Low volume in final mix

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haytrain

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Please bear with me if this has been asked and answered before, or if I'm making a rookie mistake:

I've noticed that when I bounce a project in Logic to mp3 so that I can sample it on different sound systems, my volume level is significantly lower than other songs on my iPod. I raise the individual track volumes as as high as I can without peaking and do the same for the output level, but if I play an imported song off the iPod from a professional CD in my car stereo the volume will be around 14. When I play my project, I have to go up to around 22 to get comparable volumes.

Any ideas on how to boost the volume without getting the peaking? Am I doing something (or several things!) wrong?

Thanks.
 
The songs you are comparing to have been mastered which is where most recording get that final level boost.

If you are trying to get some extra level on your own you should look into a brick wall limiter plug in.
 
demariai said:
do you know anything like this for os x tiger non intel?
Click to expand...

No, but as I mentioned in the article it's not difficult to do manually unless there are hundreds of peaks. Usually only a few need to be tamed.

--Ethan
 
Hey Ethan,

The link to Scrollworks in your article links to a medical appointment messaging service, not any kind of audio software site.

Also - kind of a minor technical point, granted - your article says it affects one cycle; technically speaking, isn't the part you have highlighted in your graph at the bottom is, at best, a half of an A/C cycle. But actually looking at the waveform, it looks like its probably about four cycles of the transient frequency that are modulating on top of a half-cycle of a lower frequency "carrier" component, and the squasher is normalizing down that lower-frequency half-cycle, and not limiting the transient.

What am I missing?

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
The link to Scrollworks in your article links to a medical appointment messaging service, not any kind of audio software site.
Click to expand...

Yes, but if you click Products you'll find Peak Slammer. Go figure. I guess audio stuff is not their main gig.

your article says it affects one cycle
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's not really a very accurate way to say it. :D

What lies between two zero crossings in a complex audio wave can be one cycle or many cycles. It depends on the frequencies present and their amplitude.

--Ethan
 
Alright, thanks for the info and the link. I'll check it out now. So (bear with me) the goal of mixing is to just get the levels evened out without any peaking? What's the goal of mastering? I guess I still don't understand the difference.

Time for "Home Recording for Dummies" I suppose.

Thanks again.
 
haytrain said:
Alright, thanks for the info and the link. I'll check it out now. So (bear with me) the goal of mixing is to just get the levels evened out without any peaking? What's the goal of mastering? I guess I still don't understand the difference.

Time for "Home Recording for Dummies" I suppose.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The goal of mixing is to create a good balance between all the individual
instruments in 3 ways:

1 - Tall (trying to fill the frequency spectrum from sub bass to the airy highs,
and giving each instrument it's own place to live in the spectrum)

2 - Deep (give the music some depth by using effects such as delay, reverb,
chorus etc.)

3 - Wide (your stereo image... pan accordingly :D

Mastering is a completely different ball game. Mastering takes the two track
mix (left and right channels), and EQ's, compresses, limits etc. to polish off
the mix. I can't tell you much more about mastering though as I'm not a
mastering engineer. Maybe one of the mastering guys would like to fill this one.
 
Ethan Winer said:
What lies between two zero crossings in a complex audio wave can be one cycle or many cycles.
Click to expand...
The distance between sequential zero crossings on a single frequency is a half-cycle. On a complex wave it's a half-cycle of the frequency with the highest amplitude.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
On a complex wave it's a half-cycle of the frequency with the highest amplitude.
Click to expand...

Yes, and usually the loudest frequency is also the lowest. So typically you get a large broad excursion with a bunch of smaller HF stuff riding on top of that.

--Ethan
 
haytrain said:
What's the goal of mastering?
Click to expand...

Mastering is all about the presentation of the mix and the first impression it makes. It's where production intersects marketing.

The context of each song within the album is important as is translation between different listening environments. The overall tonality and volume level relative to the genre where the music will be marketed is also a major consideration.

The goal is to have a recording that will generate excellent word of mouth promotion and additional exposure as a result of people listening and liking what they hear. Bob O

Mastering is the final creative step in the record-making process, resulting in an equalized, leveled, and sequenced master that is professionally prepared for replication, distribution, and broadcast.

Ethan Winer said:
Yes, and usually the loudest frequency is also the lowest.
Click to expand...

The perceived loudness of frequencies are relative to the listening level.

At lower listening levels, lower frequencies are not perceived as loud as they are as when you listen at louder listening levels . Fletcher - Munson.
http://www.webervst.com/fm.htm
 
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Ethan Winer said:
Yes, and usually the loudest frequency is also the lowest. So typically you get a large broad excursion with a bunch of smaller HF stuff riding on top of that.
Click to expand...
That simply reinforces the fact that what's actually happening - as described an illustrated on that page - is that the software is choosing a half-cycle of the lowest frequency on which the transient peak is riding as the area to process, which will include several cycles of the transient frequency (assuming they're there and it's not a click noise transient). Then it uses the amount of reduction required to process the transient peak as an amount by which to downward normalize the whole length of the low frequency's half-cycle.

At least that is the analysis of the description given on that page. I'm not saying wright/wrong or good/bad, I'm just not sure I understand the "why" of it. There are several things I don't understand about that strategy, including but not limited to the idea that if the start/stop points are determined by zero crossings rather than by the actual start point of the transient attack, that means that the processing can start well before the transient or even conceivably somewhere in the middle of the transient.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
There are several things I don't understand about that strategy, including but not limited to the idea that if the start/stop points are determined by zero crossings rather than by the actual start point of the transient attack
Click to expand...

The plug-in simply does the same thing you or I would do manually, to tame the few errant peaks that usually prevent normalizing from achieving enough volume. I used to do this manually. Often only a few peaks hit much louder than all the rest. So if you want to lower the peak manually, the best you can do is adjust the level of the smallest portion you can find that's bounded by zero-crossings. I happen to love Peak Slammer. It works very well, and also can be pushed a little harder to add a big of edge to the sound.

Tom, of course I understand Fetcher-Munson. But this brings up a good point. There's a difference between louder as measured electrically, versus louder as how we hear it. Of course, the latter depends on where the volume control is currently set to!

--Ethan
 
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