Song loses tons of volume when bouncing from Logic to .mp3

B

BBlack

New member
My band just finished recording a song, and I've got it all mixed and ready. I just bounced it from Logic into .mp3 format and brought it into iTunes. Its total volume is a great deal quieter and it sounds really weird and compressed. Now, I know .mp3 isn't the greatest of quality, but did I do something wrong? Is there a different way to convert tracks from Logic to .mp3 without volume loss? Or should I mix everything with more gain?

Thanks


EDIT: I just bounced it without "Normalize" selected, and that fixed the volume issue, but now everything's distorted...any help?
 
What are you using to convert it?

And how "hot" have you recorded the track? Got a pic of your .wav file you could post?

Cheers
 
Quieter? Yes. Compressed? Probably not.

If being normalised upon export was resulting in significant negative gain, that would suggest you were badly clipping your master bus whilst mixing (hence the distortion when this is bounced to an MP3 without normalisation). Sounds like you need to go back to square one with your gain structure / mix and really sort out in your head how it all comes together... don't track too hot, use compression and volume automation to tame dynamics and peaks where necessary, and leave plenty of headroom whilst mixing which you can then remove in the final stages and then round it all with a limiter (unless you intend to send it for mastering, in which case don't put any processing on the master bus).
 
That's definitely it - master was clipping real bad most of the way through. Where should the master bus peak for an ideal volume?

Will I need to re-record? I didn't track anything too hot, it was all under 0 I think. I just did a lot of gain increases while doing my quick "mix". I'll go back and work those out.

Also, regarding compressors, I've tried them out on everything, but I cant reall hear a difference. Do they affect the immediate sound of a track? Or just the parts when it gets too loud?

Thanks
 
BBlack said:
That's definitely it - master was clipping real bad most of the way through. Where should the master bus peak for an ideal volume?
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You should be safe with the master buss hitting somewhere between -10 and -5.

Will I need to re-record? I didn't track anything too hot, it was all under 0 I think.
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You probably will be OK. You will just have to mix this project with the faders waaaaaay down towards the bottom of their travel. In the future, you want your loudest drum hit to track around -10 or -12 and then track everything else at a level that is approximately "mixed" with the drums. In other words, when recording is done the tracks should be in the neighborhood of "balanced" before you even move any faders.

Also, regarding compressors, I've tried them out on everything, but I cant reall hear a difference. Do they affect the immediate sound of a track? Or just the parts when it gets too loud?
Click to expand...
Compressors will wreck your song before you know what happened if you don't know how to use them. Yes, they affect the immediate sound of the track. It is a sound you need to train yourself to hear. Search around for compressor threads and read up a bit. Do not use them in a "keeper" mix until you understand exactly what you're hearing. Briefly: They increase the density of a sound. They turn whipped cream into cream. They remove "open space" from inside of a sound.
 
I think I'm going to re-record this whole song.

When tracking, should every single instrument peak at the same level? Or should anything be hotter than the other?


And -10 is a good peak level while tracking?

That just seems really, really quiet. And my (incredibly limited) mixing skills have a really difficult time getting these levels up to a volume similar to a commercial CD.
 
you may not need to re-record the song, but for practice, it also might not hurt.

First, if none of your individual tracks are clipping, then it is not too late to use them. You simply need to turn all of your faders down for the individual tracks until your master stops clipping. If you can get it to a point where it very rarely clips, then you can just slap a limiter on it with no additional gain and a maximum level of -.1db.

If you do re-record, here's a few tips.

When setting the input gain for each track, you don't have to have the levels extremely high. You can always boost the level later as long as your original track isn't clipped during recording... so it's best to be too quiet than too loud. Just play the loudest part of the song you're recording, and at that point, try setting the gain so it's between -5 and -10 db.

When mixing your tracks, get the volumes mixed well to your ears, and if the master is clipping, try turning all tracks down the exact same amount until there is no more clipping on the master.
 
BBlack said:
I think I'm going to re-record this whole song.

When tracking, should every single instrument peak at the same level? Or should anything be hotter than the other?


And -10 is a good peak level while tracking?

That just seems really, really quiet. And my (incredibly limited) mixing skills have a really difficult time getting these levels up to a volume similar to a commercial CD.
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If the individual instruments sound really bad, then you need to re-track. If they sound fine, then don't bother, you'll just end up with the same loudness problem.

Run your sessions at 24 bit.

"I think everything was recorded under 0" - that's a very worrying statement. With 24 bit, there's absolutely no reason to be peaking anywhere near the red light. They won't make your final product any louder, you'll be more likely to clip, it'll introduce more noise to your recordings, and you'll be depriving yourself of headroom that is essential to proper mixing. And when you're mixing, your master bus should be peaking at around -15dbFS to -10dBFS

Record at low levels (in your DAW, not meaning sing quietly or turn your amp down), mix at low levels (turn your speakers up if you can't hear it), and if you want the final product to be louder, then master louder (but don't over do it).

Oh, and it has nothing to do with the mp3 codec, unless your encoder is using a plug-in to change the gain. 320kbps MP3 is almost flawless to the human ear. I'm a little skeptical to the idea that anyone can hear the difference, although I'm sure there's a lot of golden ears out there who can. I myself only really start noticing the difference when it gets down to around 192/160kbps MP3, and even then it still sounds pretty good.
 
In Logic just drop your master fader down to a point where the level meter on the master isn't clipping, and re-bounce.
 
Not quite sure I'm following. I'm assuming that all of his individual tracks are below 0, and that its just the aggregate of the mix that's clipping the master buss. If that's the case then dropping either the Master fader or the Output fader that he's bouncing from to the point where it doesn't go into the red at all should solve the clipping issue.
 
Adam P said:
Not quite sure I'm following. I'm assuming that all of his individual tracks are below 0, and that its just the aggregate of the mix that's clipping the master buss. If that's the case then dropping either the Master fader or the Output fader that he's bouncing from to the point where it doesn't go into the red at all should solve the clipping issue.
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While that is a problem, and something a few of us have told him to avoid, the title of the OP is that the song loses volume when bouncing to mp3. IOW: the bounce is too quiet. Turning down the master fader only increases that issue.
 
Adam P said:
In Logic just drop your master fader down to a point where the level meter on the master isn't clipping, and re-bounce.
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The problem with that is that the fader is after the summing bus, so you'd just be lowering the level of a clipped signal.

The solution is to track and mix well below 0dBFS, then apply a "mastering" limiter with sufficient makeup gain on the main bus to get the RMS level up.
 
philbagg said:
Are you referring to just Logic or all DAWs?
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I'm assuming either just Logic, or he's wrong... with every other DAW I've used, the stuff hitting the "master fader" is very much still floating-point, though DAWs have different ways of handling such a "master fader". In Sonar for example, you simply use a bus as your master bus, and then this is routed to a hardware output which also has gain controls, so in that case you could clip your master bus if you so felt inclined to and still pull the levels down by the time it hit the DA converters (bounces generally use a 'hardware output' as a source as well, so these would be similarly unaffected by such bus clipping). Its all just a matter of getting your head around what is going on in your DAW, and then you can make your own decision on the spot about what is acceptable gain structure and what is not without even thinking about it.
 
mattr said:
I'm assuming either just Logic, or he's wrong... with every other DAW I've used, the stuff hitting the "master fader" is very much still floating-point, though DAWs have different ways of handling such a "master fader". In Sonar for example, you simply use a bus as your master bus, and then this is routed to a hardware output which also has gain controls, so in that case you could clip your master bus if you so felt inclined to and still pull the levels down by the time it hit the DA converters (bounces generally use a 'hardware output' as a source as well, so these would be similarly unaffected by such bus clipping). Its all just a matter of getting your head around what is going on in your DAW, and then you can make your own decision on the spot about what is acceptable gain structure and what is not without even thinking about it.
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I was referring to DAWs in general, and it does appear that I'm wrong about that. DAW architecture seems to allow a lot of leeway with gain structure, more than my old analog habits allow me. I had never run into the OP's problem because I record and mix well below 0dBFS and generally don't need or use the master fader for anything.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I was referring to DAWs in general, and it does appear that I'm wrong about that. DAW architecture seems to allow a lot of leeway with gain structure, more than my old analog habits allow me. I had never run into the OP's problem because I record and mix well below 0dBFS and generally don't need or use the master fader for anything.
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I was wondering.

In Pro Tools, the master fader turns down the input to the master bus, not the output. You can push up all your faders to +12dB, and have them clipping like crazy on the master bus, and fix it by turning down the master fader. Not ideal, but true nonetheless.
 
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