volume issues...

[britesynth]

hi guys! im a noob and i would like to ask some help from you guys....

i use fl studio8 for midi and audio recording and then export audio files to adobe audition 3 for some more editing and then mix eveything back to fl studio since im more used to its mixer and functions, my problem is that after rendering each song to wav / mp3 my songs obviously has different levels in terms of overall volume, i can easily notice it whenever i play them on a playlist, using the 2 DAWs ive mentioned above how can i at least edit my songs so they can be at the same volume when i render the final mixes???? thanks in advance!

 

[iqi616]

To achieve similar volumes (or at least appropriate relative levels) you need to aim for them. There are two ways...

By ear. Compare your mixes with references at a standard level. It's very hard to explain but easy to do. If you've calibrated your volume controls for your DAW and CD player, it's fairly straightforward to achieve similar loudness.

By eye. Aim to have the average (NOT peak) level hovering around -18 dBFS on all your mixes and they'll all have similar volume. Loudness is a function of the average signal level so by leaving adequate headroom the peaks take care of themselves.

The same applies to mastering. Even though you'll be making the result hotter (hopefully not too hot), it is the average signal level that determines the loudness and aiming for similar average levels will achieve similar volume.

 

[britesynth]

If you've calibrated your volume controls for your DAW and CD player, it's fairly straightforward to achieve similar loudness.

i think i have somewhat achieved this by setting a particular level on each knobs for my gains / volumes in my soundcard, midi outs on my DAW, my synths, and i just tweak the volumes on my mixer, but still some of the songs are louder though i've recorder them on pretty much the same volume level