Help with overall volume of final mix

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BDW

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I need tips or opinions on how to increase the volume of a final mix to a a respectable level. I'm not looking for that modern rock "loudness" and I don't want to smash the dynamics out of the song. I'm simply tired of having to turn up my demos 25% more than any other recordings that I hear,

I play in a rock band and attempt to record our songs on my own (using Reaper). I have no unrealistic expectations of the quality of recording I can achieve with an amateur understanding and limited equipment. I've been able to get reasonably good recordings of individual performances and a mix that I am pretty happy with but the volume of the finished product is always an issue. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. The individual tracks are only mildly compressed and EQ'd with no effects on anything but the vocals. I have experimented with different limiters and compressors on the master output and cannot achieve a decent volume without clipping or noticeable/undesirable compression.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks!
 
It's all about mastering, and it takes years to.. master.

For a total noob (this includes myself as well), you can either pay someone else to master your track, or get software to do it. The software can be pricey, and elitists look down their nose at using mastering software's "presets", but having the software will let you get the results you're looking for.
 
It's not elitist to say that presets on dynamics processors are not much better than random settings.

Buying software you don't know how to use isn't going to magically solve the problem. You need to strengthen whatever is the weakest link, which at this point is probably your skill with compressors and limiters. You can do a lot with the plugins that come with most DAWs if you know what you're doing.

For what it's worth I've experimented with Reaper and had some success mastering a track using the SStillwell Louderizer and the LOSER/MGA_JSLimiterST. I used the first one very conservatively (mix=35%, drive=75%) and the limiter set to release=76, link=100% and ceiling=-0.3. The threshold setting is especially dependent on your source material so I won't bother saying what I used.
 
BDW said:
I need tips or opinions on how to increase the volume of a final mix to a a respectable level. I'm not looking for that modern rock "loudness" and I don't want to smash the dynamics out of the song. I'm simply tired of having to turn up my demos 25% more than any other recordings that I hear,

I play in a rock band and attempt to record our songs on my own (using Reaper). I have no unrealistic expectations of the quality of recording I can achieve with an amateur understanding and limited equipment. I've been able to get reasonably good recordings of individual performances and a mix that I am pretty happy with but the volume of the finished product is always an issue. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. The individual tracks are only mildly compressed and EQ'd with no effects on anything but the vocals. I have experimented with different limiters and compressors on the master output and cannot achieve a decent volume without clipping or noticeable/undesirable compression.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Well if all you're going for is a bit more volume in the final product, then just raise the volume using whatever gain/sliders you see fit, and then maybe cap it with a limiter if you've raised it enough to where it clips sometimes. I know how frustrating it is to have to turn up the volume for your tracks/cd (and frantically turn it down when you forget to and pop a regular cd or song in, blowing your face off! :D)
 
There are no easy fix-all solutions to getting your mixes louder. These techniques take a long tiime to understand and learn. A separate mastering process done to the stereo mix "after" mixing is the best way to get a louder overall mix.
However, in order to get some increase in the volume of your mixes, at least make sure that you buss things. For example, send all your drums to a buss and put a compressor across that buss, send your bass to a buss, your guitars to a buss, keyboards to a buss, vocals to a buss, effects to a buss......or some other bussing combination that works for you. You can compress or limit the busses as necessary, and then send these busses to your stereo master buss. You may or may not want to compress/limit that master buss. Everyone has different ways of working there.
 
Also making sure that you have your gain staging done efficiently, during both the recording and mixing processes is a big part of not only getting the volume level up as well as getting clarity and headroom.
 
I always use a simple limiter on the 2-buss for this... either Elephant, TLs Maximizer, or Sonnox Limiter. Elephant requires being dialed in to avoid overs, TLs Maximizer you just stick on there anywhere in an insert and crank it till you're happy, and Sonnox Limiter is easiest to use post-fader with the output down just a hair, and then use the fader to drive it to the right loudness. Real easy way to add 25% loudness, any of these. I do it all the time, sounds fairly transparent, to me.
 
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