Sonar 3 Producer Edition (making final mix louder)

[trendkill918]

Hello all! I've been reading these forums occasionally for a little while now, and I just recently decided to join. Here's some background info on me. I'm a solo musician, I play all of my instruments and sing all of my own vocals, write my own songs, blah blah blah, I'm sure it's nothing new. If you want to check some of my stuff out, you can at www.travismcleod.cjb.net . I have been recording at home for a while now, but I am fairly new to computer recording. My current technique is to record on my VS880, then record the tracks into Cakewalk, and then burn to CD. I'm working on my fifth album now, and this is the first time I've used this technique. I recently aquired a copy of Sonar 3 producer edition, and I was wondering if anyone has any tips for me on that. I am somewhat familiar with it, having had a little experience in Home Studio 2002. My main problem now is a problem that I've been having since I started recording way back when. I have my song synched up, edited, and mixed, and I think it sounds great, but the volume on it is really low. I just recently learned about compression, and I've tried that, but it seems that I have the same problem. If you turn the volume up too loud, it distorts, but if it's too low , you can't hear it. It seems like if I compress too much, it still sounds distorted, but if I back the compression off, I can't hear it well. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this? I would be very greatful if you could help me with this, and give me any other tips or hints you may have picked up along the way. Thanks in advance. I'm glad to be a part of the boards at Home recording.com!

 

[pronoise]

There are few things one can do for it. Perhaps gently increase the gain in the master buss. Or use multi channel compression of the sonitus plugin set in the amster buss, but be gentle on that one too, you don't want to lose all the dynamics. There are some free maximizer plugins out there as well, but I think sonitus will sound better than them.

burak

 

[guttadaj]

You could always send out your final mixes to a pro mastering house if you really want a nicely polished product.

But, if you're looking to do it all yourself (which I think lots of us hobbyists do), you can help it a little bit.

First, I would identify any peaks that are higher than your typical peaks and tame those. You could do it peak by peak or by putting a limiter or heavy compression above a high peak threshold. I use SONAR's Dynamics Processor plugin because it has a Peak setting (I know - not the best quality, but I'm not out to make platinum records here either plus I'm on a ultralow budget ). So I'll see where my Peaks are generally and put a sort-of high compression ratio (like 5:1 or so - can go for more serious limiting with higher ratios) at that threshold, like say -5db, with a fast attack and release. Now peaks shouldn't go much higher than that.

Then I just use SONAR's Compressor plugin (again, not the best, so if you can afford something more swanky, go for it) and set it in RMS mode with a slight compression ratio (I seldom go higher than 2:1) and a pretty low threshold, like -20db or so.

All that should bring your highest peak in the whole song down quite a bit, so you can raise the Master volume now by the level of your highest peak, so your highest peak should now be 0db.

Bear in mind that this is a poor man's approach to mastering and keep in mind that it will never sound like the commercial music that has the piss compressed out of it by professional mastering engineers usually with pretty damn expensive and sweet gear. At the very least though, it may save your ears from getting blown out when you switch over to some commercial music after listening to your stuff.

 

[mixsit]

...First, I would identify any peaks that are higher than your typical peaks and tame those.

And to take a different path on this good advice; bounce your mix to a new track, and where you see the worst of the peaks, page up into the tracks. Often you can find their sources. A good offender is often drum tracks where a peak limiter there can work well to let the mix come up without having to hit it quite so hard on the master.
Wayne

 

[tkingen]

Since a compressor will usually color the sound somewhat, I usually take the alternative route of finding the peaks, using the cut tool to make it it's own clip, inserting a gain envelope, and bringing the clip level down to match the surrounding volumes. If needed you can add nodes to the envelope to help match the volumes on both sides of the clip.
Or. your favorite audio editor can make easier work of it!

Terry

 

[trendkill918]

Thanks!

Awesome! Thanks everyone for all of your wonderful suggestions. I will definitley give them a try. I have considered having it professionally mastered but I'm on a pretty tight budget (being in college and without a job does that I guess). I got it to be at a decent level, but it seems like some other stuff I've recorded and of course commercial recordings sound louder in comparison. I think it may have to do with the reverb I put on the tracks. I didn't use a lot, but I noticed that reverb usually lowers the volume of a track. I think the song sounds nice though, and I'm hoping it will sound better on stereos and in the car. I'm listening to it on my computer, and I'm not sure that I have the best of monitors. I have Edirol MA-5D's, so probably not. Anyway thanks a lot for taking the time to reply and I'll definitley give those suggestions a shot!