air and not be compressing all the time.
Bitwig Studio has some excellent tools and Compressor+ is a complex, multi-band compressor with character and colour for a wide range of dynamic processing. So far I've kept it set to Vanilla and not played about with the auto-timing and different modes. I am reluctant to do this without knowing what they are doing to the sound - and why I might want to do that.