Extra volume w/ ProTools LE

  • Thread starter Thread starter Young Squire
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Young Squire

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I have a Digidesign M Box that I have been doing some recording with. When I compare my stuff to that of a professionally mastered cd, my mix has half as much volume. If I squeeze the poop out of it with a compressor, the volume jumps up to a certain extent, but all you hear is the compressor. I know that sending my mixes to a pro would fix this problem, but before I do that, I want to know if there is any way I can get more volume myself. Does anybody have any tips on how I can get more volume with Pro-tools or any other software for that matter?
 
Have you tried using judicious compression and limiting on individual tracks?

And especially - Using sounds that are "friendly" to higher volumes in general? Keep in mind that the "optimum" volume of a finished mix is dependent on the original sounds and the arrangement more than anything else.
 
???

I'm sorry, I have no form of intelligence. What do you mean by "judicious compression?"
 
I agree with John, try to get the individual elements sitting in the mix well before strapping a limiter or compression on the main bus (more in the domain of mastering). The transients of a mix are what is going to hold back how far you can take the overall volume before getting into distortion.

Just as "You can't have any pudding until you eat your meat", You can't bring up the average level, if you don't control the peaks, if you don't control the peaks you can't bring up the average level.

"I'M STILL WAITING!!!
 
Don't use any plug-ins on your master fader> NOTHING, NADA

Group all of your faders togerther when you have your mix finished. Take the master fader down about -5 or so to leave you some headroom on the other side (since you grouped all of the faders should move down with master).

You will then want to bounce your tracks down in 24 bit multiple mono (this will ensure the best quality of bouce) Convert after bounce!

Start a new session, this will be your mastering session.

Choose "import audio to track" from the file menu. Find your L and R files that you just bounced and click add. Once you hit enter it will import your multiple mono tracks. Then you can go to town on the compression and limiting.

Since you left some headroom, you shouldn't encounter clipping. Just keep in mind that in a compression situation you might not see all digital clipping. When you compress you can distort the sound and still not have any clipping that you can see.

You can import all of your tracks to this session and play them in order. Compare volume and mix so you can get a good solid level. When you have mastered your track highlight each song individually and chosse bounce to disk (you will do this for every song) Bounce Stereo Interleaved and 16bit so you can burn it to a cd.

bam! you have mastered your disk (sort of) but you'll have most your desired volume

Check out www.digidesign.com
Click on digizine and then on groundwork in the bottom left corner
You'll find some great articles about this stuff.
I read them all twice and it's a wealth of info.

Good Luck
 
jonhall5446 said:
Don't use any plug-ins on your master fader> NOTHING, NADA

Group all of your faders togerther when you have your mix finished. Take the master fader down about -5 or so to leave you some headroom on the other side (since you grouped all of the faders should move down with master).

You will then want to bounce your tracks down in 24 bit multiple mono (this will ensure the best quality of bouce) Convert after bounce!

Start a new session, this will be your mastering session.

Choose "import audio to track" from the file menu. Find your L and R files that you just bounced and click add. Once you hit enter it will import your multiple mono tracks. Then you can go to town on the compression and limiting.

Since you left some headroom, you shouldn't encounter clipping. Just keep in mind that in a compression situation you might not see all digital clipping. When you compress you can distort the sound and still not have any clipping that you can see.

You can import all of your tracks to this session and play them in order. Compare volume and mix so you can get a good solid level. When you have mastered your track highlight each song individually and chosse bounce to disk (you will do this for every song) Bounce Stereo Interleaved and 16bit so you can burn it to a cd.

bam! you have mastered your disk (sort of) but you'll have most your desired volume

Check out www.digidesign.com
Click on digizine and then on groundwork in the bottom left corner
You'll find some great articles about this stuff.
I read them all twice and it's a wealth of info.

Good Luck
Click to expand...

Where did you get the information for these suggestions?

The digidesign reference that you gave seems to contradict some of the things that you said above:

http://www.digidesign.com/digizine/archive/digizine_november03/groundwork/
 
I printed everything off last week before I went to the beach, when I got back I was ready to get to work. That was just a wealth of info
 
jonhall5446 said:
Contradict, how?
Click to expand...

Had to do with bouncing tracks, and putting plug-ins on the master fader. I see no advantage in bouncing down to 2 mono tracks vs stereo interleaved when creating a mix. This was an old wives tale. I ran some tests on this and 2 mono nulled with a stereo interleaved mix, meaning they were equivalent.
 
Good to know

I think that I found that info from a post of yours. Thanks!
 
Last edited:
I agree with the no plug ins on master fader. Maybe a bit of eq, but I think he is trying to avoid compressing the stereo bus in response to all of the common questions. No?
 
jonhall5446 said:
I agree with the no plug ins on master fader. Maybe a bit of eq, but I think he is trying to avoid compressing the stereo bus in response to all of the common questions. No?
Click to expand...

Yep, during mixing. When mastering in PT you will most likely want to add on the master fader or aux channel.

His articles aren't very far off from what I do actually (kinda scary when I read them). One thing that I do when mastering that may be a bit different is routing the individual tracks to an aux track and then to the master fader. I also insert outboard processing from my analog and digital units in the aux. This way I can meter the master fader with and without mastering much easier.
 
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