My jack is started with 256 frames, and 3 periods, so in that case I suppose ‘n’ in the discrete distribution should be 3x256=768 (the sum should be from i=1 to 768), correct?
And what is the exact log10 based formula? I have found a few variations of it (e.g. http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/rms_energy.html).
Any way, I’ll check jkmeter and Baudline… And I’m still now sure if I understand what you mean by a ‘hot’ track 
OK, I understand that for pro recording/mastering there are things far more better (and expensive) that I have, but I make my own recordings/mastering in a small room. I admit, I’d like to achieve the best effect I can in this environment, but it’s not a real studio, and I have already used my budget for audio units (the guitar, pod, sound card). Maybe in future I’ll buy better speakers - however I’m not sure if my wife manages to live with them…
Any way, for now I must stay with my headphones, that have a really better sounding than my current speakers (they are not monitoring ones). So the only option at the moment is to use the phones.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able play with EQ and other plugins in Ardour, as Chris advised me, to correct my current song.
And for future work I’ll try to follow all your directions that you guys suggested me.
My last new samples are still available, but maybe I’ll be able to record another ones soon (a completely new song/sample I mean).
Chris, however if you still found a few minutes to check the current stuff if corrections I made were accurate, it would be great and I would be very thankful - but no pressure of course 
[I’m referring to my questions/comments posted on Mon, 2009-11-09 12:27]
Cheers!
Tomek
hi there,
same as a hot master
say you want to keep the master fader at 0. If all your tracks are too “hot”, you will see the master signal jump way above 0 dBFS. I find it better (from empirical observation in my own work, so this is by no means an academic statement) to keep the RMS level of each track under control so that I do not have to touch the master bus fader (no corrective action by e.g. massively attenuating the master bus fader by 10dB).
For the RMS level, it does not matter what your buffer size is. The formula can be applied to the one way buffer (or period). What counts is that you calculate the standard dev for a consistent set of N data.
I believe the log10 formula to convert to dB is
20 * log10(normalized_signal).
normalized means it is within range [0, 1], or in other terms : current_value / max_value
that’s what jackd operates with by the way … well, actually jackd uses a signal range of [-1, 1], but the standard deviation in this case is of course within [0, 1]. If you inspect the jack port’s array of floats in a small jackd client program, you will se that these float values are all within [-1, 1]. For an app that wants to display say the peak signal, like ardour for its meter display, it would compute the maximum value to be found within a buffer, convert that value with the log10 formula, and do a final conversion to translate into a GUI “coordinate” for displaying it inside a meter display. Calculating the max is not to time consuming. Caculating the RMS involves more (you need to sum up the square of each frame value within a buffer, then divide it by the number of frames, and then take the square root of it.
Hello!
OK, I think I get the idea
For next songs I’ll be recording, I’ll try to keep the signal level low per each track, so the master fader will stay below 0.
I’ll just turn the volume up on my headphones, which will have no influence on the whole mix. Even the general song volume will be low at this point, it will be corrected by mastering in the end.
In the last step in JAMin I’ll use EQ and other features to boost particular frequencies, and a general volume to get it to a desired level.
I hope this attitude is the correct way and will be better for making my recordings.
Thanks for your valuable comments!
correct way ? personally, I think so. The mastering stage will provide the real boost to your mix. If you leave enough headroom for that, you will be able to keep the mix dynamic intact. So get the mix right and leave RMS headroom for mastering it.
Now, about the volume in your headphones, keep in mind that this is monitoring and you can boost the output of your monitoring to your comfort. However, beware too high volume in cans. They can badly influence a mix, and in fact, mixing with cans is also not something I recommend (too many psychoacoustic effects at high volume, weird frequency biases, etc so it is a very colored environment, i hope you are aware of that …).
so do you suggest speakers for monitoring instead of headphones?
I don’t have good speakers. I try to use reasonable volume level on my headphones, just to hear each instrument and sound.
I know, there’s always a balance between budget and how well equipped you want to be. I definitely recommend a good set of speakers, as neutral as possible (flat frequency response).
Proximity speakers are a good choice if you are working in a small space. Not ideal for mastering though.
I have a set of Dynaudio BM5A and I am quite satisfied with them. They are a bit pricy though.
For me, headphones are fine for certain purposes but not mixing in general.
Yep, I definitely agree with thorgal’s comments about mixing with headphones! Fine for jamming and tracking, but downright misleading for assessing track levels, EQ, spatial impression, LFE, etc.
Some more on “hot” levels: keeping the levels moderate also has advantages when capturing. The analog electronics in your sound interface will usually sound progressively nastier as they approach clipping, and I’ve seen it recommended to stay away from the final 6 dB. That is, you would ideally have 6 dB of analog headroom beyond 0 dB FS.
As an example, I use a Behringer ADA8000 for recording and it has analog preamps that clip at about 1.5 dB below digital full scale! Not great engineering on their part, but you can work around it. When I’m setting up to record, I set the levels so that nothing peaks above about -10 dB (which is easy to see on Ardour’s meters). I then usually add a gain plugin to adjust (trim) the level for each track. If I set it up properly, I don’t have to touch the master fader at all, and use only minor adjustments on the track/bus faders. With 24-bit capture resolution, you really don’t have to worry about using up every last bit (which I remember used to be quite important with 8-bit!). The noise floor (due to quantisation error) is well below what you’d get with even pro analog tape.
of course, there are constraints we all have to deal with when we chose to have a home studio. My environment is not ideal either but I have to deal with it anyway. There’s also a part of personal choices and one of mine is not to mix with headphones. If that’s how you find yourself comfortable, this is all good. Remember that I am no professional either and can only talk about what I (sort of) know, i.e. my own experience
in the future, maybe I’ll think of good speakers, but not this year I suppose…
…unless Santa brings them to me for Christmas!
I think you’ll find when mastering that things can sound vastly different depending on what you’re using for monitoring. As the above posts have noted, even good headphones will color your mix (in fact, even if you have a great pair of flat response speakers, the room itself can play tricks on your ears if not acoustically treated). Obviously most of us don’t have an unlimited budget however, so what I’ve found can work well is to mix with the best monitoring setup available (in your case headphones) and try out both your speakers and the headphones when it comes time to master. You might be surprised at sounds that can “jump out” at you when listening to different speakers and monitoring setups. In fact, I would recommend that you master using both setups, and then listen to your master on as many different systems as you have available (your car, your wife’s, crappy computer speakers, home stereo, etc.) to get a better idea of the things you might have missed during your initial mixing.
This setup is not ideal, but since I started mastering this way, I’ve found that it’s a lot less likely that you’ll be listening to your album at a friends place and wondering why you never noticed that one guitar is blazingly loud on his system (not that I’m saying yours are
You are right - even I use my headphones, I always try to listen to my material on a few different devices after the mix.
However my speakers are the worst option in here, because they are attached to an external audio unit which does not produce natural sound.
But I think my headphones are not that bad - at least they should give me quite natural sounds; they are cheap, but intended to use in mixing as well (they are Sennheiser eh 350).
Hi there!
Chris, if you’re still interested, I made another attempt to improve my sounding yesterday. I mean I followed your directions to use EQ directly in Ardour. I found the Triple Parametric Band With Shelves plugin, and set its parameters (hopefully) according to your suggestions.
After having exported the mix, I used JAMin in the final step.
All files (JAMin session, screenshots presenting EQ settings in Ardour, samples) are available under the link:
http://hellfire666.no-ip.org/~myst/samples_new2.wav.zip
Files from the older session (with JAMin per track ) are still downloadable:
http://hellfire666.no-ip.org/~myst/samples_new.wav.zip
(changes done then are described in the posts on Mon, 2009-11-09, post #14 and #16).
There’s a minor difference between them I think (at least for my ears), and I’m not sure which one is better, and what way of EQ’ing and mastering is more appropriate (EQ in Ardour is more convenient for sure )
Additionally I used jkmeter on the last samples, and the average level is about 12 when playing this material.
I ran Baudline as well - it seems to be a great tool, but I need to read some manuals before I can use it properly and get some valuable info.
If you have time, please let me know what you think of this material now.
Thanks & cheers!
Tomek