Post processing mix sets
Curious to what kind of sound adjustments anybody does to mix sets after recording? Normalize? EQ stuff? Filters?
In theory - none of that should be necessary, provided you got the levels of your tracks right before mixing them, and didn’t let the meters go into the red (too much) while you were mixing.
Don’t fall into the trap of trying get your mix as loud as possible!
Your right. I’ve never needed to do any of that, but I read somewhere (don’t know where) someone say something about running a mix through a filter to give it a warmer sound or something along those lines.
I remember a while back people were recording mixes in Ableton, then running it through a DJ mixer and recording the output from the mixer. Supposedly making the mix sound a little better.
Horses for courses - try a few things and see what works for you.
I keep it simple:
Open it up in a wav editor, if there are any rogue realy short peaks then do a little volume automation to take them out - were talking about a spike thats a mere fraction of a second here.
Now find the highest peak in the track and adjust the gain until its just before it digitally peaks.
If you wanted to you could put on a LITTLE bit of limiting, but i wouldn’t recommend it - been using the elephant vst for transparent limiting purposes recently, pretty decent plugin.
Mainly though i think just applying some gain to your mix is the most important thing to do, i dont record very hot so i don’t risk getting digital peaks, then just apply some gain afterwards to make up the difference.
Some volume automation to even things out a bit, and a tiny hint of EQ.
a little level tweaking in audition does the trick.
At some points some compressions and some limiting will do wonders. Loving the Sonalksis plugs for this.
Will make it a lot easier for ya, instead of automating volumes. 
Working with what I have I just run the .wav recording of the set into garageband, check that it doesn’t go into the red, maybe increase the volume a pinch if there’s room (I’m pretty conservative with the master volume if im recording it), and snip off the few seconds of silence between starting recording and the music, and finishing the mix and stopping the recording.
Then I just export it as a 320kbps mp3, I’m pretty sure garageband does some normalizing when it exports though.
I know this is the lazy approach, but is there a nice semi-auto approach to levelling out everything? I have to mix in somewhat low-volume quarters due to my living arrangement, and quite often (usually, actually) I find one track is louder than it needs to be.
I’d argue that for this stage of things volume automation would provide better sounding results - the tracks are already pretty much limited and compressed to the max so you have to be mega careful what your doing with compressors n limiters. Personally I won’t limit or compress my mixes If recording - only live to have comparitible levels with a Cdj or turntable running to hot on the mixer.
With the sort of volume automation I was talking about I would still do even if I was using compression and or limiting.
The thing is a mix cd doesn’t really have to compete in the loudness war because they are long - the loudness war really comes into play for a listener when he or she is listening to single tracks one after the other. So I’d really steer people away from trying to push their mixes any much louder than you can do with a bit of simple volume automation to take out rogue peaks and some gain.
you could try normalizing it, but i wouldn’t recommend it. it ruins the dynamics of the tracks imo.
nothing major. volume adjustments to make sure things are consistent for when traktor’s autogain function shits the bed on me. i used to use traktor’s limiter, but next time i’m going to try using some 3rd party plugs for that purpose to see if it yields better results.
I do process my mixes afterwards, specially when mixing externally. The rec output of some mixers dont record at a nice level.
Anyways a compressor can make many thing apart from increasing the overall volume, it also make your mix more seamless and tracks glue to each other nicely, but as mentioned by Bento you need to be careful and not push it to hard. Also if you like to speak on top of your mixes (radio edits or other) you should use a compressor, this way the music will lower when you speak and come up again after …
A nice example are the mixes you can listen on www.dancetrippin.tv Where most of them are recorded from the main board of some of the world´s top clubs. You will notice how “fixed” the sound is. Ultimately I would like to achieve that kind of sound in my mixes… 
Sure, compressors and limiters.. Recommended to me by people that do music.. (Post production and Post processing)
Tiny question, you’re talking about volume automations, what do compressors and limiters do?
on the pc side i would run it thru sound forge and use wavehammer (made a preset call hammer-time!) i would do a soft limit/compress and also do a auto-volume gain. This was a must for my mixed cds, cuz I wanted them to be loud, but not distorted. Im not a pro, but to my ear it sounded good.
I sometimes use a little bit compression, but don’t really need it anymore. If you watch your levels and EQ the differences shouldn’t be too great. It’s just a matter of practice. If you have track A and B, lower track A bass a little when putting the bass of track B into the mix. Also a bit for mid, this will maken your mixes sound cleaner and keep the DB level better in shape.
You don’t need to ask me what a compressor / limiter does 
Manual volume automation lets you get a way better quality sound than a compressor / limiter thats going to squash your track will allow you to do - its become an absolutely essential part of my mastering for both dj sets and produced tracks.
Your dealing with tracks that are already compressed to the max most of the time, compressing and or limiting them further is a terrible idea. A little bit of manual automation will sound way better than you could do otherwise.
Compressors and limiters are just not a fine enough tool when your dealing with pre-mastered music, i don’t care how much of a compressor guru you might be either, your just going to run the risk of killing your dynamics.
You’re probably gonna argue compressing/limiting the master too, right?
There is the easy way, properly using compressors/limiters and the hard way, automating volumes… To be honest, the listener will not hear the difference.
So why even bother putting that much time in automating.
No I actually said for live stuff I have been using a limiter because your competing against other dj’s over riding the mixer and the volume automation only takes me about 5 min to get good results. I’ve played with compressors and limiters more on my master chain than I’d like to admit - all different high quality low latency limiters and compressors to find what sounds the best for my ears. Admitedly I like to try different thing because some days I’m in the mood for some tube distortion and others I like to go for a clean a signal as possible. However for recorded dj sets I don’t feel I have to compete in the loudness war for reasons I stated earlier - so I try to keep my signal as clean as possible and let the mastering of the tracks I am playing speak for theirselves.
However if my set had a high level of controllerism techniques or I was doing a live set then I could justify a heavier use of compression and limiting to keep things in check as it’s a a lot easier for things to get more wild than a regular mix where I can easily keep everything in check on the fly.
Then again I’m anal about doing everything to an extremely high standard and don’t mind taking an extra 10 min to get there.
I said it once and I’ll say it again, the tracks that your playing have already been compressed to the max to compete in the loudness war and there’s no need to compress them any further - I like my track dynamics kept intact !
Edit: also i listen to my own sets a lot and I can hear the difference - so I like to get things right for myself not just the audience of downloaders.