Bouncing a mix in Logic for mastering?

Hello folks… it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here and was wondering if anyone who does this often might shed a little info on it please?

When they say you should leave enough headroom in a track for the mastering engineer to work their magic… this simply means having the loudest peak at a minus db? for example -3db or something so no clipping occurs and the engineer has “room” to work?

If so, how do you keep a track down so low when mixing without the parts becoming too low to for them to work with, especially in film/TV type music? For example, I have a track I’m working on at the moment which is around -1.6db at it’s loudest peak when I bounce it out and that’s already with having each of the multitracks down low in the mix…

Is it therefore enough for me to just go into the mix and pull the main Stereo Output fader or the Master fader down further few db’s and then export again so my file for mastering has enough headroom for the ME or should this be done on all the individual tracks?

I understand the main output should never have any limiters, compressors etc on it, but individual tracks within the mix should have their various effects applied. But I’m not sure if volume wise what I do is correct?

Also, in Logic Pro X, do you bounce out in Realtime or Offline mode? There’s does seem to be a difference as I did a little test where I bounced both, lined them up together, inverted one and listened to the isolated difference, but I’ve read online that most people choose Offline… probably because it’s quicker, but to me that doesn’t always mean better?

Thanks in advance! :wink:

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Highly recommended:

EDIT: @JayPDC after re-reading your post more deeply I realize it’s about different subject, sorry for that. Nevertheless, the videos I posted will help you a lot while mixing and in achieving a denser and smoother mix ready for mastering. Regarding your question, I think this article from SoundOnSound will clarify things about gain staging.

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Thanks for the updated article! :wink:

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Hello,
There is the peak level and the RMS (Root Mean Square/ Average Level). The peak should never clip the master bus at rendering the song out. Thats all. The Mastering engineer can set the volume he needs him self for mastering.
Actually you just need to do “Gain Staging in Mixing stage”. In ableton I use on every element the Utility device set to minus 18 db. So clipping wont happen :smiley:

Hope I could help you out.

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