Hi Slutz

I've been trying to mix with my peaks at -10dbfs so I can effectively use the pluggins I have that model old analog software but I'm curious how on earth you can get a good RMS out of your tracks when your mixing them at a low level. If the mastering stage isn't about adding stupid amounts of gain to get a loud record that how do you get it sounding loud?

Cheers guys

Peak meters aren't giving you any info except detecting the highest peak and is good for preventing digital overs.The peak at -10dbfs is not a rms reading.

Mixing with rms values is about the true volume a track as the ears hear it. A VU meter is read by you looking at it's average. With tape you didn't go over -0dbrms but some swings into the red could get a hot level with only some saturation distortion.

Use a VU meter or a VU plugin; some DAWS allow you to use different metering types.

What you want is the average or rms to be at -10dbfs, but most calibration works out to be -18dbfs equals 0dbvu and on the VU it will swing into the red alot. You look at the average level. If you read a VU as to it peaking at -0dbrms it's average will be lower.

Getting good rms levels starts at the recording stage and use a VU meter to check the power of the track.Some tones can sound great and don't clip but their actual volume isn't there. The VU helps with mic placement, amp tones, even where you place a drum kit in a room. Use the Peak meters to make sure there are no overs.

You can have wild transient material clip and still not measure much on an rms value and the VU is the tool.

Vocals and bass clean transient guitars, drum hits get improved rms values when recording with some slight compression to smooth the huge meter swings and necessary to get decent level on the limited spl level of tape but you always go for mic placement first before just adding compression. Where it is loudest is not where you put the mic. You want even tones from an instrument off axis is one way to cope with loud and soft, further back another.

In theory we can get more dynamic music in digital but depends on the genre.

Without compression on the way in there is still enough room in digital FS to record, prevent clips and use the trim on the DAW mixer to lower the level, but use a VU meter to measure it and you might need to smooth some signals out to improve the rms level.
Word of warning. Some transient peaks will show -0dbrms on the meter but the actual level will be higher, this because of how VU meters work, they are mechanical and why you need peak level meters as well.

If your levels are good on the way in, ie good rms and no overs when it comes to mixing most of the work is done.
If you make an effort to improve you VU level during mixdown, similar tools apply excepting you use EQ to smooth out peaks way before using a compressor especially if some applied on the way in.

Mastering will have an easy job of it, your track will have power and when compression and limiting is applied it wont need much to hit a competitive level.
If you pay no heed to VU levels you will have to smash your mix at mastering to bring up the VU level.

It the case of less than ideally mixed material, it can be. The better the mix, the less "stupid" the mastering will need to be.

I really like this one : VUMT Overview

you can use it on any send & at the master track as rms meter

peace

You don't have to worry about RMS levels until you begin mastering the recording, preferably as a stereo mixdown in a separate process. Not when mixing.
Many beginners attempt to stick mastering plugins in the man Bus of the daw and try to do everything in a single step and it typically fails.

When you Mix you want to use peak meters to prevent peaks from going over 0dB. Some DAW's can read RMS but its quite pointless to mix using RMS meters because you wont know what the peaks are doing and switching back and forth just isn't going to get you where you need to be.

This takes up where Mixing ends. Mastering Tutorial – Har-Bal | The Scientific Audio Mastering Solution

If you mixed properly, your Peak levels will occasionally get as high as -2 to -5dB in your DAW program. You can touch the 0dB mark in the mains but its best to be safe then sorry by leaving some clean headroom. You aren't concerned with making a mix as loud as a commercial recording either. If you're trying to make the mix as loud as a commercial recording you obviously don't know what you're doing and will undoubtable fail. When mixing you simply want it balanced and realistic sounding. Its the mastering process where you use either RMS (or Average peaks) to make a mix as loud as other recordings.

After mixing down to stereo you want to put the mix in a decent editor program like Sound Forge, Wave Lab or some other editor that allows you to run VST plugins.
You can use a mastering suite but you really need to know what your doing to get things right. The key to getting mastering right unlike mixing where you may run multiple plugins is to run the plugins one at a time and check the results after running each one before moving onto the next. If you try and run two or three together you may blindly fail to get optimal results using each.

An editor program typically has a large waveform display that allows you to see the changes being made to the wave and it has accurate diagnostic tools for testing RMS levels. Your mix should end up at about -16dB RMS (-12 dB Average) Before you add your mastering effects, EQ, Multiband, Brick wall limiting. Limiting is always the last step and is what makes the stereo recording as loud as other commercial recordings. After Mastering the RMS level will wind up being no more then -6 dB Maximum which is extremely compressed. -8~ -12 is likely more realistic depending on density and the type of music you are mastering.

If your RMS level is -16 that means your peaks can be popping close to 0dB which gives you a 16dB dynamic range between where the bulk of the music is heard and where the peaks are. After limiting the dynamic range between the peaks and RMS levels are typically reduced. By taming the peaks with a limiter, you make space to bring the RMS levels up. Taming the peaks is a matter of percentage. If you have 1% of the peaks close to zero, 10% -10db and the rest at -20dB, you can easily tame the 1% down to the -10dB level. Flattening 1% does virtually no damage at all and you will wind up with a loud mix at about -6db.

On the other hand, if you tried to take the mix down -20dB the flattening of the beaks with undoubtable sound like it was run over by a steam roller.
The way you can tell is by using the wave view. If all the peaks wind up looking like square waves then too much limiting was used and you should ask why you think you needed to use so much. 9X out of 10, its probably a mix issue and whatever you had creating peaks, should have been fixed missing. having done thousands of masters, I can pretty much say, -4 to -6dB threshold is pretty ideal. If you're setting the limiter threshold below -8 ~-12 or above you probably have a serious issue and might want to should revisit the mix to tame the largest peaks. Of course It may be the something like an acoustic mix with greater then normal peaks but for your typical pop music you'll find mixes have a fairly consistent level, especially after EQ and Multiband limiting are applied.