Track Loudness

[Taylor Lucas]

Yes, I'm well aware of the loudness wars. I love dynamics and all, but I need one of my tracks to be nice and loud for something. At the loudest chorus theres something like 3 guitars (4-5 tracks), drums (6 tracks), 4-5 vocals (4-5 tracks) bass, and handclaps lol. It's probably not as packed as it sounds. I'm having a real hard time getting a loud and attention grabbing sound without clipping, it seems to take next to nothing before it starts peaking. All the guitars are compressed, I'm still super new to compression but someone told me thats one of the keys to loud sound. That and mastering, which I fool around with izotope ozone for lol.

I'm using Adobe Audition 3.0 with my firepod.

I've tried looking for help on other forums, but I always get the same anti-loud-you're-stupid-for-falling-for-the-loudness-wars answer. Loud is what I need (for this specific project), hopefully you can help me out and ignore all that just this once.

I've only been mixing things since about october, and I'm not trying to make serious professional tracks or anything. But comparing what I've heard from a friends stuff, and some other people using similar equipment, I think I can get a better sound overall so I'm slowly getting more interested in this stuff.

[LeeRosario]

Waves spawned a monster called the L2 ultramaximizer. She has an older brother called the L3 ultramaximizer. Possibly one of the best/worst inventions to come across in a while. They make it so easy to crank your mixes it's pretty disgusting. That's the easiest and most degrading way of doing what you want.

I'll spare the "it's better to leave tons of headroom for a good mastering engineer to work with" routine and get to an answer that may help you, but it's probably not going to happen the way you'd expect.

You see, the essence of the loudness wars lies in the expert use of compression. I say "expert" meaning skilled use. Skilled use takes years to perfect. Good compression on a mix goes a long way. Bad compression, well you've probably heard it enough without knowing it.

The first step is to learn dynamic processing theory. What compression does, types of compressors, how it behaves under certain settings, how a compressor behaves on overall tracks versus individual tracks, when to use it, when not to use it....the theory. I personally don't believe in a "one size fits all" thing, so I stress not getting used to presets.

There are also many types of dynamic processors that all do different things: expanders, limiters, compressors, levelers (leveling amp), maximizers, etc.

Once you get a handle on dynamic theory, you can apply that better to this dilemma. You eventually learn about "mixing into a buss compressor". It's a common thing in professional mixes. If you've heard Linkin Park's Meteora, Velvet Revolver, A Perfect Circle, L.D. 50 Mudvayne...these are prime examples of buss compression. (look up Andy Wallace)

Generally speaking, this implies that you establish some type of compressor on your output very early in the mix process. Alot of times this can be a limiter (which puts an absolute stop to the signal it receives at a specified point).

How this applies to loudness is the ability to build the mix and pushing it right into that compressor. You can effectively "tuck" things nicely into the mix without much work and obtain good listening perceived loudness.

Granted, the compressor can't be set too aggressively because it will kill your mix. Bad compression kills transparency, clarity, dynamic range and even distorts your sound imaging. It sounds like warfare.

Of course, none of this makes sense until you've got a girm grasp on compression.

So to answer your question, try messing around with a compressor or limiter on your master channel before you mix to see if you can squeeze more volume. If you find yourself destroying the mix, ease off or consider clarity over volume.

9 times out of 10, listeners prefer a clearer mix within a reasonable volume.

[NYMorningstar]

Originally Posted by Taylor Lucas

I've tried looking for help on other forums, but I always get the same anti-loud-you're-stupid-for-falling-for-the-loudness-wars answer. Loud is what I need (for this specific project), hopefully you can help me out and ignore all that just this once.

Hey Taylor, welcome to the HR BBS. I'm afraid you'll hear the same here pretty much

Do you need one track loud or the whole mix?

When you are recording the tracks, what equipment do you use? How do you have your gain staging set up before it hits your firepod?

Are you tracking in 16 or 24 bit and at what volume? At what stage are you compressing all those guitar tracks, recording mixing or mastering?

[Taylor Lucas]

Lol, I barely know what I'm doing. This is what I've got so far, its pretty rectangle ish and disastrous. Hopefully you guys can give me some more tips from here. Btw, I haven't quite finished mixing the vocals yet so they're a bit loud at times.

http://llucass.sitesled.com/gsong%20wav.mp3

[Rokket]

Don't post a .wav file. It's the closest to CD quality, but it's a huge file to download or stream. Convert it to mp3, please.

[Mart[1001]]

Originally Posted by Rokket

Don't post a .wav file. It's the closest to CD quality, but it's a huge file to download or stream. Convert it to mp3, please.

...and when you're stupid enough to allow your computer to install crappy 'quicktime' like I was the other day which then takes over your audio streaming and despite the name 'quick', takes an 'age to download before listening and then tells you that you must pay if you want to save the file you have just downloaded, to disk(despite already having a copy in cache'...it's even more frustrating.

[sdr1]

hi,
wasnt able to listen to the clip as im in work,
but i can tell you what i do, which may help.
- this may not be the RIGHT way to do it, but i find it works for me.

If the guitars are all distorted, and just layers of rhythm, then i tend not to put compressors on the individual tracks. - i route all the guitars to a buss, and stick a compressor on the buss. -- if you are using OZONE, then you could try one of the guitar presets.

with vocals, i use a compressor on each track, and then all tracks to another buss, and a commpressor on the buss ( again OZONE have vocal presets )

DRUMS: compress kick, snere and toms - leave the overheads.
send all the drums to another buss - and again OZONE have a drum compression preset.

get that mix sounding as you want it then mix down. - dont worry too much about the overall loudness at this stage.

now open up the mixdown as a new project.
and stick a compressor on the master channel ( something like the OZONE preset "CD Master" should do it)
there are a few different preses, all of which can change the cound a bit too.

CD master seems to get it nice and loud though.

Theres one there calles "brick wall " or something like that, that wil get it all lud, but seems totaly kill any dynamics.

There is alot more to it than that, and im sure most will scoff at the thought of using the presets, but it will give you fairly good results quickely. -

[Taylor Lucas]

Alright I'll try some things. I'm not sure how to arrange things into a "bus" in audition though. Btw guys, its not a wav file, its mp3 lol. Wav is just in the name for some reason.