Everything's too Quiet!

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CK98Beeetle

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How do i get the recordings to sound "louder" I have Cubase SX and i'm running from an STAudio sound card and input board. I then take my recordings into Sonic Foundry Sound Forge, and that helps a little. But i want the full thing. Problem is when i play through Cubase, everything seems so loud. Then in a wav file, its not.
 
Once you have your stereo mix you need to go through a normalization process on the stereo file to bring the level up higher. It is a function of mastering to do this, and there are lots of ways to screw it up and wind up with distorted audio.

Cubase or Sound Forge both have the tools to do this, although it is probably better to use Sound Forge from what I've read.

Hope this helps.
Darryl.....
 
normalization will definitely boosts those levels...i normalize alot of what i import/record. also, if you do some compression, you can use the gain controls to compensate for any loss...
 
i have been normalizing. thats the problem. maybe i'm doing it wrong? I've used the compressors and everything else i can think of doing. The tracks are close to clipping as they can get. I can't figure out why when it goes to wav file its so quiet. Thanks guys for helping though. Is there certain ways to normalize or any special things to do in Cubase when Exporting the file?
 
Search the forum for "Normalize" and you will find pages and pages on why it is NOT a useful tool. Long story short is that it acts only on the peaks of the audio file, bringing the loudest point up to 100% (or whatever you set it at)...if that loudest point happens to be a peak at 99%, then whoopee the sound level of everything came up about .5db or so.

Normalization is the same thing as using a fader, except that normalizing degrades the quality of the audio each time you use it.

If you want to take up the "overall" volume, and turning up the fader causes it to clip, then use a limiter keep turning it up/limiting until you reach the desired level.
 
thanks. i've been messing around with that for a while. The tools in VST Dynamics seem to help a lot too. The more you try out things, the better you get ive noticed. This stuff takes a lot of practice. Thanks!
 
have you tried getting any of these final wavs mastered? im not sure where you are in the whole process, i was able to get my stuff up a couple of notches during the mastering.
 
what exactly do you mean by mastering? Like putting it through Sound Forge 6.0? Or is it possible to do each track on Cubase? I "master" the tracks as well as i know how. Normalize - (which i have learned to watch out for now), Wave Hammer, Equalize, and Auto Level and the little things for effects and what not. What else?
 
CK98Beeetle said:
thanks. i've been messing around with that for a while. The tools in VST Dynamics seem to help a lot too. The more you try out things, the better you get ive noticed. This stuff takes a lot of practice. Thanks!
Click to expand...

IMO the VST Dynamics tools (compressor, gate, limiter) that come with Cubase SX are shit. Compressor is really good if you wanna suck the life out of anything, limiter can be useful, gate is... depends....

I'd suggest you not worry about the loudness level, but get your mix sound really good, then let a mastering engineer worry about the rest.
 
mastering, from my experience, is the final step. once you have the songs mixed in cubase, or whateva you use, sounding exactly the way you want it to sound, you take it to a production engineer or a mastering house and run it through their system. basically, it gets your stuff louder, more consistent from one stereo system to another. if you have 10 songs, for example, it'll get all 10 songs on the same volume levels and make sure that whether you play it on a cheap laptop, CD player, a bangin car system, a high quality studio, or a $20 radio, etc. it'll sound at its best no matter what the setup. here's a pretty good article that describes the whole deal:

http://www.johnvestman.com/hot_cd.htm


hope that helps...
 
Wow! that really helps! Thats some interesting stuff. I found a pretty sweet studio today in my area, Heres hoping they can master my stuff. I found they cost about $500 for three songs to record. Not sure about how much just for mastering.
 
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