Not Loud Enough...

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Robertt8

Robertt8

Well-known member
Howdy!

I've constantly had this problem when I mix down...(It's happened with every different attempt: mixing directly to Tape, CD from my Rolland also I've tried mixing from my Mac using Sound Edit.) These recordings and mixes sound fine until I mix it down. Then listening to the mix down, I need to crank it (the stereo) up to get the same general volume I would have on a "proffessionally" recorded CD. How can I get this extra volume out of my mix that the professionals seem to get but elude me?

Please help!
Thanks!
robert@birdsallinteractive.com
 
What does your rig consist of and how is it set up. Are you mixing in software to a WAV file then burning? Are you mixing with an external mixing board to a stand alone CD burner?
It may be that you need to use a little compression or Limiting.
 
hmmmmm.....

I'm rather inexperienced at this. I've had a couple 4 tracks over the years and have recently upgraded to a digital 8 track (rolland VSX or something like that). Like I said I usually just mix straight into the stereo (onto a tape) or I send one track at a time into the Mac where I put it together and mix it track by track, save it as a aif file and burn a cd from that. For example when I mix it through the computer I can see the waves of each track, and it appears that if I jack up the sound of each track or the final mix it seems as though it would distort and max out.

Does that help at all? Any info would be great! Thanks!
 
it's all about making the average volume higher. try a little bit of compression, and some hard limiting.
 
compression

Thanks for all the help! I'm trying to get a hold of some compression software (I think that's mostly my problem)...any good ones out there that are easy to use?
 
I just got the dB Audioware (sorry, can't seem to find their link) plug ins which so far I think are great. There are four or five plug-ins, including a limiter and a compressor, which you can download for free for a 21-day trial period. To unlock them permanently, it costs $39 each or $99 for all.
 
hello all

Hello all! This is my first post in the Mixing/Mastering forums, and I haven't read the entire forum yet, so I'm just hoping I don't make a total ass of myself here.

What the pros do is they use a bunch of really pricey gear to basically compress, compress, compress and limit, limit, limit. The goal of these actions in the mastering house is generally to make an album as loud as possible, so it catches the ear of a radio station exec, and he throws it into general rotation at his station. Of course there is a limit to this, if you've ever heard the album "Hybrid Theory" by Linkin Park, you can hear what happens when the masterin engineer goes a little too far, and actual distortion is evident throughout the album. Although, to some ears it may sound quite good...

Also, perceptually, the louder in bit range a CD is, the better it sounds perceptually to a listener. I remember a study a few years back where people tested this by playing the same song to a group of people at the exact same measured physical volume level, but with one version of the song on one cd recorded to CD a few dB louder than the other. Every listener preferred the louder CD, even though the phycial volume in the room was exactly the same. Go figure.

Anyway, to get your music loud, you can use a few things: a stereo compressor across the mix output bus (search this forum for the RNC or Really Nice Compressor, whicha lot of people love for its price) or a software equivalent. Or you can use a multi-band compressor/limiter, this has recently become easier with the advent of tools like Waves C4, and a guy named Dave Brown (I think) makes a more affordable DirectX multiband limiter, and a separate mastering limiter, under the brand name db-audioware.

Also, for software, many people swear by the Waves L1+, which you can use not only to raise the perceptual level of your mix, but to absolutely rock-solidly limit it at a pre-determined threshold before clipping (e.g. -0.1dB). If this is all greek to you, there are many discussions of this on the web, mostly by mastering engineers.

for example, a quick search turned up:
http://www.johnvestman.com/hot_cd.htm

Good luck!
 
Hello, newbie poster here. Let's look at compression and limiting, and how things are perceived louder. Now, it would seem logical to remove the spikes, sharp peaks in the sound that do not contribute to loudness. Lets say we use a limiter to take away about 6db of those sharp peaks this allows us to raise the entire level up another 6db. Now, the program has quiet parts and louder parts. If it didn't, then it would be rather boring, don't you think? Well, the range of the quiet and louder parts may be too wide for us to hear everything under normal conditions, like in our cars, or at home. So we want to increase the average level of our music by reducing it's dynamic range. Here we use a compressor, and depending on the settings, we will use it to raise the quiet parts, and reduce the louder parts, making the average level higher, and perceived to be louder. Now, one compressor might be able to do this, but it would be rather expensive because of it's design. So it may take more than one compressor, in series, step by step, to regulate the mix without pumping, breathing and other artifacts that a single compressor may create, if it can't do the job effectively. Now, there are other considerations regarding equal loudness, and our hearing sensativity, but that's another subject. I believe this is textbook compression and limiting, except for the series compression, that is just a different approach to expensive compressors.

I hope you find this useful,

--Rick
 
Robertt8

There is much more to head room then Compresion/limiting.

If you didnt gain stage well or if you have energy in Freq's that are not needed for the song You are eating away at your headroom. Think about what happends when you sum tracks to 2 stereo and you might have
on each one usless energy......
 
Shailat has got me curious now. I am a recording newbie as well that encountered the loudness problem with my mixes. I started using compression and limiting and the problem did seem to improve but I still can't get my mixes as loud as commercial songs. So....what exactly is "gain staging"? Also how can I tell if frequencies that are not needed are eating away at my headroom. Could someone give a quick rundown on these concepts.

Thanks.
Chris
 
Waysid,

Compression and Limiting can help but can also damage if that's all your building on to improve your loudness factor. How many times to people Compress and not realize that although they are getting a louder signal but are losing in the process the openness and brightness of their mix?!?!? Not to mention other artifacts and squashing. Son now it sounds loud and crappy.
Comp/limiting is only a solution when all the rest is done well.
A freq related compression (multiband or Compressor linked with a eq) can help here a bit but again it's not the only and single solution.

Lets say you are recording vocals and you have a low rumble the mic picked up or just that the sound is to boomy..... now you have a track that is hot in level but full of junk - to much low freq boomy crap and worse, the level is higher because you also have a rumble that is adding to the level. Perhaps you didn't set your preamp level with your mixer well and now you have added even more noise -perhaps a hiss or noise the circuit. Even if all this is low it all adds up. And now if you up the faders you will hit the overload faster as all this noise is adding to your level.

Now imagine you go to every track and take care that you have recorded it hot and well and that you have cut out unnecessary energy. NOW ! you have hot tracks and if you need to compress/limit you can.

Sometimes you need to cut at certain freq's to open the mix and this will make it seem to be louder as well.

Remember the first rule of recording is a strong and clean signal !!!
 
Waysid said:
So....what exactly is "gain staging"?
Click to expand...

I forgot to answer this....

You have to learn how to set your input preamp corectly.
The problem starts not at setting a single pre, but
rather at different points of the signal when it meets other things at different points.
If you have set the level to low on your pre and you are using the mixer to bring the level up with the faders you risk the chance of adding noise comming from the mixer.
If you overload the mixer from the pre then you also risk damaging your signal not only when you distort but over setting the pre can just simply add noise coming from the pre. You have to learn your set up.
Example:
If you are using a synth pluged into line input on the mixer, how to you set the gain?
Do you set the synth level at full or do you let the mixer take care of the level.
It depends on the output of the synth. If the synth is outputting a weak signal then you will have to boost at the mixer... not that great as we want to have a hot signal at the start with out distortion and not add noise from our mixer. Then perhaps with such a synth we should use a Direct box and use the mic input - preamp of the mixer for a stronger signal.

Learn your set up and aproach it from there but remember the rule of the first part of the signal should be the strongest and as clean as possible.
 
Waysid, in addition to Shailat's 100% proof words, I've posted a topic called damn,,,,,, whats it called again? Gotta go and look...
Oh yeah, sounding good at the right levels
 
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