CD mastering Disaster VS2480

[Sigma9]

So I record these really good tunes and master them to stereo... I do this for every tune, and then start my cd mastering. I cant tell what level is going to the cd because the VS 2480 just writes what ever is on the 2 tracks im burning to the cd. My friend whom I made a CD for tells me that some of the songs are really loud and some are really low. How could this happen? When I mastered the stereo tracks I made damn sure the level were consistant..!?! What am I doing wrong?

[dachay2tnr]

Not sure what you mean when you say you "made sure the levels were consistent." If you mean that you "mastered" them so that the peaks were all at -0.1 db (or some facsimile), that has nothing to do with the perceived listening volume. Peak volume is just how loud the loudest part of the song is. Perceived volume is closer to the what the "average" volume of the song.

If you want comparable listening volumes, you have to listen to the songs back-to-back and master the volume level of each so that the transition from one song to another is smooth sounding (no great jump or decline in volume). There is software available (e.g., Wavelab) that will allow you to arrange (and listen) to the songs just as you would on a CD. Then you simply use your ears to insure the volumes are somewhat equal and adjust accordingly. After that, you can burn them to CD.

[Sigma9]

This is the VS2480, I should not need another ANYTHING, why cant I do that befor I burn the cd, there has to be some sort of level I can use to judge the levels to the cd. If I record the tracks at say -4db, then master the tracks at -4db and do this for every song, why would the levels flucuate so wildely?

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by Sigma9
If I record the tracks at say -4db, then master the tracks at -4db and do this for every song, why would the levels flucuate so wildely?

Because perceived (or apparent) loudness has nothing to do with signal level on your meters, it has to do with the weight your ears give to certain frequencies over other frequencies....

The overall perceived loudness of a track depends on the complex sum of frequencies of all the sonic elements of that mix.

Check out these threads... as well as these threads......

[Toki987]

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[littledog]

These dudes ain't lyin', sigma, there's no magic formula. So you you're gonna have to deal with the fact that you're actually going to have to listen to the tracks, comparing each to the others to make the volumes sound proportional from one song to the next. That's how the real mastering engineers do it - there's no shortcut.

If all your songs were simply mixed to the same "number", your loud songs might sound wimpy compared to your ballads, because they might sound the same level, when in fact they should appear to be louder. Or, as others pointed out, a song with one very short loud transient will end up sounding way softer than it should, because the average level of the song might be much lower than that single transient peak. Such a song would be a good candidate for limiting to get it's overall level up. (Or else just draw down or otherwise lower that transient so you can raise the overall level of the song).

A good technique to try when doing comparison listening from song to song is listen to the lead vocal in each - chances are the lead vocals will want to be similarly loud in similar style songs. Comparing the drum levels is also good. Sometimes at this stage, you find out you actually need to remix a song or two, because the vocals or drums were not mixed to the same proportion that they were in the other songs. It's a pretty easy mistake to make when you mix one song at a time, and don't do comparisons to your other mixes while you are mixing.

Good luck.

[volltreffer]

Cool tips!

What MAY work, too is to try a simple RMS based (but seems to be with a sliding time horizon, as the loudest parts are used) maximizing of your PC based burning program... At least it worked with me, but I spent loads of time getting a similar EQing and somehow my percieved loudness feeling was ok with my song in the mix compression stage...

But I find it VERY important to know what might give me problems with this - just to improve my processes in mixing/mastering

aXel

[volltreffer]

@Sigma9:

BTW: If I were you, I forget the 'I have a 2480 - I don't need...' attitude. It is simply a problem for YOU, not for anyone else. If you are proud of having your machine - nice. But as soon as you run into problems, you should at least think about the tips... If you can't afford any further equipment at the moment (quite understandable ) - you might just 'collect wishes' for times when you can afford them...

You might be able to get similar results with your 2480, if you consider this in the mixing stage... You might import the other finished+mastered songs and set them to an unused pair of tracks/v-tracks. By recalling these as scenes, you might quickly switch to other songs. By playing with these scenes and the MTK settings, you should be able to get similar results... If that answered your question... Nevertheless, I still have the impression that mastering on the VS machines is painful... (Though I only own a 1680 and a 880EX)

aXel

[JR#97]

sigma,

This is the same post I made to your question in the recording forum.. in case you missed it.

What you're asking about is one of the primary functions of mastering... making sure all of the songs are relative in terms of level, loudness, and sonic continuity. When I was in mastering we did it by notating the levels of every song.. peaks and valleys... then finding a common denominator for all of the tracks.. ie compression, limiting, eq, multi-band compression/limiting, etc.

If you have DAW editing program such as Sound Forge, Wavelab, CEP, etc... the tasks are a lot easier because you can manually knock down transients that might cause a compressor some fits. If you're doing everything on the 2480, automate a quick fader movement to knock down a transient. After you've achieved somewhat "even kieled" wave forms, you can apply some eq, compression/and or limiting to all of the tracks to provide that extra little kick and to also provide some sort of sonic common denominator. Sometimes even a tad bit of reverb can help... I'm talking a tad bit.. mainly to get the characteristics of the reverb unit and not necessarily the reverb effect itself. Normalize if you really feel the need, but only at the very last. If you do normalize, it's imperitive that you've gone through the program material and taken care of stray transients.

[Sigma9]

Thanks.

Vollt... the VS2480 I have came with a CD burner so I have no reason to put my music to my pc, and I dont have any editing softwarez anyway, well maybe a wave editor that came with the sound blaster live card I have. Although, to be honest I am really trying to avoid using my PC to edit anything other then midi tracks. The VS2480 has something called a "mastering room" I havent fully figured out how to use this feature and Im hoping its what im looking for. So many new things since switching from my old tracker its too much and oh well some of the songs will just have to suffer . Im not too scared though because these songs I refer to have gotten good reviews from the people here in the mp3 section. And of course helpful tips, better understanding of the features onboard the VS2480, and some books ive ordered will only make me a better producer.

[volltreffer]

High Sigma9!

Just re-read my post and it sounded somehow offending now to my 'ears' --- please excuse me... Sometimes it'S a little hard for me to write in English

But you might really try to keep the other songs of the cd as references... In fact I think I'll be trying that on my next CD, too

aXel