If a label asks u for -3dB tracks?

[jessejames]

I run fear of flying, we ask all of our producers to take off compression etc.. on the master out. The reason for this is cause the mastering engineer needs or likes as much headroom as possible.

Only on the master? So compressing individual channels and busses is ok?

[Torque]

i'm pretty sure you misunderstood them. I'm guessing they want -.3db

The reason why is because anything you put on cd needs that much headroom to keep from clipping in crappy cd players. It's pretty standard.
If they needed headroom for mastering all they have to do is turn down the gain, so you can rule that one out.

[wtf]

"The reason why is because anything you put on cd needs that much headroom to keep from clipping in crappy cd players. It's pretty standard.
If they needed headroom for mastering all they have to do is turn down the gain, so you can rule that one out."

this is completely wrong. Mastering engineers only have your finished audio files to work with. That means that they can't they can't "turn down the gain" because the track has already been rendered, so turning down the gain is just bringing the volume down but leaving the relative dynamics in place. There's a big difference between mixing and mastering.
If your audio files look like a solid block - all the levels hitting really high and in a straight line (this is what severely limited tracks look like), then mastering engineers can't do much in the way of improving and finessing the tracks with their plugins/ears/expensive hardware. As someone said above, there's only so much space that you have to work with and you can see how much space there is by looking at the files in an editor. An important thing to remember is that mastering engineers are (almost) always adding gain; they're virtually never reducing the gain.
also - In answer to the previous question - in my opinion it's definitely "more ok" to use compressors and limiters on the individual tracks than it is to use them on the master channel when you're getting stuff professionally mastered. One simple reason for this is that mastering engineers are often going to use limiters and/or compressors on your master audio and their gear/ears are supposed to be better than yours. but I don't think anyone would tell you not to use a compressor on your bassline or kick or anything.

[ksandvik]

Exactly. If you want to have external mastering done, remove any compression/limiting and any other plugins that might have an effect on the total gain. But you also need to give them headroom, so don't make it too hot, leave a couple of dB for them for their work.

--Kent

[entek]

it's absolutely ok to use compressors on separarte channels,if u have a reason to do so,but again u have to know not to overcompress stuff.
i use to mix my kick at -6db and bassline 2-3db lower and i was told to do so by an engineer..cause mastering needs space to be done..
my 0.02 cents!

[ksandvik]

Yes, I should have been clear, only remove compression/limiting, exciters et rest on the mastering channel, no need to rip them out from individual tracks. --Kent

[jessejames]

Nice one mates. Thanks.

[Torque]

this is completely wrong. Mastering engineers only have your finished audio files to work with. That means that they can't they can't "turn down the gain" because the track has already been rendered, so turning down the gain is just bringing the volume down but leaving the relative dynamics in place. There's a big difference between mixing and mastering.
If your audio files look like a solid block - all the levels hitting really high and in a straight line (this is what severely limited tracks look like), then mastering engineers can't do much in the way of improving and finessing the tracks with their plugins/ears/expensive hardware. As someone said above, there's only so much space that you have to work with and you can see how much space there is by looking at the files in an editor. An important thing to remember is that mastering engineers are (almost) always adding gain; they're virtually never reducing the gain.

lol!
The -.3db peak rule only applys to the where the track peaks being redered then put on to cd as a cd audio file instead of a data wav or an mp3. If your song is already clipping and your audio is squashed then you are a sh!t engineer and your track is going to sound like sh!t anyways regardless of what the mastering guy does. Yes he can turn down the gain by turning down the volume and then mastering from there. It's amazingly easy and it gives you all the headroom you need in order to do any mastering you need. How do i know this you may ask? Because it's my job to do digital mastering at my work, i deal with it on a weekly basis. So my response is this to you... You are completely wrong because first of all you didn't even bother to try to understand what the hell i was talking about and your argument has nothing to do with what i said. So here's a checklist you need to fill out before turning you stuff in on something to go to matering.

Make sure you don't compress all the dynamics too much and don't put overall compression on a track before you turn it in because that is a mastering guys job.

Make sure you have a decent eq on the track so you make the job easier for the mastering engineer.

Don't let the master channel clip at all when you render.

Once rendered take the file into program like soundforge or whatever you use and normalise the track. Then take the volume of the track and drop it down to -.3db

Burn the track to a cd and then send off to the mastering guy and he will be happy. The rest of it is his job.

The mastering guy will also drop the peaks of your track to -.3db if it's being mastered for cd because of the same sort of variation in crappy cd players to keep it from clipping like i said earler. If you want to check this for yourself pop a cd in your computer that was professionally mastered and take a look at the peak levels of the loudest tracks and you will see that they are -.3db