Douglas Mckay
New member
Okay, here's what's been buggin' me for the longest time: I can't get my homerecorded CDRs to be anywhere as loud as the professional CDs put out today by other bands of similar sounds. Ever since my songs got more distorted and thick, they've never been as loud as they should be (the acoustic, thin songs are often much louder). If you put in The Flaming Lips after listening to my CD, you'll get blown away. I assume compression is something that might help, but whenever I use it (I use Cool Edit's) there's no more dynamics at all really. Maybe I just need some real pro compression or something.
Here's a good example of my problem: So I have this one song that is a real thick guitar song similar to "My Name is Jonas" by the band Weezer. Well, looking at the wave file, you see many peaks and valleys because, of course, there are dynamics to the song. But when I make that Weezer song into a wave file and look at it, it's just HUGE (way biger than mine)! In fact, the file actually peaks many times as I listen to it, but with no distortion! The file looks almost like just a big thick bar. It really doesn't have that many valleys either unless the music really drops out for a bit, but THERE ARE STILL DYNAMICS. It doesn't sound all compressed. How do they accomplish this? I want my songs to be as loud as I can get them so that when people put them on mix tapes, they aren't quieter than the pro ones.
For my last couple albums, I just had to turn all the louder acoustic songs down to match the quieter thick, distorted songs to normalize the record. That makes for a pretty quiet record.
I'm sure the answer is out there. Please send it to me if you know! Thank you.
Here's a good example of my problem: So I have this one song that is a real thick guitar song similar to "My Name is Jonas" by the band Weezer. Well, looking at the wave file, you see many peaks and valleys because, of course, there are dynamics to the song. But when I make that Weezer song into a wave file and look at it, it's just HUGE (way biger than mine)! In fact, the file actually peaks many times as I listen to it, but with no distortion! The file looks almost like just a big thick bar. It really doesn't have that many valleys either unless the music really drops out for a bit, but THERE ARE STILL DYNAMICS. It doesn't sound all compressed. How do they accomplish this? I want my songs to be as loud as I can get them so that when people put them on mix tapes, they aren't quieter than the pro ones.
For my last couple albums, I just had to turn all the louder acoustic songs down to match the quieter thick, distorted songs to normalize the record. That makes for a pretty quiet record.
I'm sure the answer is out there. Please send it to me if you know! Thank you.