Recording to CD-RW

[VGreen]

When I record a song from protools 6.4 le to a cd-r or cd-rw, using Nero Express, it sounds very quiet when I play it back through a cd player, yet professional recordings sound really loud and clear through the same cd player. Why is this, and is there some way I can record it louder?

Thanks

 

[peritus]

When I record a song from protools 6.4 le to a cd-r or cd-rw, using Nero Express, it sounds very quiet when I play it back through a cd player, yet professional recordings sound really loud and clear through the same cd player. Why is this, and is there some way I can record it louder?

Thanks

This may be an issue with your chosen levels at the general and/or master fader(s)....

However, this is most likely the time when you should look into having your tracks professionally mastered or do some intense research on mastering practices. Your main problem is most likely in the area of waveform peaks... Try opening your WAV file (post pro tools, pre cd) in a wave editor (Audacity is a free program for this) and look at the visualization of your song. You'll most likely see several loud ("large") peaks that are keeping the bulk of your song from being at a "normal" volume. A compressor is one way to handle this situation... Let me know if you need further clarification of terminology..

 

[dachay2tnr]

yet professional recordings sound really loud and clear through the same cd player.

Professional CD's are almost always compressed/limited in order to raise the volume level. This has pretty much become a standard part of the mastering process.

Generally they smash the dynamic range, so that the overall volume level can be increased. Your music when first recorded will almost always be lower in volume. As long as you are peaking in the -6 to -3 db range, you are probably OK.

While it is possible that your recording levels are too low, comparing them to professional CD's is not the way to tell.

 

[Nick98338]

Nero, well at least the Nero 6.6.0.13 that I use, has a "normalize all audio tracks" feature when burning audio CDs. I think the goal of this feature is to get all tracks on a CD to about the same volume. Yea, it gets all the tracks the same, but it makes them all lower in volume. So, I make sure this feature is turned off.

 

[VGreen]

Thanks guys for your help. I've ticked the "normalize all files" icon on nero and this has helped significantly. Now there's just the small problem of getting rid of the "basey" sound. Back to protools user guide -- again!!!

V

 

[Robert D]

Nero, well at least the Nero 6.6.0.13 that I use, has a "normalize all audio tracks" feature when burning audio CDs. I think the goal of this feature is to get all tracks on a CD to about the same volume. Yea, it gets all the tracks the same, but it makes them all lower in volume. So, I make sure this feature is turned off.

Generally, what normalize does is searches the file for the highest peak, then adjusts the level of the entire file so that the highest peak ends up at some level close to 0 db. If the highest peak is below the normalize level, it will raise the overall level of the track. Conversely, if you have overs, it will lower the overall level to get those peaks back under 0db. Depending on how high that highest transient peak is above the average program level, the resulting percieved volume of the various tracks can be very inconsistant, and can be quite a bit lower than you expect. It's best to take care of these transients back in the mixing/editing of each song. Alternatively, if you're done mixing, you can edit the peaks that stand out of the mix files to be able to then bring up the overall level.

-RD