Why are my songs still quiet after mastering?

jconradi

New member
Hello, so i have my final mix, and i did basic mastering. I used things like a master compressor, maximizer, stereo imager, overall EQ, etc. after applying these effects, the track certainly is louder and more booming (i can hear the compression) than the previous version, but I'll play it compared to a professional recording, and my song is still noticeably quieter.

I try to up the outputs and levels on things like the compressor, maximizer, etc, or the levels on a lot of my mix channels, but once i do that high enough, the song starts clipping and distorting.

so, how can i fix this problem??

I thought the mastering effects were supposed to do this, but clearly im doing something wrong if its still quieter than a professional song, and starts to clip when i raise things.

thanks!
 
If there is still life in it, you need to squeeze it harder. Make sure it is no longer breathing. Any surviving dynamics must be hunted down and squashed. It should sound harsh, bordering on painful to listen to, but loud. You should see a solid line of black taking up the entire clip, from top to bottom. If you see any gaps in the black, you haven't squeezed hard enough.

;)
 
Hi,
You're not the first....believe me.

I'm not a mastering engineer so I can't speak for them, but I expect any ME worth his salt will tell you the volume is in the mix.

If you're hitting peaks and clipping before you're getting the volume you want, your mix is telling you it's not ready, so it's time to take a few steps back.
 
If there is still life in it, you need to squeeze it harder. Make sure it is no longer breathing. Any surviving dynamics must be hunted down and squashed. It should sound harsh, bordering on painful to listen to, but loud. You should see a solid line of black taking up the entire clip, from top to bottom. If you see any gaps in the black, you haven't squeezed hard enough.

;)

ok thanks for not answering my question at all
 
Hi,
You're not the first....believe me.

I'm not a mastering engineer so I can't speak for them, but I expect any ME worth his salt will tell you the volume is in the mix.

If you're hitting peaks and clipping before you're getting the volume you want, your mix is telling you it's not ready, so it's time to take a few steps back.

ok yeah ill try this. i think the kick drum is mainly whats causing it, ill try lowering that and see what happens
 
Alright, cool.
Look for anything that's throwing stray peaks is a good idea. These things will trigger your master limiters and maybe cause problems,
but looking at the overall balance of the mix is important too. If the bass is too strong relative to everything else, your master compressors/limiters will be reacting to it.

It's a house of cards but the thing has to be standing before you go to mastering.

I hope that vague metaphor is somehow useful to you. ;)
 
compared to a professional recording
I've said it a million times - "volume" is the easy part. It's the "professional recording" thing where a lot of people get stuck.

That said - Almost guaranteed that you can ram it into a limiter and make it as loud as just about any recording ever made. How it handles that abuse is up to every single previous step in the process. Great mixes tend to have a high "volume potential" (lack of a better term -- as if the end listener even cares about it, which most of them don't). It might not be "really simple" (I've spent hours and hours and hours of tone, various noise, calibration tools, multimeters, jeweler's screwdrivers, etc. making my chain react well to "abusive" levels). But if the mix isn't reacting well to "abuse" it's rarely the fault of the mastering engineer.
 
Hey OP, why don't you strip out all the mastering effects and post the song in the mp3 section here, so people can get an idea of what your starting with. You can get some good advice on where you're going wrong. There's "mastering," and then there's mastering, don't you know.
 
PUSH! with compression on the master volume in your DAW

PUSH with compression on the MASTER mixer channel; "Makeup gain" ...
Watch your meters; Input should stay below -10db, makeup goes up
until you're just below your clipping warnings on your peak/RMS indicators.
Then export a master of the song with "Normalize" on.
VIOLA! :guitar:
 
Oh Option 2;
Import your "lossless" file format into Audacity (freeware.)

Note that the wave form only takes up a small-ISH portion of the tracks height (volume)
Now go Effects > Amplify. it will give you a suggestioin of how much to add in db.
Try accepting that or bump it 0.5db.
MAKE SURE THE "ALLOW CLIPPING" IS NOT CHECKED!

PUSH THAT BABY!

Don't forget to export it in a lossless format for the final mastering
of your disk (if that's appropriate.) Otherwise, mp3.

NO GUARANTEES! I'm a "newb" but this (both suggestions) has worked for me.
Also please remember; G.I.G.O. (garbage in, garbage out... just louder!)
DO the mix as perfect as you can get it before you export from your DAW!

RAWK ON!

I just posted below again, but using a MASSIVE compressor rather than the
"Amplify" effect built in. It's MUCH better!
 
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Hidden low end frequencies can often work the compression hard, do you have any low sub that you are not hearing in the monitoring? Often the low end seems to increase when mastering hard, so a little eq over the whole mix can often work. Try a low shelf over the who mix at say 20hz and see if it improves. If not bring it up a little say 30Hz.

If it does improve maybe go back and have another look at the mix and check for low end sub mud in things that should have no low end, basically everything except kick and bass LOL.

Alan
 
When I have a mix that won't, I've found it helpful to look at the spectral content of every track, and very often it's synth pads and sometimes strings that mess the mixes up, because that chord of three notes seems to have content everywhere! Removing the stuff that overlaps into the range of the other tracks really helps. Drums that ring are another wide source that can be sliced to remove the rubbish.If you look at the kick, after you have eq'd it - there are all sorts of spikes above 2K. Are these needed, or are they just spill or ringing? The snare - does it need all that energy below the frequency - often I can't even work out where it comes from. On their own, they sound really good and clean - but merged together, it's a bit of a mess because of all the unnecessary stuff. Spending time shelving top and bottom can really assist things sitting in the mix and produce waveforms that have real peaks and dips, rather than a solid blob of sound.
 
do you have enough gain (or volume) from the original recording (track by track)? if you don't, it WILL become a problem... be sure you have this handled from the get-go! you can't really "add" to that original gain level by using effects. you can't learn all of this overnight!
am an "olde tymer" out of the 60's... in those days we had 2 tracks to record on-period! Some times it might take 25 or 30 takes to get it all recorded... and it became grueling at times!
 
Import your "lossless" file format into Audacity (freeware.)

Note that the wave form only takes up a small-ISH portion of the tracks height (volume)
Now go Effects > Amplify. it will give you a suggestioin of how much to add in db.
Try accepting that or bump it 0.5db.
MAKE SURE THE "ALLOW CLIPPING" IS NOT CHECKED!

PUSH THAT BABY!

Don't forget to export it in a lossless format for the final mastering
of your disk (if that's appropriate.)

NO GUARANTEES! I'm a "newb" but this (both suggestions) has worked for me.
Also please remember; G.I.G.O. (garbage in, garbage out... just louder!)
DO the mix as perfect as you can get it before you export from your DAW!

I am not pro and sometimes I have similar problem, so, I want support this opinion, because I did the same with my tracks. I also noticed that I have more problems with volume and "quite music" when I work in FL Studio 9. I do not know how this is explained, but with Cubase 9 and FL Studio 12 the situation is better.
 
It is often an issue for many getting final product loud if there is something causing the stereo output to max out before obtaining the desired volume. It all comes down to the mix before you even get there.

It is not possible to guess what the culprit is, but if you got the mix right, the master limiter does not need to work hard. I know it sounds vague but that is what it is.

Work on getting the mix good before even trying for volume. Figure out what it is that is stopping the track from being unable to be loud.

I would start with witz advice above.


And I just saw this is a necro-thread. Ugh.. lol
 
I have a suggestion which is probably going to make the pros here get nauseous;

There is a workaround I have tried, IT DOESN'T WORK FOR EVERY SONG...
I don't do DJ stuff but I have done some (2) songs that are dance / trance
whatever... they react well to this, while I SUFFER from the loss of dynamics
enough on other songs to MAKE that listener turn that volume UP... Those songs
are not meant for earbuds or the "If it has dynamics you need to kill them ALL!!!"
SQUASH! COMPRESS! KILL! KILL!!!

So here's the suggestion;
Export the master TRACK out of your DAW and import it into a freeware editor
called "Audacity." I'm guessing you'd be exporting masters in *.wav or another
"lossless" format, and audacity should import it. I'm also suspecting you want to
SQUASH it and crank it to make earbuds burst on phone and portable players,
i.e., You want to export it to an MP3... [end of assumptions]

Import the song.
Edit . SELECT ALL.
go to the "effects" menu, and select LADSPA: Dyson Compressor.
(It may not be there on the original install. If not go: EFFECTS>ADD/REMOVE PLUGINS at the very top of the effects list.
Once it's there, select it with your songs track imported into Audacity and selected (all)
ACCEPT THE DEFAULTS, JUST HIT [APPLY.]

You should see your "spikey wigglies" fatten out pretty much every bit of the
waveform ... and lose every single bit of your "Dynamics." There will be NO
real difference in volume in any sound in the song. SQUASHED!

Now, I bet you do this two or three times before you get it right, because when
you squash the crap out of that thing, you're gonna change the mix... maybe.

You might get lucky! My "Trance/dance" song went straight to a fat @$$ mp3
on the first try. I SUFFER over the mix though (because I WANT dynamics.) sooo
No guarantees. Hey let me know if this works.

Good Mastering doesn't come "In a can."
But this helped an old fart like me produce some LOUD mp3's!
Abletons masters aren't about SQUASH so this is a "quickie" fix.
 
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