Old 05-29-2011, 09:22 PM   #1
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Default "it's too quiet!"

I recently made a demo cd and gave it out to a bunch of people. The only criticism I've got (and EVERYBODY said the same thing) is that the music is too quiet. A couple friends said that on their car systems they couldn't get it loud enough even at top volume. I've heard a lot about the "loudness wars" and I really don't want to start a flame war but could someone refer me to some good information on how to compress a track to raise volume? Much appreciated!
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Old 05-29-2011, 10:13 PM   #2
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I recently made a demo cd and gave it out to a bunch of people. The only criticism I've got (and EVERYBODY said the same thing) is that the music is too quiet. A couple friends said that on their car systems they couldn't get it loud enough even at top volume. I've heard a lot about the "loudness wars" and I really don't want to start a flame war but could someone refer me to some good information on how to compress a track to raise volume? Much appreciated!
because you could ruin a mix with limiting/compression, Id say go about this part of mixing slowly and read read read.

to bring up the levels without squashing your track too much, throw on an instance of reacomp on your master track, set your threshold to where the meter on the left is "peaking"(approximate)and set your ratio at about 6:1. click limit output and bring up the (wet)gain until it starts to sound bad (it wont take much). Stop right before that.>>>this is by no means the best method, but it will give you an idea how it works, and you can tweak.
Reacomp will only limit at 0.0db, so if you render to mp3 it WILL clip.

really the best method is to compress many times throughout your song-gently. And then Limit the Master.

Good Luck
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Old 05-30-2011, 12:36 AM   #3
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You have just taken your first step on a long and dark journey. I am fortunate enough to have the choice to sidestep it and blame my mastering engineer, while keeping a good copy for myself, but thats small consolation
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Old 05-30-2011, 12:36 AM   #4
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It sounds extreme to be just a lack of compresson, I would also look at the gain structure in your setup.

Some information can be found here

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr9...structure.html



Remember to set your levels right on your interface/preamp and not try to do it in Reaper
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Old 05-30-2011, 01:25 AM   #5
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If the mix is too quiet to work in a car stereo, then your mix is simply too quiet. This isn't a "loudness war" issue, this is a "this mix is too damn quiet" issue. For rock-type material, K-14 is loud enough for the car stereo and you barely chop all but the most ridiculous peaks, and certainly not audibly. A lot of the time I can even get away without using a limiter and just letting it clip.
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Old 05-30-2011, 02:00 AM   #6
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If the mix is too quiet to work in a car stereo, then your mix is simply too quiet. This isn't a "loudness war" issue, this is a "this mix is too damn quiet" issue. For rock-type material, K-14 is loud enough for the car stereo and you barely chop all but the most ridiculous peaks, and certainly not audibly. A lot of the time I can even get away without using a limiter and just letting it clip.
Ive seen in 2001 volume wars CD's made in 1998 being called "too quiet even at full blast" on car stereos
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Old 05-30-2011, 06:31 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by Analogy View Post
If the mix is too quiet to work in a car stereo, then your mix is simply too quiet. This isn't a "loudness war" issue, this is a "this mix is too damn quiet" issue. For rock-type material, K-14 is loud enough for the car stereo and you barely chop all but the most ridiculous peaks, and certainly not audibly. A lot of the time I can even get away without using a limiter and just letting it clip.
A big +1 to this.
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Old 05-30-2011, 06:32 AM   #8
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Without knowing anything about the type of music and production, it is hard to tell but the mixing process is something of an art that I am certainly coming to grips with and will be for a while...

But the loudness wars thing does seem to be a little misunderstood, it is really about dynamics not volume per se.

So, if you have a 'wall of sound' (remember distortion is a pretty savage compression generally. As guitar player I know that a single clean guitar will cut through any mix with more power and apparent 'loudness' that a quadruple tracked 'heavy' part) it may well be perceived to be softer than it is.

But a lot of it may come down to having spaces, so the instruments "hit"...if the music is too dense or you have overdosed on reverbs and delays...there will be a continuous sound throughout the track that may well be perceived as softer compared to say, a single 'smack' on a snare drum out of the silence.

Compression is a part of it and as advised take it one step at a time there...it is very easy to bring up the reverbs to almost the level of the actual instruments if you go too far, leaving little space at all and the track to loose power and punch. All this seems to be a lot of what the 'loudness wars' is really about...the fact that media dn radio compress it even more, only make it worse of course!

Other techniques may be in eq-ing things so there is space for each instrument, perhaps a bit of panning and exploring a less is more approach.

If you are mixing with the end result being just short of clipping, I am not sure that the answer is with the DAW but more the mix and there in lies the art, and perhaps out of my depth. Keep at it and read and listen and try a few experiments and you will get to the bottom of the problem. At least if they feel it is too soft, it indicates they would like to hear it more...if they said it was too loud, perhaps there would be even more reason to be concerned!
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Old 05-30-2011, 07:23 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
Ive seen in 2001 volume wars CD's made in 1998 being called "too quiet even at full blast" on car stereos
I thought you said something but you were talking kinda quiet so could you ReaPete that?

Or maybe put a limiter on your posts so everything you type comes out in caps?
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Old 05-30-2011, 07:46 AM   #10
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hey, the short answer is to look at your meters, and if they aren't anywhere near 0db, then jack that sombich up. Then to be safe, slap in Event horizon on your FX train and get the thrashold and yank that down to 6 or 9 db. Then nobody will ever complain about your demo being too quiet.

Dont worry if it is squashed. Its a demo, and if people cant hear your art for the sound quality, thats not your problem. people who know what good writing and talent is know what they are looking for, unless of course your demo is to get a job working for roger nichols' understudy.

Sound quality is like.. way down here, but writing and music is way up there!
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Old 05-30-2011, 01:01 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by reapercurious View Post
Sound quality is like.. way down here, but writing and music is way up there!
Not necessarily true. Great production can make shit music sound like gold, while poor production can make great music sound like dogshit.
Everything matters, and the best way to improve your music is to find and fix the weakest link.

To OP:
I usually put a limiter on my master, and pull the threshold down until nothing but the loudest transients are being compressed. That way, you retain almost all your dynamics, and make it as loud as it can comfortably be at the same time.
Most mp3 codecs output +1dB, so bring the level down 1dB to compensate before you encode it.
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Old 05-30-2011, 04:59 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by reapercurious View Post
hey, the short answer is to look at your meters, and if they aren't anywhere near 0db, then jack that sombich up. Then to be safe, slap in Event horizon on your FX train and get the thrashold and yank that down to 6 or 9 db. Then nobody will ever complain about your demo being too quiet.

Dont worry if it is squashed. Its a demo, and if people cant hear your art for the sound quality, thats not your problem. people who know what good writing and talent is know what they are looking for, unless of course your demo is to get a job working for roger nichols' understudy.

Sound quality is like.. way down here, but writing and music is way up there!
I agree for the most part but the idea is not to spread my music to people but rather to make the highest quality music I can. I only gave the demo away because people wouldn't stop asking me. My meters all peak at about -6 to -3 with some very scarce clipping. When I mean its too quite I don't mean its not audible. I mean if you put it on a track with some mainstream stuff, the volume difference can be quite annoying.

Here is a link to the song: http://www.soundclick.com/player/sin...&q=hi&newref=1

Please keep in mind the track is NOT finished. All the vocals need to be rerecorded and I need to change a lot of the drum parts.

Possibly I should be letting it clip more? When I render there is some variation in the wave form. Should there be less?
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Old 05-30-2011, 05:06 PM   #13
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Does anyone know where I could find a "make your recordings louder for dummies" guide or thread? I know a lot people HATE this idea. I'm not looking for anyone to endorse what I want to do. I just need some guidance. To me it doesn't sound right when every CD I pop in the cd player is significantly louder than mine and other people have agreed. I'm not looking to get it on radio or squash it so hard the cymbals sound like glass breaking, I just want to learn how to squeeze a little more volume out of the recordings. Thanks!
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Old 05-30-2011, 05:36 PM   #14
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Read this: http://www.djtechtools.com/2010/07/1...t-2/#more-6580

I dont agree with it personally, not wholly anyway, and it's more geared towards electronic music but...It tells you how to make it loud.
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Old 05-30-2011, 05:39 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guitardedmark View Post
I agree for the most part but the idea is not to spread my music to people but rather to make the highest quality music I can. I only gave the demo away because people wouldn't stop asking me. My meters all peak at about -6 to -3 with some very scarce clipping. When I mean its too quite I don't mean its not audible. I mean if you put it on a track with some mainstream stuff, the volume difference can be quite annoying.

Here is a link to the song: http://www.soundclick.com/player/sin...&q=hi&newref=1

Please keep in mind the track is NOT finished. All the vocals need to be rerecorded and I need to change a lot of the drum parts.

Possibly I should be letting it clip more? When I render there is some variation in the wave form. Should there be less?
you are recording digital YOU DON'T WANT IT TO CLIP--EVER
now that being said tracks before the master "don't really matter" but I'd stick to good practices and keep them out of the red ie never go above 0.0 db..

ok I just imported your mix into reaper---hope you dont mind...sounds good to me.

Its not that quiet, maby tell your friends to get a car stereo with some balls.

or download this(its free and i put it on your mix)
http://www.g200kg.com/en/software/veemax.html
Set gain to 8.1 db
Release to 3.2 ms
Out ceiling to -.1

this was a quick 30 second experiment mind you, you may need to tweak
should be good and loud now
this is not how I like doing things... but remember learn by doing.

ben
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Old 05-30-2011, 05:44 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bennisixx View Post
you are recording digital YOU DON'T WANT IT TO CLIP--EVER
now that being said tracks before the master "don't really matter" but I'd stick to good practices and keep them out of the red ie never go above 0.0 db..

ok I just imported your mix into reaper---hope you dont mind...sounds good to me.

Its not that quiet, maby tell your friends to get a car stereo with some balls.

or download this(its free and i put it on your mix)
http://www.g200kg.com/en/software/veemax.html
Set gain to 8.1 db
Release to 3.2 ms
Out ceiling to -.1

this was a quick 30 second experiment mind you, you may need to tweak
should be good and loud now
this is not how I like doing things... but remember learn by doing.

ben
Wow thanks a lot Ben!
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Old 05-30-2011, 05:54 PM   #17
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There are some Mastering programs that are fairly inexpensive and come with many presets (to get you in the ball park). Lots of us use T Racks 3 http://www.ikmultimedia.com/t-racks/features/

or Ozone http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/
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Old 05-30-2011, 07:20 PM   #18
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you are recording digital YOU DON'T WANT IT TO CLIP--EVER
I wouldn't say that. Preamps and A/D might generate audible problems when you clip (you should *always* allow a minimum of 10dB of headroom in your pres), but once you're in the box you can clip up to, oh, something like a hundred or so samples per second without it really being audible at all. It's really not that big of a deal unless you're running things solidly into the red.
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Old 05-30-2011, 07:27 PM   #19
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I wouldn't say that. Preamps and A/D might generate audible problems when you clip (you should *always* allow a minimum of 10dB of headroom in your pres), but once you're in the box you can clip up to, oh, something like a hundred or so samples per second without it really being audible at all. It's really not that big of a deal unless you're running things solidly into the red.
I just don't see the point of doing it at all. In the box sure but what does a 1db transient every now ant then give you?
then you convert it to mp3 and it sounds bad imho.
But you are probably correct. But I can say if you dont clip it will turn out fine.

million ways to skin a cat I guess.
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Old 05-30-2011, 07:55 PM   #20
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I revise my earlier estimate of how many samples you can non-audibly clip in a second from a hundred to several thousand.

Code:
desc:How much are you clipping?

slider1:0<-96,0,.01>Threshold (dbFS)
slider2:0<0,1000,1>Clipped samples in last second

@init
bufsize=srate;
bufpos=0;

@slider
t=10^(slider1/20);

@sample
bufpos+=1;
(bufpos>bufsize)?bufpos=0;
slider2-=bufpos[0];
bufpos[0]=0;
((spl0>t)||(spl0<-t))?bufpos[0]+=1;
((spl1>t)||(spl1<-t))?bufpos[0]+=1;
slider2+=bufpos[0];

spl0=max(min(spl0,t),-t)/t;
spl1=max(min(spl1,t),-t)/t;
Paste this into Jesusonic and put it on your master bus. It should be pretty self-explanatory. Even on pure sine wave test tones I don't start hearing the distortion till about 3-4000 clipped samples per second. On complex material you can probably hide a *lot* more, and with a good limiter you can get even louder without any audible effect on the material.

Does this mean you *should* be doing it? No. But you *should* be aiming the overall level of your mix into a region where consumer devices are going to be able to reproduce it. All I'm saying here is that you're not going to be destroying your mix by doing so. K-14 is a good place to aim.

EDIT: Also, this is why I fucking love Reaper. Whenever I have a crazy little "what-if" thought experiment, I can whip up some quick little JS script that accomplishes it.

Last edited by Analogy; 05-30-2011 at 08:02 PM.
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Old 05-30-2011, 08:59 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by Guitardedmark View Post
Does anyone know where I could find a "make your recordings louder for dummies" guide or thread? I know a lot people HATE this idea. I'm not looking for anyone to endorse what I want to do. I just need some guidance. To me it doesn't sound right when every CD I pop in the cd player is significantly louder than mine and other people have agreed. I'm not looking to get it on radio or squash it so hard the cymbals sound like glass breaking, I just want to learn how to squeeze a little more volume out of the recordings. Thanks!
There are many free one-knob-makes-it-louder plugins that will help you for this task. The one I use at the moment is kjaerhus audio's classic master limiter.

To do it "properly", is usually a combination of compression and limiting (theoretically, limiting is just compression with really fast attack and release). One without the other will only get you so far.
You said that "all your meters were peaking at -3 to -6dB". The peak levels of individual tracks is often largely irrelevant. What does your master level peak at?
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Old 05-30-2011, 09:04 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nerdfactormax View Post
There are many free one-knob-makes-it-louder plugins that will help you for this task. The one I use at the moment is kjaerhus audio's classic master limiter.

To do it "properly", is usually a combination of compression and limiting (theoretically, limiting is just compression with really fast attack and release). One without the other will only get you so far.
You said that "all your meters were peaking at -3 to -6dB". The peak levels of individual tracks is often largely irrelevant. What does your master level peak at?
I meant the master
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Old 05-31-2011, 01:10 PM   #23
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This will be worth 5 minutes of your time (and very timely at that).
https://www.youtube.com/user/recordin.../2/kOfC-Oji_Ng
I use the JS pluggin SStillwell\eventhorizon that comes with Reaper on my master track and just set the ceiling at -0.1 and then adjust the Threshold to match my reference track or to taste. Again, don't squash the heck out of it, but this is a dead easy way to render at a stronger volume.
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Old 05-31-2011, 02:19 PM   #24
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Might wanna stay away from guys with knives as well. They can be real greasy bastards.
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Old 05-31-2011, 11:20 PM   #25
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The track sounds great and thanks to all those tips and tools, eventually I will have to deal with some of these mastering things.

Meanwhile...might be interested in this article and site...

"How to Make your Music Loud"

http://productionadvice.co.uk/how-to...LhQZmAzQANU.YV

just happened to drop into the email box. Alos recomends the TT loudness meter if you want to get a judge of the dynamic range...is free for windows systems and the stand alone allows you to compare your mixes to CD's and such which might be helpful.
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Old 06-04-2011, 08:49 PM   #26
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Once you have a master mix, import it into a wave editor like soundforge.

1) Make sure the max peaks are close to 0dB - meaning that you're using the whole dynamic range of the wav. If not normalize the mix.
2) Check the rms dB of the track. In Soundforge this is under tools->statistics. The rms dB is the average volume of the track.
3) Do the same with some reference tracks of music you like the production of and are trying to sound close to. ie. come up with an rms dB target. Personally I like to shoot for around -12dB rms (I believe this corresponds to K12), though this can be less for a beatless track for which a lesser volume would make sense as it doesn't have all those beat transients bringing the average volume up (just make sure your ref tracks are similar in content to your track).
4) Use a limiter on the master mix to adjust the rms dB. I like voxengo elephant because you can easily dial in how many dB you want to lop off the top and bring the rms dB up by: if your track is -18dB rms and you want -12dB rms you dial in 6dB.
5) Don't forget to normalize the mix again so the peaks are just under 0dB.

Here's an article where they talk a bit about rms dB:
http://web.archive.org/web/200803211...7/Default.aspx

One caveat though, especially if you produce hip-hop or dance music where the drums have to be punchy: if you start with weak drums, they will still be weak at the end of the above process. A key technique is to layer in solid kick and snare samples to get beefy drums from the get go before mastering.
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