Getting the right volume

[bmcclure]

OK, first, my setup. In order to keep noise down I have "optimized" all volume levels to around 0 (Default) which deems to soudn th best for most equipment (with the exception of my compressor which the gain is up higher on)
My recording setup:
Everythign through Behringer mixer into Behringer compressor, back into mixer, and that alt. output goes into my Sound Blaster Extigy USB sound card. I use Adoba Audition to record, mix, mix down, add effects, etc.

My question: I have a ton of tracks, mostly guitar layering tracks, in my song. I am watching the dB meter at the bottom when playing all the tracks at once, and it easily jumps over the red mark and starts sounding terrible.

So I used the Amplify function, lowered all the guitar by 12dB, and lowered the bass gutiar a bit, and lowered everythign slightly. Then when I play the mix it sounds very good.

Then I mix down to a .wav file, and burned it to a CD, and when I play it in my CD player, it's really quiet. I normally listen to CDs on abotu '20' when I want them loud, and I have to have mine on '35' to be that loud.

There is too much bass in parts, as well. How can I lower the bass a bit and raise the volume quite a bit without the dB meter maxing out and sounding bad? I don't get it! Thanks!

 

[reel buzzer]

It's called maximum input level and maximum output level.

Your current hardware is probably limited on both.

 

[bmcclure]

Max. Input and output level of which hardware? My hardware is pretty good, I'm pretty sure the volume problems are only software related since I did do a lot of lowering the levels in Audition to get it below redline in Adobe Audition...

My hardware that I record from:
Guitars: an ESP and an Epiphone, both very nice models
Amp: Peavey 100W amp into Behringer Ultra-G GI
Drums/Rhythm: Roland MC-505 Groovebox
Bass: Decent bass guitar
Mixer: Behringer MX1604A
Compressor: Behringer Autocom Pro XL
Sound card: SB Extigy USB

What of that hardware is limited?

I already have the track in my computer, how can I reduce the bass an dincrease the volume while keeping the dB level below redline?

Thanks!

 

[faderbug]

limiter


https://homerecording.com/bbs/search.php?

 

[Synesthesia]

I'm a bit of a newbie, but I hope I can still help...

The more layers you add to the mix, the louder it's gonna get. If you have a master volume setting, pay attention to whether that one clips, not whether the individual tracks clip. Also don't lower the volume just because you see red - turn the monitors way up and listen to whether you actually hear any distortion. If you don't, you're probably OK.

If you just lower the volume of the clipped WAV, all you're doing is making the clipping softer, so it'll always sound like crap, just a little quieter. Best to remix entirely with lower levels.

Did you try backing off the compression?

 

[Ibrow]

My $.02 cents. Welcome to mixing BTW.

If the meter in the track software is never going into the red, clipping, then you are tracking correctly. Good. So, record all your tracks and whatnot. Now you start to MIX.

The best advice I have gotten is to mix on the computer to "-10". First, make sure all the tracks are output to master in the software. That way the master bus will tell you if you are going into the red or not for the whole mix. Next, you didn't say whether you were using drums or not, just a "ton of tracks, mostly guitars". If you do have drums, solo the kick, and turn the track fader down so it is kicking at around -9, -10. Solo the snare, same thing. Etc. etc.

If you don't have drums, just a bunch of guitars and/or vocals, solo the lead guitar. Now move the fader until the track dB meter is peaking around -9 or -10. Next, solo the lead vocal, if there is one, and mix it, so you like the relationship between the guit and vocal. Then, add the other guitar tracks one at a time, bass, BG vocals, all basically, "turned down". You basically did this already. With the "-10" system, once you have added all your tracks and mixed them to sound good together, the peaks will usually be around -2 to -3. I then start inching all tracks up by .5 or so until it peaking at -1 or -.1. This is not really necessary, but it will make the mix a bit "louder". Make sure the MASTER never goes red. If it does, find the offending part and make it quieter or make all the parts a bit quieter until you sneak it out of the red.

This produces the "quiet mix" you complained about.

Next, to get rid of the BASS, you need to apply some EQ. For guitars, and most everything that isn't a kick or bass guitar, you can kill everything below 80hz. To do this, in software, you need to add eq to each track. EQ to taste. This should cut out the low end. It can also get muddy in the 200hz area. I sometimes cut 250 and lower for electric guits. Experiment I'd say.

Finally, after you've cleared up the mud, and have your quiet mix, you are just about done. You could quit right here, but then you have to change your volume on your home/car CD player. What your mix needs is mastering. Send it out to a mastering house. EVERYTHING you hear on commercial CD's and radio has been mastered. It's just the way things work. BUT, if you just want to listen to it with your pals, without having to mess with the volume, you can "make it louder". Either by taking the 2 channel mixed down wav into a wav editor, or applying compression to the master bus and mixing it down again. Either way, it'll bring it up. What I do is mix it down(quiet mix), open the .wav in soundforge, and use wavehammer on it with smooth compression. This usually brings it up. Or you can throw a normalize in there, then some compression, it's really up to you.

All you have to realize, is that EVERY commercial CD has been mastered. If you want your mix to be as loud as on the CD you are referencing, and you aren't going to send it out for mastering, you will have to psuedo-master it yourself. For most of us that don't have the mastering "ear" yet(I never will ), we just want it to be "loud" so we don't have to constantly play with the volume knob from song to song. Real mastering involves, at the very least, multi-band EQ and an ear for hearing what is good and what is bad in a mix, then fixing it and making it sound better.

I hope that helps you a bit.

 

[bmcclure]

Hey, thanks a lot for the tips, exactly what i was looking for.

Yes, I have drums and soem rhythm sounds (piano, a few synth-type sounds) coming from my Roland MC-505. I have vocals, rhythm guitar, and 12 layers of chorus guitar (we will be layering it a lot mroe to get the sound we're looking for). We have a bass guitar track, and a bunch of sound effects tracks for machine noises, static, etc. All in all about 25 tracks so far, with about 20 guitar tracks still on the way probably. That's why the volume problem arises with clipping because we'ree layerign 12 guitar tracks right now, and that's soon to be 32...

It's not any individual part that's clipping, in fact, nothing even really comes close to clipping when I open each file individually. Right now I have increased the volumes slightyl for the guitars again and it only clips in one part of the first chorus section, but it's not noticeable, even at high volumes and through my studio headphones. It is still quiet though when I put it on a CD, so I will go through the methods you've suggested.

I cut the 65-75 range with the graphical EQ o the drums and increased the same range on the bass guitar, and that helped a bit (the bass drum and bass guitar were both hitting hard). Since I mixed all the drums together to once track from my 505 I had to use the EQ on the whole drum track. It ended up sounding pretty cool though, a lot better treble when I cut out those frequencies.

faderbug, I have a limiter built into my compressor, what are you saying about it?

No individual track clips at all, so I think I'm doing that right. I don't know muchabotu my compressor/limiter yet. I know what the majority of the knobs do, but I rpetty much go by the listening philosophy of just turn them until it sounds good... each track sounds good, nothing's getting cut off and compression isn't really apparent.

I ordered a pair of Alesis Studio One MKII Powered monitors yesterday, should have them Sat. That will help me get everything sounding right I assume, since the only thing I have to mix with besides my studio headphones is a Sony 7.1 surroud sound home theatre system... definately colors the sound a bit, lol.

Thanks a lot for the tips, I think I will purchase the hardware/software necessary and train myself to master, as I would like to put out the entire CD by myself in the longrun. Once I give myself a break from hearing that same song over and over again I think mastering it will come a bit easier.

I plan to go to college at the Milwaukee School fo Engineering next year and eventually master in Computer Engineering, which should help me a lot with this music stuff as well.

Thanks again!

 

[Chibi Nappa]

My $.02 cents. Welcome to mixing BTW.

What I do is mix it down(quiet mix), open the .wav in soundforge, and use wavehammer on it with smooth compression. This usually brings it up. Or you can throw a normalize in there, then some compression, it's really up to you.

If you want your mix to be as loud as on the CD you are referencing, and you aren't going to send it out for mastering, you will have to psuedo-master it yourself. For most of us that don't have the mastering "ear" yet(I never will ), we just want it to be "loud" so we don't have to constantly play with the volume knob from song to song. Real mastering involves, at the very least, multi-band EQ and an ear for hearing what is good and what is bad in a mix, then fixing it and making it sound better.

And here is where you have to make a judegment call. I know nothing about mastering, and I refuse to do anything to my songs that will make them sound worse. Yes, I can certainly run my stuff through a multi-band compressor and limiter and make it sound louder, but I can't do all that and make it sound better....so I just don't do it.

That's me. Many home recordists like the extra volume. That's them, and there's nothing wrong with either way. In home recording it is usually you and your friends who end up listening to it, so in the end you have to do what makes it a better listening experiance for those who will be listening.

 

[bmcclure]

This is just the start of my music venture, but when my album is done it will not be ultimately for me and my friends. I've got other plans for it ;-)

Now-a-days with even the equipment i have I could potentially put out something very close, if not unnoticeably equal, to a studio-quality recording. I plan to test that by making my entire CD, mastering my entire CD, getting some professional opinions on the final mix to make sure I'm not on the wrong track with it.

This is going to be far too ambitious just to make for my friends, I've been making the beats to them for the past four years, and writing the songs for the past year. Once I work past some technical hurdles in my software, I'll be on my way...

Thanks again!

 

[jonhall5446]

I am with you 100 percent. A lot of these guys will tell you your recording will sound like shit until you get it professionally mastered, but give it a try yourself. If folks (other than mastering pros) tell you it sounds like crap then do something about it. If you don't get any BIG complaints then you are probably on the right track. Don't fix it if it's not broken, or better yet, don't upgrade to super if it runs pretty well on 89 octane. I am no mechanic I just drive the cars.

 

[jonhall5446]

I am with you 100 percent. A lot of these guys will tell you that your recording will sound like shit until you get it professionally mastered, but give it a try yourself. If folks (other than mastering pros) tell you it sounds like crap then do something about it. If you don't get any BIG complaints then you are probably on the right track. Don't fix it if it's not broken, or better yet, don't upgrade to super if it runs pretty well on 89 octane. I am no mechanic I just drive the cars.

 

[bmcclure]

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I agree with you completely. It will take some time, soem trial and error, and a lot of testing, but I don't see why I can't come up with a very well sounding album. Most badns record in recording studios, but some just can't. Most bands get their stuff professionally mastered, but some just can't. Some bands know exactly what they want, go to a dtudio for a few hours and get their album recorded.

I take a different approach. I know the basic approach I want to take with a song. I record each instrument individually per track, I play with it, using trial and error, finding what works and what doesn't. I usually record everythign 4 or 5 times until I find oen that sounds the best. And I can never tweak the song enough. I could spend the next 10 years tweaking songs for my album and I could still do more. I almost HAVE to do it at home unless I want to spend my life savings on studio time.

As far as mastering, same thing goes. A pro can tell me what sounds good to him, but I'm not looking for someone who masters for all kinds of other bands to tell me how my music should sound. My music is different, because it's mine. I think I have "the ear" anyway, I just have to learn how to master it

Thanks again.

 

[masteringhouse]

I am with you 100 percent. A lot of these guys will tell you that your recording will sound like shit until you get it professionally mastered, but give it a try yourself. If folks (other than mastering pros) tell you it sounds like crap then do something about it. If you don't get any BIG complaints then you are probably on the right track. Don't fix it if it's not broken, or better yet, don't upgrade to super if it runs pretty well on 89 octane. I am no mechanic I just drive the cars.

Wow, strange analogy.

An experienced mastering engineer will try to optimize the audio for the genre. If the car (song) requires 89 octane that's what a good ME will put into the gas tank. Unfortunately many MEs try to put "super" in the tank and that's why we have so many hypercompressed CDs today.