Audio Question: "Mixing Hot"

Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/1/2005, 9:32 AM

Not considering myself an "audio person" I'm always trying to learn more in this area. I just read: "Mixing hot will give you the best signal to noise."

What is "mixing hot" referring to and how would that impact signal to noise?

Comments

DavidMcKnight wrote on 12/1/2005, 9:53 AM

my guess is they mean to moniter the audio signal and continually adjust the level so that the peaks hit very near 0 db. I think this assumes that the "noise" in question is anything related to your audio card setup, and that the signal or program material is already very clean.

Chienworks wrote on 12/1/2005, 10:34 AM

Yep, that's close. Every step of the audio chain should be run at it's optimum signal to noise ratio. This usually means that each step should have peaks that just hit 0dB. Any stage that isn't this "hot" will add more noice than necessary to the signal.

Sure, at first you might think it's ok to have the channel inputs at -15 because you can bring up the group to compensate. However, say the S/N ratio of the channel input is 80dB. If you run them at -15 then your effective S/N ratio is only 65dB. Multiply this through a few stages and the noise floor rises rapidly.

Ideally one should start with the gains and make sure every input is peaking as high as possible without distortion. Then the mix should be set to feed the group as loud as possible without distortion. Then the groups should feed the main output likewise. Avoid reducing the volume until you get to the last stage.