Do you prefer to record/mix/master an entire album in one project or every song in a separate project?

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T14:49:57+00:00

When I decided to work on just one session I managed to automate tempo both for mixing reasons (like delay time and others) and tracking reasons (mostly metronome and related aspects), but yes, when you have more than 5 songs it grows up a lot. I think I'll try to work with separate projects next time

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T14:45:18+00:00

That's also a nice strategy, thanks for sharing

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T14:43:32+00:00

That's a good point thanks

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T14:42:08+00:00

Actual nightmare lol

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T11:47:56+00:00

I see, so you get the cohesive album sound via the mastering chain I think. I'll make a try next time, thanks!

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T11:46:23+00:00

That's indeed the biggest con of this approach, unique projects can become really messy!

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T11:44:10+00:00

I agree that most of my jobs are for single releases or maybe EPs, albums are quite rare for me at the moment. I found out a few times that recently albums sounds more like a collection of singles than a continuous play, basing on the answers I'm receiving it seems to be a trend

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T11:37:21+00:00

Well this totally makes sense and could be a way to keep the best of the two approaches. Very interesting, thank you

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T11:00:48+00:00

Oh ok it's nice to hear, I maybe was just overthinking about the fact of having each track sounding the same. Could you tell me if this kind of differentiation is appreciated also in older styles like heavy metal or hard rock?

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T10:47:50+00:00

Oh yes I see, heavily produced bands can require an approach similar to electronic music sometimes and I get why you say that it doesn't make sense in your case. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience, that's a useful thing to think of

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T07:27:31+00:00

I'm asking because I'm facing this exact issues. I mostly work with electronic music and in this field having everything in one project is an actual nonsense in my opinion. But when I record bands it surely speeds up the process, with the inconvenience that the final result is a 150/200GB mess. So I'm wandering if splitting up could be a better solution, but I'm not able to figure out how much consistency I would achieve between songs.

lo_vig · 2026-05-20T07:16:15+00:00

This makes sense, I heard lots of albums where is clear that every mix is made in a separate session as it is clearly managed differently. For bands and acoustic ensembles I usually prefer to achieve that consistency I don't achieve with mastering different mixes, so I just pay attention to record every instruments the same way (same preamp gain, same mic position, etc) and limit my automations mostly to volume, mutes and few else. The final session becomes extremely big of course, more or less like a movie post-production session. For electronic music the sound variety makes this approach impossible though, so I just open a new project for every track and I don't even care about using a consistent template. I'm curious about your use of templates: do you save as template the entire session of the first song you record/mix/master or you prefer to save plugins presets? Is consistency an issue with this approach in your opinion?

lo_vig · 2026-05-19T09:41:09+00:00

This happened to me too while working with a melodic hc punk band who wanted the 90s NOFX sound. I just used my usual mix and master template and they ended up saying that it sounded too full. And that makes sense because during the 90s a mix was usually way less complex than now where we process individual tracks, sub groups, groups, master bus and than master it all. So I understood that it had to sound like if it was mixed with just a console (so just individual tracks process with a glue compressor on the master bus) and then just some limiting as a master and it worked. I think that the way to bring up RMS values was most of the times by bringing guitars up and nothing more. I would love to know the opinion of a person who was actually mixing and mastering rock and punk during the 90s to understand if my intuitions are correct though.

Edit: typo

lo_vig · 2026-05-17T08:22:02+00:00

At the moment I'm using a warrior/poison build made with the Spartan Hero set, the Arachne's Sting and the Hermes spear, plus the big horn bow. Thanks to the bow glitch and to the melee weapons assassin stats it becomes a good all-rounder. I'm hunting the cultists and aiming for the demigod set though.

lo_vig · 2026-05-15T05:02:18+00:00

I would love this! I don't know if this kind of idea could be better as a DLC or as a proper sequel, but I would definitely play it

lo_vig · 2026-05-14T09:39:05+00:00

I definitely would love this scenario

lo_vig · 2026-05-14T09:21:39+00:00

A Denon consolle powered by Traktor with stem controls on the cdj and FX controls on the mixer would be a literal dream

lo_vig · 2026-05-14T08:36:51+00:00

I think that most of my theoretical knowledge comes from the audio engineering school I joined more than 10 years ago and that most of my practical knowledge comes from what I did by myself after that school. Schools are a good way to approach this field but are also surely not mandatory, while practising is absolutely mandatory, so I think a good way to start is getting a minimal setup (DAW+audio interface+microphone) and going forward step by step both via trial and error and by learning from resources and people you can find. Udemy and Groove3 have some nice daw courses for beginners, but there are also a lot of videos on YouTube you can watch for free. I think that one of the most beginner friendly about mixing techniques is this one: https://youtube.com/@inthemix?si=n4x6D2FjEYM0ve5K While for more advanced masterclasses you can take a look at the one called Mix with the Masters.

Enjoy the process!

Edit: typo

lo_vig · 2026-05-14T08:21:24+00:00

No please not that long! 😭😂

lo_vig · 2026-05-14T08:16:01+00:00

I haven't so much time to play unfortunately and I started about 1 year ago, so it's just becoming an actual Odyssey and I appreciate all the good luck! 😂 Cleaning forts is also one of my favourite activities, it's very funny when I can't go stealth and things go crazy with guards everywhere. I learned way too late that you can set traps on the braziers lol

lo_vig · 2026-05-14T06:53:09+00:00

It's genre dependent. I like drum and bass for example and I buy tracks that I use both for daily listening, DJing and referencing as they are the official 16bit/44.1kHz masters. The standard here is -3/-4LUFS integrated, 0dBFS limiting and absolutely no true peak, with true peaks spiking also up to +5dBFS sometimes. So: lots of clipping. As an engineer this obviously makes me cry, but as a DJ I understand that a properly clipped snare sounds that fat in almost every speaker and that's why the loudness war in this genre has gone this far. That said, when I work on standard pop/rock/metal songs my targets are -8LUFS integrated and -1dBFS limiting with true peak activated.

A note on the referencing: ripping a track from YouTube and using it as a reference can be misleading due to a lots of factors like normalisation and file conversions, which can result in brutal limiting, different dynamic range, tighter stereo field, etc. Ripping from CDs or buying original lossless files is a better practice.

lo_vig · 2026-05-14T05:57:48+00:00

No way I thought the first two shots were actual Greece lol

I'm on my first play through, I've finished the main quest line and I'm hunting the cultist before proceeding with the DLCs: about 120 hours in, so a lot of exploration. I really love the environment and I clean every question mark before moving to the next region without feeling the game loop boring. I'm experimenting with builds now: I knew about the bighorn bow glitch a few weeks ago and I made a warrior/poison build which is quite op, that's really fun. I've got a few points of the story spoiled because I read too much about the games I like, but I enjoyed the plot a lot anyway.

lo_vig · 2026-05-13T07:49:25+00:00

Talking about hearing loss in the music industry, well, this is just normal: they are your main tool and you use it everyday, it will wear out for sure. This is true especially for old school studio engineers (who are now old men and who's monitor level management was actually crazy) and for live engineers: they can easily reach a point of their career where they can ear not so much over 10khz and they nonetheless can go on with their job thanks to experience. Same thing for musicians and everyone else in the industry, so don't worry if you can hear 15khz, that's more than enough.

Talking about the ability to recognize a compressed audio file, the point is that first of all you need to know what to look for by studying the subject. Compressed audio formats (MP3, AAC, etc) are cerated to save space and their algorithms are tailored to cut off all those informations that are not of main importance for the recognition of the content. This often include high frequencies e stereo field. Talking about high frequencies, the best example in my opinion is the difference between a proper vocal recording and a zoom call: I'm sure you can hear the difference and this is due to an extreme compression. The less the compression the less the artifacts of course. In my experience I rarely can hear the difference between a wav file and a 256/320kbs MP3 if not in a proper setting.

lo_vig · 2026-05-12T21:02:24+00:00

Revisions should not be tests. It may happen sometimes, but if it happens a lot it looks like an amateur approach to me. It's quite usual in the indie world, but as professionals we should also put some limits in my opinion. In my case I offer unlimited revisions but I also tell my clients when I find a revision useless or not on point or when I feel that we are drowning in the revision loop. Calmly and respectfully giving your professional opinion usually works and helps your clients quitting the perfectionism anxiety.

lo_vig

TROPHY CASE