Volume of final mixes.

C

Crayon Boy

New member
I'm getting pretty good sounds and mixes out of my equipment and studio, but my only problem is the overall volume of finished mixes on CD. The volume level is noticably lower than that of a commercially produced CD. How can I raise the overall volume of finished mixes? Should I record individual tracks at higher levels (without clipping of course)? Should I push the master volume up? Currently my master volume is peaking around -1 to 0db on my finished mixes. Where should the master volume on my final mixes be peaking? At what point will it start distorting when played through a stereo? Will mastering solve this problem? Should I use compression to raise the volume? Any advice or comments would be welcome and appreciated. Thank you.
 
>>>>>>>>>>.I'm getting pretty good sounds and mixes out of my equipment and studio, but my only problem is the overall volume of finished mixes on CD. The volume level is noticably lower than that of a commercially produced CD. How can I raise the overall volume of finished mixes?


Compress the hell out of everything..and get your mixes mastered...You probably won't like that answer but too bad....that's why commercial CDs are sooo damn loud and that's also why they have a raped dynamic range. :eek: do you really want that???

<<<<<<<<<<<<Should I record individual tracks at higher levels (without clipping of course)?


Yes, theoretically, you should....but only to reduce signal to noise ratio..You'll get more sound, less noise...This is not really going to make your final mix louder in itself though. IMO


>>>>>>>>>>>>Should I push the master volume up? Currently my master volume is peaking around -1 to 0db on my finished mixes. Where should the master volume on my final mixes be peaking? At what point will it start distorting when played through a stereo?


Keep it at 0db man....anything above that = clipping distortion.......If you go back to answer to question one....you'll find that most of those commercial CD's are compressed soooo much that they virtually sit a zero db and never dip or rise..No fluxation...no dynamics....that's why they are loud.....watch your levels as your song plays....I guarantee it's jumping all over.....way down below 0db at certain points....but if you raise the faders it clips anyway right? That's where compression comes in....It brings the peaks down a notch or two, depending on where you set the threshold and allows for the overall volume of the song to be raised closer to 0db.

IMHO a better way to take care of this is to go in and manually take out the peaking spikes yourself in a audio software program.......say if it's a peaking/spiking nasty drum hit.....use cut and paste to replace that hit with another hit.....do this for all the spikes and jumps in the song on each track....and then you'll be able to raise the volume of each track a bit so that the overall volume will be sitting closer to 0db and fluctuating less...No one will even notice you edited...and if they do...tell them you didn't :D .....then use a marginal amount of compression......problem virtually solved...it still might not be as loud as a commercial CD but you are a homerecorder right? it will be good enough.....:D

>>>>>>>>>>Will mastering solve this problem?

A good mastering Job will probably solve it.


>>>>>>>>>Should I use compression to raise the volume?

yeah....if you need it to be loud that bad.....but remember it will be at the expense of dynamic range.....
 
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Benefits of mastering?

Kewl... thanks for the reply. What is the benefit of mastering then? Are there any benefits besides it being louder??
 
>>>>>>>>>Kewl... thanks for the reply. What is the benefit of mastering then? Are there any benefits besides it being louder??


To be honest....this question is probably best suited for someone else.....I don't know much about mastering...Someone else will definately have an answer for you.....:D

However, I can tell you that one benefit would be that they have fresh ears that aren't fatigued from listening to the same damn songs over and over again like yours.......Also they are typically or should I say hopefully, good engineers that can really polish up stuff (like maybe for radio) with high end gear that you probably will never have access to :D I think they work with the tracks as a whole....they tend to work with the entire waveform of a song....compressing that......taking out hiss...and glitches....and stuff.....For the average joe homewrecker with average gear, putting any whole mix through any single process is generally regarded as a big no no....it's usually a sure bet that you'll ruin the song.....Anyway......I really don't know....I might not even be right about any of that last part.......I'm sure someone else will have a better answer.
 
A limiter like the L2 (hardware or software) will enable you to get your songs just as loud as any commercial CD. There are drawbacks to heavy limiting though, in terms of loss of dynamic range, and in extreme cases increased harshness of the sound.
 
Well me; I just get my levels as high as possible but peaking below 0db. After that I just use Waves Ultramaximizer plugin; and run a preset and Im through. The compression maxing tends to cause problems when its time to master; trust me I know.
 
I predict that between this and a few years, there will be more artists and producers that don't chase the high as possible volumelevel anymore. The last years was really 'get it at loud as possible' while this often results in lack of dynamics and that harsh overcompressed sound.

Don't get me wrong, firm rock or metal can sound great when mixed really loud and in your face, but nowadays it seems that it has become a standard.
 
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