how do i determine my level

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macmansupreme

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I have the roland vs 2000 portabale studio and i have figured out how to do pretty good in mastering but whenever i play it before a professional cd my cd sounds much lower sound quality is good but its just to low what is the mastering volume that i need :rolleyes:
 
when you are mixing (before mastering) what is your average volume level? make sure you are looking at the meters in RMS rather than peak levels?

if you can get your mix to sit well where the average RMS level as the song plays stays HOT then you'll have a better chance of mastering your song with semi-pro gear.
 
thanks

a man that sounds like that would help me but im a rapper trying to be an engineer so what does rms mean. do i simply need to make sure my input levels are up high or what
thanxs again
 
before you can get the kind of mastering levels you need, you've got to definitely learn the difference between peak and RMS (root mean square).

peak is an instantaneous level whereas RMS is an averaged level. if the kick pumps up to -2db and the snare hits at -10db and your vocal comes in at -8db then the kick is going to mess up your mix. if you compress the kick to a reasonable level then you can bring the average volume of the entire mix up so that it is louder.

the above is what a compressor does.

keep recording (always keep your mic work as your first love) and if you are really interested in making music for yourself hang around here and pick up some tips on recording, compressing, and EQ'ing individual tracks in a mix. then get to the mastering... but keep recording.
 
your the best

thanx man i hope you stay around for a while. here in lawrence ks these dudes be hatin so i just been goin off ear and thats good but i do need to know ehat those numbers are thanks again you cool one love and peace
 
Please don't take this the wrong way (people always take this the wrong way :mad: ).

In your first post, you mentioned that you have "figured out how to do pretty good in mastering" then in a later post, you don't understand what the relationship between peak and RMS levels are. It's likely that you have a tremendous amount to learn about recording and mixing - Not even going into mastering.

It's a lot more than slamming something through a limiter or compressing a track to death to make it loud. The subtleties of ALL the steps from start to finish are MUCH more important than the obviosities. And the subtleties require a certain amount of experience to achieve.

Again - I'm totally into doing the best you can with what you've got, but it seems that every other day, someone posts about why they can't make a recording with almost no experience and $2000 in gear sound as good as "pro" recordings made in multi-million dollar facilities and crews of people with decades of practical experience at the craft.

The opposite is also true - There are plenty of bands out there with more dollars than sense that go TO the multi-million dollar studios and they STILL sound less than stellar. Their own sounds are their own worst enemies. I used to have bands show up with dented drum heads, two-year-old bass strings, vocalists who droned through their nose, horrible sounding guitar multi-effects units - the works. When everything was done, they wondered why they didn't sound like Metallica.

It's just not realistic...

The point is that everything - EVERYTHING - in a recording from the start has to be "up to specs" if the final result is to be. The talent, the room, the engineer, the gear, the song, the mix, the mastering... Everything has to fall together in a way that benefits the whole.

Quality gear is important - however, with a good performance and an experienced engineer, the quality of the gear is much less important - Blue Bear has a quote in his signature that goes something like "George Massenburg can make better recordings through a PortaStudio than a monkey with a Neve" or something similar.

It doesn't get any more true than that.

SO - Do some experimenting - Read some books - Record everything you can in every way you can, from every angle, with every mic, and listen to what they're doing. I'm not saying to get a degree - Just some basic need-to-know type stuff. Soak it up like a sponge. Learn the rules, and break them all.

And for God's sake, keep the levels reasonable. Almost everything out there is smashed - I can accept that. HOWEVER, if it's going to be smashed, smash it ONCE during mastering. Not on the input, then the mix, then the "half-asster-master" - One time. The last thing that's done. Worry about getting a good mix of a good tune. The volume will come if the potential is there.
 
another thing i did was to take a CD that i really thought was well done and try to emulate the production quality of that CD.

I chose Mos Def's "black on both sides".

When I started to get the quality of the sound but still couldn't get the "volume" i got a spectral analyst plug-in from brainspawn.com. i converted the 2nd track "hip-hop" into a wave file and took a look at it. i was surprised to see just how compressed/limited it really was.

although the track had lots of breath and space to my ears, the analyst showed (as did the meters) that the tracks was pinning between -3db and 0db constantly.

i have a long way to go, but i'm getting there. as my ears get better, and my gear gets better, my mixes get better... but I lost my love for the M-I-C... so be careful!
 
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