Why doesn't this work?

B

booyah14

New member
So everyone hates when the music is mega squished, so it got me wondering about this. When you copy and paste a track, it makes the loudness of that track a little bit louder. Why could you not do this a bunch of times on the 2-buss and have it louder in general?

I wouldn't think it would effect any more spikes, so my question is why can't this be done?
 
Thank you for an intelligent post and answer to my question.

Now if anyone is knowledgable on this subject, please feel free to enlighten me on why this wouldn't work.
 
You would get the same exact effect if you just turned up the volume. That's essentially all you're doing by having a copy of a track. :rolleyes:

Chessrock, when you're right, you're right. :D
 
booyah14 said:
..I wouldn't think it would effect any more spikes, so my question is why can't this be done?
Click to expand...
Look at it this way. Is the track maxed out? If not, turn it up. Now, why can't you turn it up even further? "Because it's maxed out, don't be silly Wayne." So if doubling the track makes it louder, why can't you just do that? "Because it's maxed out already."
Round and round we go... :D
 
First off, copying and pasting a track does NOT make it louder. I guess if you pasted it back on itself it would. So, why don't you try it and then tell us why it will not work? If it does, you will be fantastic rich because you can make a hardware box or a a plugin that does that and market it;)
 
booyah14 said:
So everyone hates when the music is mega squished, so it got me wondering about this. When you copy and paste a track, it makes the loudness of that track a little bit louder. Why could you not do this a bunch of times on the 2-buss and have it louder in general?

I wouldn't think it would effect any more spikes, so my question is why can't this be done?
Click to expand...

Dude, come on. You are just not thinking about this very hard or something.

You still have a maximum level of 0 on your master buss. If one track is hitting zero and you duplicate that track what is the level on the master going to do?
 
xstatic said:
First off, copying and pasting a track does NOT make it louder.
Click to expand...

If you copy and paste a track, and play back both, it makes it 3dB (IIRC, it might be 6dB) louder. That is the only thing it does. If you turn up the Master fader by 3 (or 6 or whatever) dB, you have done the exact same thing, and saved a half-minute of diddling around..
 
A copied track that is exactly the same. Will simply boost the overall volume by double... 3dB.
It would be the same as turning up the fader by 3dB. You run the risk of clipping the master.
The waveforms are additive. So if the waveforms are identical, the result is the same thing, only with more amplitude (3dB to be exact). The waves would be exactly linear with the original waveforms (unless they get clipped due to lack of headroom).
The reason mastering and compression can make audio louder (but have the same maximum peak) is by increasing the RMS power. That makes the mastered waveform non-linear from the original waveform..... sometimes so much that it's "squished".
So, basically, simply copy-paste to new track won't get you anywhere. It takes actual processing of the audio to increase it's apparrent volume.
 
ermghoti said:
If you copy and paste a track, and play back both, it makes it 3dB (IIRC, it might be 6dB) louder. That is the only thing it does. If you turn up the Master fader by 3 (or 6 or whatever) dB, you have done the exact same thing, and saved a half-minute of diddling around..
Click to expand...
Ahh you beat me to it.
 
Sorry guys, but if you copy and paste a track it is NOT louder. The playback level will be hotter as mentioned above if you paste the track over the original. But, a copied and pasted track is the SAME volume (hence the term copy;) ) The original poster made no mention of pasting the track where there was already currently audio residing;)
 
Another note, the copy paste things works really good in a computer mixing program (i use sonar 5) when you want to get something that is maxing out to be louder. It basically is like turning everything else down around it in reality, but it is a lot less of a hassle
 
Elmo89m said:
... It basically is like turning everything else down around it in reality, but it is a lot less of a hassle
Click to expand...
Huh?
You mean if you do that, then turn the master down? In that case just turn it up then turn the other down..(?)
 
Elmo89m said:
Another note, the copy paste things works really good in a computer mixing program (i use sonar 5) when you want to get something that is maxing out to be louder. It basically is like turning everything else down around it in reality, but it is a lot less of a hassle
Click to expand...

I had to read that about four times to see what you meant, but it's not a terrible idea. Make the quiet track permenently louder by copying it to itself Sound-on-Sound, and you don't have to pull the track's fader all the way up anymore.

Wouldn't it be easier to set the levels properly during tracking ;)
 
Actually, the whole copy/paste thing is a pretty good way of turing up the master volume without actually having to bother reaching for that annoying master volume control.

Need more volume? Just keep on adding extra copies.

Then, when you want less volume, you can always just take away one of the tracks. Or you can simply invert the phase on one of the tracks. Want to silence it altogether and start over? Easy. Just start with two copies and make sure one of them is inverted. Walla!

.
 
i basically meant what chess said, except for the phase stuff. sorry if it was confusing, but try it, it saves a lot of time.
 
about the properly during tracking thing. I record everything at as close to 0 db as i can get it. Then i mix. I dont see what you are saying.
 
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