What voulme level is best for selling on Itunes?

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contactdannyd

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I am going to be placing and selling a song on Itunes and Amazon.com. The final mixdown could have the standard normalized volume, or it could be much louder using the "radio play" mixdown capability in Adobe audition and other programs.

After reviewing the comments on the question, and doing a side by side comparison of a hot mix and a normal mix on small speakers (which a lot of consumers use), I chose the hot mix file. It is perfectly clear, all frequencies, and comes across with more authority on smaller speakers. Also, tunecore expressed no preference as to sound volume.
 
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When in doubt, go for 11.

...but all seriousness aside....this shouldn't really be in the MASTERING section, because it has nothing to do with mastering.

"standard normalized volume"

I don't even know what that is. What is "standard"? And what does normalizing have to do with it?

""radio play mixdown capability"

Another one where I have to say "what does that mean?" Pre-sets are not the way to go. There is no one-size-fits-all settings. You have to do whatever the song needs, and whatever the mix can withstand.
 
This is what I'm always talking about when I complain about literally anyone being able to record and get their stuff out there for human consumption..
 
I'll reply. Comparatively normal mixing in my view: recording the tracks, listening and mixing down, mostly be ear, the final wav of all frequencies in the sound holding between -6 and -2 or -3. So the final wav form varies in volume considerably per the frequencies of the individual tracks. Radio mixing is different. The final mixdown volume wav looks almost square as the vast majority of frequencies are driven to almost clipping. As I understand, the mixing gurus drive up the frequencies, then apply compressors or limiters to prevent clipping. The overall volume is much louder. Whether it is a better mix is arguable. Since a lot of CDs are mixed with the much louder "boombox" volume technique, my question pertained to what consumers and the market prefers, or what may be more commercial or more suitable for digital songs selling on Itunes, CD Baby, Amazon. I have a new song mixed both ways. Admitedlly, when you hear it over inexpensive computer speakers, the louder technique comes across better. But, I am NOT an expert at all. I just requested feedback from musicians selling and mixing Rock and Pop songs for digital distribution on the Net.
 
I would suggest that if you think that there is a level that you need for meTunes, that the best and easiest way to find that out is to grab a few songs off of meTunes and find out by looking at those.

G.
 
Yeah....go to "11"...or whatever gets you almost a straight line in your waveform.
That way, even if the music sucks, it will be LOUDER than any of the other iTunes, and therefore perceived as *better* sounding.

Ya can't miss.
 
I know there is a radio mix setting in Adobe Audition 3.0. DON'T USE IT! It totally slams everything to high heavens. If anything use the setting just to listen to your song to see how it might(Might I say.....) Translate to radio. I would never actually apply that setting to a song.

There have been songs edited for time and mixed with a larger, beefier sound but if your mix sounds good and the song is good that's all that matters. If people don't buy your song because it's not loud enough, screw em!
 
I don't get this "not loud enough" nonsense. Don't they still make volume knobs? The kind that can go quieter or louder? Did the volume knob factory close down or something?
 
Lol @ "radio" presets.

Actual radio, like the kind you listen to in your car, compresses and limits tracks to the same volume for consistency. They do it at the station. iTunes and other internet retailers typically don't. They just sell singles and the occasional album. Where you're gonna have a problem is if, big if, you make it onto someone's iPod and your track is much quieter than the one before it. They're just gonna skip it for the next one. It doesn't matter because you already got their money, but you probably won't get any more. So yeah, you're gonna need some loudness, but presets in some cracked mastering software aint gonna cut it. Many people can master their own stuff, but you clearly know absolutely nothing about it. You should probably send it out for professional mastering.
 
contactdannyd said:
my question pertained to what consumers and the market prefers.
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Technically, the consumer has no preference on this, because they don't know what's going on. All it is is a case of one guy trying to shout louder than the other, and loudest guy being more audible. It's a comparitave thing. If all music wasn't compressed to buggery just to make it louder, people would be happy enough turning the volume up if they need to.

Do what sounds good. I mean actually good, not loud. I can almost guarantee you that no one is going to say "I'm not buying that, it's got far too much by way of dynamics and I need to adjust my volume a bit to get it to optimal listening volume". However, there are plenty of people who will say "I'm not buying that, it's been smashed to crap, it sounds like ass, there are no dynamics, and it's tiresome to listen to".

Greg's point about it making it onto someone's ipod is a good one, but it depends on what market you're going for and what your aspirations are. There are plenty of people out there who may find that the quiter tune is richer, more dynamic, and pleasant to listen to than the louder tune. I actually find myself skipping through the overly loud stuff on my mp3 player these days just because some of it sound like total crap.

You need a little boost though. One of my friends had one of my tunes queued up to do the dance with his wife to at his wedding reception (don't know why, don't ask but it's kinda flattering obviously). He never told me until I got to the wedding. What he had was a totally un'mastered' mix I'd sent him, and when they played it, it was super quiet and the DJ started having a WTF moment. If the guy had told me before hand I'd have smashed it for him a bit.
 
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contactdannyd said:
my question pertained to what consumers and the market prefers
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Are you making music or breakfast cereal? The music you make should be what YOU prefer, not what anyone else prefers. If it sounds good to you, then you've done your job.

But if you insist, what the public prefers is a catchy and/or meaningful song; something that gets under their skin at least a little, and is still there an hour after the song is over. If it does that, the volume will be mostly irrelevant. If it doesn't, then there's not much reason for you or anyone else to care about the volume either way.

If you want to make money, don't quit your day job. If you want to make music, use your day job to support music as your hobby and stop worrying about what the public will buy or not. If you're any good at it, the public will follow, and if you're not, you can't trick them into following by making it loud.

G.
 
Yeah make good music, but if you wanna compete, better make it loud.
 
If you want to compete then go into something other than music.

If you insist on wanting to compete with sounds, then don't waste your time diddling around with toys by DIYing in iTunes. Get serious about it.

G.
 
Yeah I think there's an element of realism that needs to be applied to this shit.

Are you really going to get in the charts? Will you gain commercial success and have to endure the 'obligations', production-wise, that go with that? Probably not. That's not a comment on the quality of the work, more a comment on the reality of the music industry. Fact is, you're not really in a position where your musical decisions are just as much commercial decisions, so don't worry about it. If you do end up in that position, you probably have label backing, studio time booked, and professionals working on your record. In which case, you still don't need to worry about it, because you're paying someone else to do it for you.
 
The answer to this is very dependent on music genre, your mix, whether you choose professional mastering etc. etc.

A professional mastering engineer is going to get this level up cleaner than you are likely to be able to, through various means if this is an objective?

To sum up it needs to work well as a compressed audio file so I suggest if you are doing it yourself get your mix sounding as good as you possibly can first then in a separate procedure add some light limiting to the track if you feel that is appropriate. (relating to the dynamic of the music)

Avoid distortion and take into account then genre of music you produce by listening to similar production styles and making a judgement of where the best compromise between level, dynamics and potential distortion lie.

Make sure there is no equalization on in Itunes and that "Sound check" and "Sound enhancer" is unchecked of in Prefs/ Playback if you listen via Itunes.

This will get you in the right ballpark.

cheers
 
Actually, there is a standard for mix levels called Dialnorm. Unfortunately it's for film rather than for music. If something similar were implemented in music you could put on mixes from different artists, all mastered to different levels, and they could be made to play at subjectively similar levels. Mastering to higher levels would not be rewarded by sounding louder than everything else, they would be punished by sounding less dynamic than everything else (which they are). Since volume can be controlled by the end user anyway, and dynamics is a fixed property of the mix, this seems like a fair way to handle things. The volume war would end as soon as there was no advantage to finalizing a mix with higher RMS levels.
 
I'd argue that movie soundtracks are TOO dynamic these days. Not so much in the dynamics of the music, but in the overall envelope between the average spoken word and the louder stuff like much of the music and loud sound effects. I'm tired of having to strain to hear half of the dialog only to wind up practically shattering the good servingware during the subsequent car chase. This is especially true at home, but also applies to most theatrical prints as well (well,maybe not the servingware part ;) ).
bouldersoundguy said:
The volume war would end as soon as there was no advantage to finalizing a mix with higher RMS levels.
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The volume war will only end in one of two ways; the first would be if people realized that there is an advantage to not finalizing with higher RMS, which there is. The second would be if a big name came along and made a platinum record where they made a point out of not smashing the dynamics, as a matter of "style" or "doing it their way"; there would be a thousand wannabes copying that "style" in the usual form of the person with no mind of their own, of which this racket is busting at the seams with.

I have very little faith that the first option will happen on it's own, but the second one is bound to happen. The only problem is that it's like predicting an earthquake; you know it's coming, but you can't tell if it'll hit in the next 10 minutes or 10 years.

G.
 
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