Volume of the final mix

[LeeRosario]

As far as I know, whoever said it is correct, Pro Tools only supports RTAS plug-ins, so the free stuff you mentioned is out. Can I make my demos any louder without buying something expensive?

Wow, well this has become rather tough to address. Man, lets see how I word this...

What it will get at is this: Unless you can get super hot levels in tracking, in combination with the high end compression and limiting you will need to handle the massive flow of high energy sound, I don't think that's going to be possible in LE.

The issue goes far beyond mixing software and plug-ins alone. That's the bottom line.

Cause then you would have to consider rock solid preamp specs, rock solid microphone specs, rock solid outboard gear specs, and a million others in comparison to home DAW systems like LE. By the end of it, the LE line will be way down here on the chart, and the high end stuff would have shot beyond the clouds.

In the end, the high end stuff is just far more capable than what LE will ever allow.

So like I said, in time you will find that the L3 just won't be enough. It just won't. I don't care what anyone tells me, I know the numbers, so that's what I stick with.

However, if you want to statisfy the urge and you can find someone with stuff like an L3, then by all means try maxing it out on that.

Maybe all you're looking for is another 3 db out your mix. If that's the case, then an L3 could manage. It's just hard to say without me being there to interact and judge for myself.

 

[sixways]

Or you could create a master fader and put a limiter/compressor on it.

6

 

[scrubs]

This evolved into a pretty interesting discussion. However, can anyone still answer something for me, which is:

Regardless of the philosophical and cultural implications of the loudness of my mix, is there any way I can just make it louder using my Pro Tools LE software and any of the mixing capabilities that come with it?

As far as I know, whoever said it is correct, Pro Tools only supports RTAS plug-ins, so the free stuff you mentioned is out. Can I make my demos any louder without buying something expensive?

Like I said, load your stereo mixdowns into another program that supports VST plugins and use one of the limiter plugins. Kristal and Audacity are both FREE programs that do this. I don't know what comes with PTLE, so I can't help you with those plugins.

 

[Ford Van]

Just buy the VST to RTAS adaptor.

 

[Robert D]

Just buy the VST to RTAS adaptor.

Good idea. In case you haven't noticed, RTAS versions of plugins are always more expensive than VST versions. (Is this because Pro Fools users are already vasolene'd up?.......sorry, I just had to). So the VST adaptor will continue to be a good thing to have, If there's no performance hit involved.

Once you have the VST adaptor, or a VST host program, Endorphen, by Digital Fishphones can bring your level up for free. Voxengo makes some very good and low priced tools for this also. There are many others, do a search. In all cases, don't try to get just as loud as current releases. Trying to do that with a maximizer or limiter alone is asking for trouble. But you should be able to get close without too much trouble.

-RD

 

[Ford Van]

I wasn't aware that digidesign USED Vaseline! I thought they used sand as a lubricant!

 

[Feanor IV]

As far as I know, whoever said it is correct, Pro Tools only supports RTAS plug-ins, so the free stuff you mentioned is out. Can I make my demos any louder without buying something expensive?

Yep, I bought the VST-RTAS adapter last week and it works very well. It's $99 and it gives you access to all the free plugins mentioned........

 

[sixways]

or $70 from sweetwater.

5

 

[FALKEN]

you did normalize right?

mostly its about flattening out your mix by whatever means - eq, reverb, limiting, whatever.

sometimes there is like 1 or 2 really high peaks per song that you can manually bring down and then normalize the song. this usually happens when there is a sudden surge in loudness in multiple instruments at once. or when using eq boost on snare for example.

if there are like between 4 and 20 peaks in the song that are above the rest of the material you could use a limiter. the classic master limiter and the blockfish I think are the best. if there is a limiter on your alesis you could just run the mix through that. don't add more than 2 or 3 db when limiting.

eq can do a lot to even and flatten out your mix. it can tame peaks that are in a specific frequency - this may be preferable to limiting. can also use a graphic equalizer to get rid of some mud. (just dont use any boost!)

but its really going to depend a lot on what your mix sounds like. on a lot of modern squeezed records the drums aren't very loud, and the guitars are blasting. you can make a mix like that a lot louder than one with the snare drum cracking louder than any other instrument (like my mixes).

but just because a mix is loud doesn't mean its going to suck either. making a mix louder will exacerbate inherent problems. any of the following ranges might potentially sound good or really horrible depending on the mix, the music, and what you are going after.

anywhere between -23 to -18 RMS is doing good for DIY rock music.

-18 to -15 is loud.

-15 to -12 is crushing the crap out of it.

-12 to -9 is going to look like a square wave

-6 = wtf????

so, where are you at, and where are you trying to get?

 

[IronFlippy]

I'm glad there are sane engineers still left in this world.

The engineers are sane, it's everyone else who's screwing the songs up.

Don't worry about how loud your demo is. It's a demo. That said, I have no real advice for you and I don't know how A+R reps judge music. But I do know a compresser can usually do the job.

 

[LeeRosario]

The engineers are sane, it's everyone else who's screwing the songs up.

Well we really can't say it's anyone's fault. I try not to blame anyone for something that subjective. It's simply a statement the artist tries to make, so the most we can do is to try and comply.

Our job is to simply point out the pros and cons of trying to achieve loud records and demos. A demo shouldn't diserve any less energy than a full length album. I would almost want to say a demo diserves more energy since the intention is to impress agents and club owners.

Especially now, that's how A&R judges the solicited material they recieve. When at certain point in time you where signing on average 10 or more artists a year, now you probably don't see any more than 2 or 3 a year.

 

[daveparker]

In an attempt to answer the actual question.

Protools should come with a plugin called Maxim. Simply put this on your master fader,
job done.

David