volume question

[Measax]

Thank you torque. I have learned quite a bit from your posts in the past year. You should start an online class and make some money.

[topperanza]

Very basic
this is how you do it with soundforge
i won't give away all mastering secrets but here is a very simple and basic one to do.

step 1: Normalise the track to 0 db (Normalising is only a fancy word for getting the track to 0 db peak value without making it clip, so in other words it just means volume)

step 2: go to the tools menu at the top and choose statistics. #rd from the bottom is a stat called rms power. For example on the one i just hit stats for it says -19.2 for the right channel and -18.9 for the left. Next you need to do a math problem to get the average rms power for both channels.

Here is the math:
r+l=db
db divided by 2

example:

-19.2 + -18.9 = 38.1
-38.1 divided by 2 = -19.05
round the total up to -19.1db

Now that you have the average you need to do one more piece of math. the standard rms power rating for digital audio is -12db to -10db
since you can not make the track louder by turning up the volume of it without making the file start clipping you need to use a limiter.
for this example we are going to use the Waves Ultramaximiser.

setting up your limiter
step 1: set the domain to analog
step 2: set the release to 10
step 3: set Quantise to 24 bit
step 4: set shaping to Ultra
step 5: set the out ceiling to -0.3 (the reason you do this is that when your cd goes into a crappy cd player they can start to clip if you don't give them the headroom)

figuring out how to set the threshold

remember we came up with an average rms rating for both channels that was -19.1db
in order to get that number to the average db of -10 to -12 you need to do this piece of math

example:
19.1 - 10 = 9.1

so that says you need to set it to -9.1db
set your threshhold to this number and press ok

So there you go. This is the most basic part of mastering and is always the last step. using this information in no way means that your master will sound good, but it will definitly be loud.
If your audio sounds like sht after doing this it is because you had a shitty mix down. this method only works for digital audio. If you send audio this loud and limited to a vinyl mastering place it will sound like total sht on a vinyl. for vinyl it is best just to normalise the file and send it to the mastering spot raw.

THIS WAS VERY USEFULL!!!
THANKS

[naph]

hello!

i'm not really a steady member of this forum, and this is the only section i look at when i come, since it seems to me there's a good knowledge in it.

I'd really like to thank Torque for his tip, that helped me a lot to figure out how to make my mixes sound "louder".

All my gratitude for sharing this..

[Robot Criminal]

I have a question too. Sometimes when I mix, two tracks are at the same level on the VU-meters, but one of them sounds MUCH louder. Torque (or anybody else), can you explain this? Is this related to this mysterious RMS power? What are the parameters to calculate this value?

Thank you!

(oh, and Frank's question is interesting too)

Well what do u mean by "the same level" ? if the peak level is the same, but with one track the needle jumps around frantically and with the other doesn't, then the other tracks RMS is higher and it sounds louder. If u add compression to the first track u can achieve the same overall loudness.

hope this explained something.

[Torque]

hi there!

i have a question quite similar to Tom's except that i want to equal the volume of already mastered tracks. I need that for making a mixtape of some tunes. I'm using Ableton's volume automation which requires alot of fiddling but i'm getting OK results with it. nonetheless it's always kinda "live" sounding. How do you guys achieve that smooth, finished sound? Thought about bringing all the tunes to -10 rms (using Waves L2) before i start to mix them, but then again this would definitely bring down the soundquality of the tracks, wouldn't it?

I think the main problem is that you guys are confusing the VU meter with an actual RMS output. The VU meter does not tell you how loud something actually is. It only reads the voltage and shows the peaks so you can watch it and adjust the volume in order to avoid clipping. That is not the actual loudness of a track. I don't know what you guys are using to read this kind of stuff, but just so we can all be on the same page when i talk about this stuff i suggest you do whatever you have to do to get a copy of soundforge just so what i'm saying doesn't look like gibberish, even if you're so poor that you have to let a Sony executive take you to a hotel room in tokyo and grease up your bunghole for a night (hopefully you are more resourceful than that ). Anyhoo if you want to know how loud a track actually is (if your ears have lost the ability from too much dancing in front of the speakers at the club) all you have to do is get whatever program you're using to give you an RMS readout. Anything less than -14db is too quiet for techno, anything over -10db is too loud. what i suggest for making cds of your music and making sure they are all around the same volume is a program called CD Architect. With that program you can just draw a volume envelope over tracs that are too quiet and bring up the volume. If they are still too quiet and to the point of clipping then you can just attach a limiter to the track to make it louder.

[Torque]

Thank you torque. I have learned quite a bit from your posts in the past year. You should start an online class and make some money.

I'm totally cool with that
Anybody that is willing to make a donation is cool with me. We can do it PBS style.

for a donation of $3.99 - $7.99 you can have this gift:
http://www.detroitdigitalvinyl.com/Merc ... gory_Code=

for a donation of $8.99 - $10.99 you get this:
http://www.detroitdigitalvinyl.com/Merc ... gory_Code=

and for a donation of $0 you get this:
http://www.detroitdigitalvinyl.com/DDV-001.htm
and you can go fck yourself

::/Shameless Plug\\::

[steevio]

i dont know if this helps guys, but theres another way to approach this issue, which is worth considering.
i try to avoid compression altogether, and consider the loudness issue while i'm writing the tunes. i'm constantly aware of loudness as i build the tune.
i'm always watching the VU's for wayward peaks, and i sort them out at source. loudness is usually most affected by the bass end of the spectrum.
too much sub bass below 40-50HZ will make the meters jump wildly, but the tune may sound quiet because you dont hear much of the sub-bass, and it masks some of the frequencies above it.
your ears hear mostly mids, so a tune heavy on the mids, and light on the sub-bass will sound way louder at the same peak levels.
i try to keep most of the bass energy in the 50 -100 HZ area, preferably 70-90, and make sure there arent any big holes in the mids.
if i have any wayward peaks, i turn down what ever it is thats causing it where the peaks are. quite often its a bass note on top of a kick. so rather than compress it later, i'll turn down the bass note slightly. because the kick is grabbing your attention, you can turn the bass note down quite considerably before its too noticable.
carefull attention to detail, and constant watching of the VU meters while youre writing the tune can assure the density of your track is high without resorting to compression later.
compression will always affect the groove of your track, ( sometimes this is desirable, but if ive spent 2 weeks getting it how i want it, why would i want to change it later) and tends to take the edge and shine off the sound somewhat.
my advice would be ; get the dynamics exactly how you want them to be while youre writing the tune, and dont rely on mastering to sort out the problems later. mastering should really just be minor adjustments.

[Frank Booth]

Torque, thanks for your answer, really appreciate it. There are very few pros who care to share their knowledge. I'm gonna check Soundforge + Cd Architect out.