CD volume turns out too soft

[mchurley]

I am recording solo acoustic guitar onto a Tascam Porta 2, then mixing down one song at a time directly to a JVC XL r5000 standalone CD burner. The volume seems fine when I play from the tape, but I notice that the volume of the recording on the CD is a LOT softer than storebought CD's, even with the input controls wide open on the CD burner as I mix down. I've been thinking of getting an ART tube mic preamp, but that would seem only to increase the signal between the instrument and the 4-track, not between the 4-track and the CD burner. Any ideas? Thanks!

[edgarderbylive]

there isnt gonna be a whole lot you can do about this....

if there are a lot of fluctuations in the level of dB (volume) in the mixdown, then it can be a problem for master volume.

youve probably set your cd burner to record at o dB when the 4-track is at its loudest, or at its peak, so all the stuff that is played below that is going to cd at below 0dB.

to get the signal up on your cds without a major investment, make sure that the master volume of your 4-track is averaging 0 dB and peaking above that --it wont distort..believe me.....just make sure it doesnt peak off the board...and make sure that your getting consistent levels at the cdr, of course peaking right at 0, and that should help a bit

if it needs a bigger boost, you may need to invest in a stereo compressor/limiter for in between the 4-track and the cdr so that you can pull all those soft dynamics up and bring down the louder stuff to a consistent hot level.....that would help a whole lot..

[edgarderbylive]

obviously, the most important thing is to make sure it sounds good....no excessive tape hiss ( u can kill 90 percent of it on a 4 track cassette if you do it right) and no buzzing...if you a good sounding recording, then dont worry too much about the store bought cd volume.....those cds are recorded on very expensive, very quiet equipment....and mixed onto and mastered with very expensive compressors, limiters and the like...

but it sure is satisfying when we can get our stuff at home to sound as good or better than the store bought cds..isnt it??? kinda says something about the engineering talent in the industry...