Standard Volume Level?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Milhaus
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Milhaus

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I am burning some CD's from a bunch of songs from my band. I converted the songs to digital using my sound card and Sound Forge XP, then I burned a CD using the burner that came on my PC. It sounds OK, but my drummer said "the volume is way lower than other commercial CD's I've listened to". The Sound Forge has a volume processing function and a normalization function. I am able to increase the overall level using these functions. My question: Is there an "Industry Standard" volume level or peak volume level? What level should I increase the music to to make the levels "on par" commercial CDs?
 
Milhaus, this is one of the most asked questions on this site. May I suggest you do a few searches for words like mastering, volume level, compression, etc and read the extensive posts already written on the subject.

Cheers
john
 
Personally I hate normalization....... don't use it

and the common peak level???? For TV I belive its +4DBu, and for recording I don't really know. Although I'm pretty sure itz +4DBu.

Sabith
 
Volume Level

Thanks for your responses. This is a great site. I have been reading up enough to understand that this is a huge topic. Also, I have been able to increase the volume levels of the songs using the volume processor in Sound Forge. I increased it just to the level above which the peak would clip on the graphic scale. It is still lower than some commercial CD's I compared it to. So I guess I would need to compress the peaks and increase volume more if I want a higher overall level. Yes? No? Even close?
 
And thats right, those commercial CD's are using compression to make there song sound "louder", or basically stay at a constant level. With the compressor U will probly be using I wouldn't recommend using recommend using such heavy compression, but if U want to compress it a little U should be fine.

And when U say "compress the peaks" do U mean that the levels are actually peaking???? because if they are go back and fix that, because that peaking will sound awful, with or without compression. But if U only mean that some levels are a lot higher(and aren't peaking(distorting)) then U are ready to go.

Sabith
 
Try checkin out Goldwave, its a free wav editor and it has a 'maximize volume' option which I believe is better than normalizing because it just raises the volume... I could be wrong...
 
Volume Levels - Thanks Sabith et al

Thanks for your reply, Sabith.
All I did was increase the overall voume level of the song to the point to where the loudest part would almost, but not quite peak or clip w/o distortion, Anyway thanks again, the concept is clearer now.
 
compression....

http://www.geocities.com/Shailat2000/

Great compression article. I compressed a live show about 3:1 and it worked well.

...and just curious Sabith...why do you hate normalization?? I have used it when I would have 1 or 2 spots in a song that would just clip. I've heard about raising the floor level but is there something else?

zip
 
well....... I don't like what normalization does to a mix, itz just really heavy compression if I remember correctly, and I don't like how it works...... tried it, and I don't like it, I prefer normal compression methods.

Sabith
 
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