Sounding Louder?

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ziplock43

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It seems for me that all the time I'm sounding so much softer than other, professional recordings. Granted, I'm using 2 cheap dynamic microphones and a Dell Dimension desktop, but I would think that only would affect the quality of the sound.

Should I invest in a good condensor mic? It just seems like I always have to turn my volume up high to hear my music at the same aparent volume as other, professional things. I've tried mastering but even when it gets close to the edge it sounds soft.

Any techniques I should try? Or is it just my equiptment.

I'm using Adobe Audition 2.0
 
Or should I invest in a better sound card? Would that be able to handle more dB?
 
It's mostly the equipment's fault. Using the same mic can really start to pile up in an accentuated frequency area. The way your mics are picking up the sound with not very even volume or rms levels also affects how much headroom you can get out of the recording.

so basically...not having top of the line mics, compressors, preamps...ears...mic technique...all adds up to not being able to get up to commercial volume.
 
What about sending my sound through the Microphone Jack as compared to the Line-In jack. . . do those have different thresholds?
 
ziplock43 said:
What about sending my sound through the Microphone Jack as compared to the Line-In jack. . . do those have different thresholds?
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you should be doing that anyway....
think for a second. it's called a microphone right? sooooooooooo where do you think you need to plug the microphone into? come on, you can figure it out ;)
 
I thought I remember reading somewhere that the microphone jack wasnt for serious music recording and you should plug into the Line-In. . . Iduno, i've been using the Microphone jack anyways
 
ziplock43 said:
I thought I remember reading somewhere that the microphone jack wasnt for serious music recording and you should plug into the Line-In. . . Iduno, i've been using the Microphone jack anyways
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well, that's where you should be plugging a microphone into. We're working with electricity here, and you need to plug the correct outputs of gear into the correct inputs. The microphone jack has a preamp in it. And the word preamp stands for preamplification. In other words...it amplifies your signal. Line level signals do not need to be amplified.

recordings too quiet...turn up your speakers ;)
 
Hey

When you say you sound quieter, do you mean that your post mix down and mastering volume is alot quieter than commercial tracks? If so, it's not your microphones at fault, but your mixing and mastering.

So a few questions...

How do you currently normailize your tracks?
What db do you normalize to?
Do you use EQ to help you achieve a good clarity and overall volume?
Do you use compression?

Commercial tracks go through a significant mastering process to get the overall track volumes that they do.

Use this article: EQ Frequencies as a basic guide on EQ and how to create holes in one instrument to allow another to cut through.

Hope this helps

Cheers

John
 
I'll let someone else chime in on this (its too early here) But i will say this...DO NOT NORMALISE YOUR TRACKS.

Have better gain staging in the tracking process and you will leave yourself with more head room.

Dont over compress
 
Hey

I'm not sure from the description if ziplock is talking about the tracking stage specifically, or the overall end product. I took it to be the end product.

Cheers

John
 
At the tracking stage alot can be done to make sure that the end product is workable.

Correctly Gain staging for me is one of the most important things to ensure headroom.
 
yeah, no point to normalizing. It's just the same thing as turning up the volume of the track...except automated.
 
What's compressing/normalizing, and how do you do it?

I guess my main problem is just that when I get as close to peaking as I can get when mastering, it still sounds alot softer than even other home recordings that I hear.
 
Use a limiter when 'mastering' to push the perceived volume up. Just don't push it too high or it'll sound fucking awful.

Compression is basically decreasing the dynamic range of your audio. That is, bringing the quietest point and the loudest point closer together in volume. Basically you give it a threshhold, and the audio is not allowed to exceed that threshold, It can help to tame the peaks a bit. There's more too it but I'm crap at explaining things.

A limiter is an extreme form of compression. Because your quietest points are now closer in volume to the loudest points, the entire thing is perceived as louder.

Be careful with compression and limiting though. If you overdo it, it will just sound like junk.
 
Theres alot of issues here mainly based on the required education of recording techniques.

But if your getting close to peaking and its still too quiet, then it probably means that certain elements of your mix are eating up the headroom or bandwidth of your song.

Its like this....

You have the low end of your kick drum, bass guitar and electric guitar all kranked up sounding super fat. You have all the guitars and vocals and cymbols EQ'd on the high end to sound super bright....

Now all your levels are way louder.

The entire mix is bright here and there and low end heavy, but there are holes everywhere that are lacking an over all balance.

Basically with time you will learn to be more subtle with use of EQ and volume.

You will need compression to bring your peaking instruments down to a level with the rest of the group so that in mastering you will bring everything up together.

All frequency's need to be represented to sound louder and fuller.

For the most part your mix needs to be close to flat but containing all of the solid elements it needs to sound good in a stereo which can later have additional bass mids and treble adjusted to the end listeners taste.

Heres a poor example.

Imagine your final Mix on a graphic equalizer or spectrum analizer.

Lows are peaking at -5, mids -10, highs at -5.

You raise the entire mix volume +5.

Now lows are peaking at 0, mids are peaking at -5 and highs are peaking at 0.

So the mids are still lacking making the mix quiet or empty because the lows and highs were eating up the headroom.

So you bring the highs and lows down -10 where the original mids were by using compression or removing excessive EQ'ing that was making it too bass heavy or to bright.

Now everything is balanced and you raise the entire level peaking at 0.

I would take some classes or by some books.

Modern Recording Techniques is a good book and colleges use it for their Recording Studio Techniques Classes.

Home Recording for Dummies will also help walk you through getting started quickly but I would just do as much research in recording and its going to suck for a long time until you start to learn by experience or start with the right information.
 
joswil44 said:
its going to suck for a long time until you start to learn by experience or start with the right information.
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That's dead on. There are only suggestions people can give you. You have to figure most of it out on your own by trial and error. What works for me may not work for you. It takes work but it's worth it. Good luck, nubie. :cool: :D
 
Should I do the Compressing after I've mixed everything down into one track? Or for each track
 
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