Low Volume

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K

knowninpart

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Hello,

I'm fairly new to the recording game, but so far I've had a lot of fun without too much trouble. The biggest problem I have is that once everything is mixed down I can't get my volume up anywhere close to that of a commercially produced CD. I've put some compression on my mixed track to smooth it out some and squeeze a few more DB's out of it, but still not even close. I'm using an older version of cool edit pro. Anybody got any ideas? Please help. (I have a ton more details on how I recorded everything and an mp3 of the mix if anyone wants to hear it). Thanks for the help!

KC
 
Do you have version 1.2 of CEP?

Try using the hard limiter or normilizer.
It's in the amplitude section under effects.

I use the Waves L1 Limiter which boosts the hell out of the track but doesn't distort it.

Tukkis
 
ok... most people have this problem... basically, you wont get your volume up to that 'commercial' level...That's mastering.. and to make it that loud, you need top shelf stuff to keep it from distorting.. so forget about commercial equipment... Rate your stuff against other home recorded stuff... that's the idea...

as far as getting it louder... i'd suggest you have a look at your individual track levels... make sure they're at good levels... good levels mean, not too loud to bust or be noisy, but loud enough to capture dynamics... it's a subjective thing a 'good level.' So, go through, check your levels... maybe compress some loud tracks, turn them down to match your lower tracks and then boost the master a tad, not too much... Other than that... volume i find, starts with the actually tracking... the final mix shouldn't be to bring up the volume, it should be to tame the volume, in most cases.

Rory.
 
Another thing to do after you have compressed your mix is to normalise it. What it will do is bring the loudest peak up to say 0db and in doing so raise the volume of the rest of the track up by the same amount.. it if your loudest peak is -3db it will raise the whole track be 3db.

Porter
 
Ayeeeeeuhhhh.... so you wanna get your product as loud as some of the 'commercial releases'... good lord, why? So many of the 'major label' releases I've heard since the loudness wars started have been such utter shite... with the fault coming at the 'mastering stage' of the process.

There is some truth to the 'louder sounds better' thing... but it's a temporary "better"... pretty much none of the "loud" albums have much staying power beyond their 'radio run'.

There is one 'famous mastering dude' I know who regularly runs the snare drum into the land of 'digital clipping'... with the rationalization that it 'enhances' the 'snare' portion of the drum sound.

BTW, he gets absofuckinglutely no work from me... I think his work sounds remarkably terrible.

A little dynamic range isn't a bad thing... every now and again a break is needed from the full on 'volume assault' of the current model [which seems to have about 4db of dynamic range when all is said and done].

FWIW... if I were you I wouldn't try to "compete" with modern product... but forge your own sound by your own rules. This notion that everything should sound "the same" is one of the reasons for the overall lack of health of the 'record industry'...

Best of luck with all you do.
 
Fletcher said:
Ayeeeeeuhhhh.... so you wanna get your product as loud as some of the 'commercial releases'... good lord, why?
Click to expand...
Listen to the man. You don't want to be that loud. I honestly belive some of my recent home efforts sound better than some pro stuff because of that loudness crap. What good is a high quality room, $5000 dollar mics, and experianced engineers if the end product is going to be so ear fatigueing and distorted that you can't comfortablly listen all the way through? It's such a waste, really...
 
i know what he means though, most of us have a hard time getting the songs as loud as we'd like. i agree that most music nowdays is too loud, but most of our recordings have become too quiet because they're not properly mastered.

that aside, the only useful tools i've found have been hard limiters and slight compression.
 
for an inexpensive DX multiband limiter I like the one by http://www.db-audioware.com makes the processing a lot smoother than a brickwall limiter...which they also have for the same price...
 
I would suggest that if you want a few extra decibels without squashing the shit out your mix that you can do some fine editing on a few problem areas of individual tracks. I have found in looking at some of the waveforms from my recordings (and believe me, I’m quite new at this) that there are usually some db spikes in each track that are not necessary to the dynamics of the track. Most of these can be edited (volume envelope) very successfully. The other alternative is to limit the track, but I prefer to edit first.

For example if you try to normalize your mix that has a few db spikes that go up to -1db, you will only gain one db (assuming you normalize to 0 db). However, if you determine those spikes can be tamed down to -4 db where the rest of the mix generally sits, you can edit those, then normalize and pick up an additional 3 db.

Note: I’m not saying you should normalize the mixed stereo track, I just used that as an example.

I’m not sure I used all the right lingo up there, but hopefully you’ll get the drift of what I am saying. :)
 
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