Boosting the overall Volume of a Finished Song.

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BSharp810

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The problem I am faced with is that I will have a song finished, mixed down to where I am happy with the quality. I then put the CD in my car cd player, and the overall volume is lower than any other CD I have .

The question I am asking is: Can anyone give me tips on boosting the overall volume? And if the raw recording is not clipping, can i boost the volume as much as i want and it wont clip? Or do i have to keep everything under 0 db reguardless.... Basically what im asking is , what do you guys do to get your project to the highest acceptable level?

I Appologize for my post being all over the place... being that im not the most experienced engineer, i dont know the technical terms and all of that, and I hope you are able to answer my Question, or at least point me in the right direction.( Yes i know the obvious answer is to use a limiter, im just curious about alturnitives.)
 
You have to keep it under 0dBFS regardless. You can simply amplify the signal up to the point that it gets close to 0, then you have to limit peaks to get it any higher.
 
It needs some sort of compression/limiting that will allow you to raise the overall level without clipping.

There are many plugs with some sort of "maximizer" option.

Of course...if you just push it hard, you will most likely kill the the dynamics, balance and EQ of your mix....but it's a try-it-and-see thing...you just have to find the setting that gives you the most level with the least trade-off of the other things.
Don't get too addicted to nuking it. It may sound OK initially, with a HUGE level bump...but after you hear it a few times you will start to notice what you've lost in the process.

Best way is to compare the "maximized" versions to your original version (just turn up it's volume for a level match)...that way you can hear what the "maximizing" process is actually taking away while boosting the level.
 
Thanks for the tips, this " peak limiter " that you are talking about...is that what its called, a "peak limiter"? what does that do, kind of compress the peaks down, and average out the sound , or what not?
 
Thanks for the tips, this " peak limiter " that you are talking about...is that what its called, a "peak limiter"? what does that do, kind of compress the peaks down, and average out the sound , or what not?

A peak limiter is a fast, high ratio, high threshold compressor that only lowers the peaks. That frees up some headroom so you can increase the average level. The more you limit peaks the less dynamic the song gets.
 
cool, thanks for the tip, ive been trying to find something that did exactly that. Would you recomend doing that to the master track, or use it sparingly?
 
this is why you have a VOLUME knob!

We've been here before gonzo-x - whilst in listening to a single artist's CD or whatever, I agree with you, use the volume - but so much music is playlisted MP3s these days that if your song is lower, it sticks out, and not in a good way.

What you're trying to do is part of the mastering process BSharp - on the stereo track - apply sparingly because once you start limiting, you're reducing the dynamics of the track, as has been pointed out ad nauseum...
 
even in recording you have a volume knob, the master fader. sometimes you can just push it up until the peaks are close to but not peaking. if this doesn't cut it, limit a little bit and then you can push the fader up or use make up gain with the limiter.
 
I'm gonna say light limiting and maybe consider multiband compression, if you really wanna get more out of it but bear in mind you loose a lot in both the processes dynamically, when you were finishing the final stereo tracks did you try normalizing them to -0.1db? I generally find that gives them the boost they need and leaves the dynamics in :) but if it needs more I compress it.

That being said I just finished a project with a band who INSISTED I compress and limit the FU*K out of the whole Demo... I was a bit taken aback tried to explain it but there was no reasoning with them and their artistic 'vision' :P
 
Here is a pretty good freeware limiter:

yohng.com · W1 Limiter

You can use this to get your mix levels up to those of commercial releases. However your mix will sound shittier than theirs will.

It's very hard to get a mix as loud and as good as a commercial mix. IMO it's better to get "close enough" and just live with it. Use the volume knob to make up the difference.
 
I always thought that this was something that was done during the mastering phase of a project-by adding compression etc.
 
I always thought that this was something that was done during the mastering phase of a project-by adding compression etc.

Normally, yes. But I am a recording engineer who is trying to have the capability to master my own mixes.
 
Keep in mind that sub frequencies can eat up your headroom quickly. Keeping them tamed can help to get more overall volume as well.
 
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