The Bastard VOLUME QUESTION!!!!!!!!

[?????]

I am pretty sure I haven't seen this posted as of yet. Weird though. It seems all the noobs have a problem with VOLUME after mastering a track. I am also. Every single one of my recordings are coming out considerably lower.

My set up is either everything running, one by one, into my Tascam DP02. In the case of the Tascam, since the effects send sucks, I run all my effects in line before the recorder. That is one of the ways.

The next is a Tascam US 122 interface into a MacBook using GarageBand.

For each of the two setups, I use my Peavey 14 to run drums into the recorder/interface. I also sweat and toil over clipping line limits. I typically run everything a hair below to avoid clipping pre-recording.

Some of the tricks I have tried:

1) Monitoring each track in SOLO to find any and all clips (if any). I do this so I can boost individual tracks if necessary, but after all the tracks are unmuted, and the mix sounds good, the volume is too low once again.

2) Normalize... Just because it's there. I tried it, and it doesn't work. No Bueno Por Caca. I even tried mastering at a lower volume because I heard the magic behind Normalize was to make sure it wasn't clipping AT ALL. Then it should boost to infinite and beyond.

3) Running the mastered version of the song back into the recorder at a higher volume. But, this just gave me some odd EQ phenomenon. Especially in the mid to Hi mid range.

4) Using a wav file that I imported into the DP02 as a reference "recording". I was hoping it would give me a good idea of where to keep the master/channel faders during mastering to achieve the highest output.

I know a lot of this comes down to RMS. I have a cheap recording set up and I am not willing to believe it will not achieve the master volumes of the million dollar studios. I used an old Roland once with 8 inputs that worked just fine. No problem. What I am set up with now is in my eyes quite a bit more advanced than that, but not by much. They scream compression, but I also read something that anything higher than 2:1 ratio is not smart. It makes the music sound compressed. I have applied that religiously after hearing the sucking sound of the compressor and limiter working against each other.

Also, even if I mic an acoustic at a mic level, or run it straight in at line level, I don't hear a bit of difference. Sonically yes, but no reason for me to consider either better than the other.

Anyhow, I would be glad to answer any questions that would aid some great person in helping me solve this. Ask away....

[samato]

Yes, you are having the same issues many home recording enthusiasts face. Good that you figured out normalizing is bad. That's not your answer. Unfortunately the answers you seek don't come easy. Professional recording, mixing and mastering engineers had to do quite a bit of learning to make things sound the way they do. The gear you are using matters of course but it's true that you can get very high quality results with relatively cheap, pro-sumer equipment.

Keep in mind that apparent volume, loudness, or whatever you want to call it is not what determines whether a mix is good or not. Still, I understand people want their mixes loud. That's just how it is. Well, here's what I can tell you about how to make your stuff sound loud, like what's on the radio or the pop music you can buy commercially. It is usually the result of the material being compressed in many and multiple stages from start to finish. They are usually compressing during recording. During mixing it is not uncommon to have instruments and voices compressed individually (sometimes multiple compressors in series and/or parallel) and as part of a subgroup. Parallel compression on those subgroups is common for many mix engineers. Many often compress the stereo buss as well during mix down. Then it goes to a mastering engineer for more.... you guessed it, compression.

Now learning how to do all of that to get the sounds you or your clients want is what audio engineers do or have done. How to use a compressor is not easy to teach or to learn. It takes time to develop an ear for it. Would you benefit from taking your stuff to a professional or several professionals for different stages of the production process? I would think so.

If you really want to learn how to do it yourself you certainly can. There is a lot of reading material out there to get you started. You might start with basic audio engineering theory material. Jumping right into mixing techniques might work but you'd only have part of the picture.

[?????]

I was hoping for something simple, LOL!!!!

So basically stacking compressors so to speak??? It does make sense. And, I assure you, I know very little about compression. I know how to get the plucked twangy sound in country music with a CS-3 though....

Since you mentioned Normalize is no answer for the problem, I have to imagine you know a lot about this.

I can imagine what series means as far as compressors. track>compressor>compressor>compressor>master ?????

Parallel
compressor>compressor>compressor>
track> Master ????
compressor>compressor>compressor>

I am not going for the pop sound, but when I send this out for radio play, I just don't want to have them thinkin the music sucks because they have to adjust the volume. It's Americana/Folk/Country. It sounds great. It's just to quiet....

[samato]

Oh, here's a very basic idea of what compressors do and how they affect loudness.

Most instruments and voices have some amount of dynamic range. That means the level (volume) varies from it's lowest point to it's highest point by some amount, measured in decibels. We call the highest point the peak. A compressor reduces peaks, meaning it lowers the level. Now we have gain reduction. Now that the peaks have been reduced we can increase the overall signal level without clipping. The result is a higher average volume because the sound at the lowest point is now louder than before. We also have less dynamic range and possibly more noticeable noise.

[tele-bastard]

I have a tascam dp01 and make cd quality all the time. Run a mixer or pa before you plug in to the tascam. Make sure your level are about zero that way you dont peak. Zero is just before red on monitors. Make sure the input knobs are turned up more in the front. Do a short test recording. Just a couple of strums of the guitar and look at the screen on the tascam after the tracks are armed. Try assigning a and b. Look again at the left part of the screen and make sure the bars are pretty high and are reading those strums properly.

[?????]

Oh, I knew that much. I have a BBE MaxCom. I use it live for vocals. More for a limiter than anything. The compressor section though, I have always used in accordance with presets in the users manual.

As far as the more noticeable noise thing. I have (1) XLR and (1) 1/4" for instr and mics. As for drum mics and cables, they really don't matter as the gain rarely makes it over 1 on the channel gain. All though, they are registering right below yellow on my master fader LED's. It still sounds good somehow.

[samato]

An example of serial compression:

Sometimes on a very dynamic vocal I will use 2 compressors - the output of 1 going to the input of the next. The first compressor is set so that for the low and average level parts of the track it does nothing, no gain reduction. For the loudest parts only it will reduce the gain by as much as I can get away with. The second compressor is my main one set to give me my basic overall compression for the majority of the track. The first compressor is basically to limit the extreme peaks so I don't freak out the second compressor.

An example of parallel compression:

I do this often for drums and background vocals on tracks that have a lot of stacked harmonies. Let's just use drums for this example. I create 2 stereo subgroups of the drums. That means if I have 8 tracks of drums those 8 tracks are being routed to 2 sets of 2 channels. On the first subgroup I have a stereo compressor set for very mild compression - ratio 2:1 - 3:1 maybe, medium attack & release, 2-4dB gain reduction. The second subgroup gets another stereo compressor setup to squeeze the daylight out of the these drums, to the point that I get a very aggressive but unnatural, overly compressed sound. Then I mix in just enough of that nasty, aggressive sound to give me the edge I need but not so much as to be able to hear the compression artifacts. The bad stuff is being masked by the lightly compressed, natural sounding drums.

[Old Cane]

Who is "this guy"? Is it you? Do you realize what kind of a decent recoding setup you could have for 10% of the money you have listed? To answer your question; 1st - are you any good? If not why would you want a $20,000 turd? and 2nd, if you are any good shouldn't they be paying you? Why not do what the rest of us do and get some gear and get good with it and have fun. If you were doing this for a living I don't think you'd be on this forum asking these questions. Hobbys are supposed to be fun and supposed to cost you money but it's not something you have to buy all at once.

You have to realize that yes, lots of new kids on the block want their tracks to jump out of the ear buds but why don't you ask the MEs what they think about doing this. Sure they'll take your money and jack it way up, the do know how, but I've never heard one (that was any good) say "yeah, man".

[samato]

Originally Posted by ?????

I am not going for the pop sound, but when I send this out for radio play, I just don't want to have them thinkin the music sucks because they have to adjust the volume. It's Americana/Folk/Country. It sounds great. It's just to quiet....

If the only problem is it's not loud enough you could just send it to a mastering engineer for an unattended session. There are a lot of very good guys out there who can do it cheap this way. You might even be able to ask them to listen to it first to determine if they will be able to get the results you are looking for or if there are issues that need to be addressed before mastering.

[tele-bastard]

I keeped the levels normal on the mixer but had to crank, almost peaking on the tascam.
I had trouble with the levels with the tascam when i first started using it. I think you will get it right shortly. It is such a frustrating process, but there is always great reward.

[?????]

Originally Posted by Old Cane

1st - are you any good?

UHHHH??? Yeah.... I have been told at least. My mommy said so.

[?????]

Originally Posted by Old Cane

2nd, if you are any good shouldn't they be paying you?

I believe that is a huge common misconception in music. I am also not a musician. I am a songwriter. I really don't want someone putting their "touches" on my music. I know I don't know it all, but my "hobby" has gone well past expensive.

[?????]

Tele-Bastard - I have a full head of hair still, but this is going to run me up a wall. Just short of pulling a second mortgage I have spent all summer with this problem, LOL!!! A lot of the engineers around here keep offering to help, and I have to refuse because as with my musicians, I don't want people working for free. And I have reached my limit on working for beer. To the point that I am a recovering drunk now.

Sorry to be so short with you Old Cane, but maybe you should word your sentences a little better when directing a comment or question at someone. It sounds trite.

Somata, thanks for the quick reply. I am going to see about using all these wonderful little techniques tomorrow night.

We are working nightly in a wharehouse here in the small town of KHole Texas to do the best possible that we may leave our 200 mile radius gigging range. Hopefully before 2012. There are several DJ's in our region that are asking for something to spin, I just can't send them something sub par. It's my own personal standard.

As for a hobby, well, start knitting or cross stitching. I'm in it to make a living. If I have fun thats is just a little extra. Another common misconception about music is that it is ALL fun. From the start of the show to the end is fun. Before and after that is when the work begins. ---But, it's still the coolest "JOB" in America.---

[String Tree]

Look in to MultiBand Compression.

Every instrument and every voice wants to be Compressed differently.

ADSR, you have to know what it is all about to get the most from your Compressor(s).

Atttack
Decay
Sustain
Release

Trying to do it all with one Compression scheme, or parallel Compressors can be very, very, frustrating.

This one divides-up the audio spectrum like a 5-band Parametric EQ.
Each band of the "EQ" has its own separate Compression scheme.
Click on the pic to enlarge to get a closer look.

I highly recommend it.

~ ST

[woodman]

I'd say if you need Loud Now for business reasons, get a quickie mastering job on the needed material. But in the long run, sounds like you have the pluck and tenacity to rassle this bull down if you work at it and add strategic gear/software in increments. Keep the drive alive.

[Chud]

Volume level and compression use have gone up by several orders of magnitude over the last 50 years or so. Everyone else's recordings are stupid loud now so everyone thinks that theirs has to be too. Have you ever looked at the waveform of a red book mastered song file? It's basically just a solid block of sound with little to no dynamics whatsoever.

Anyway, we're unfortunately beyond the point of return on that one. To your problem now.

I don't think that you are running into problems related to dollarwise gear limitations, as there are lots of folks who use gear similar to what you are talking about and getting release ready results. It comes down to each stage of the process and how well you are able to squeeze every ounce of sound out of your recordings.

Keep in mind that if it isn't there on the tracks, it isn't going to come out in the wash. When you hit the mixing and mastering stages it helps to listen to some relevant studio released recordings to get into the mindset of the fact that everyone mixes everything hot and high (even digitally, just carefully), which you have to do as well if you want to have radio ready masters.

Each track has to have its eq tailored to not interfere with the other tracks as well as to enhance the frequencies that need to be heard (and not heard) otherwise you will be dealing with phase and noise issues when you hit the mixing stage. Whether boosting or cutting eq settings remember that what you are doing is adding and/or removing actual volume (and often noise) at specific frequency slices. A well eq'd track should actually sound pretty ****ty when listened to on its own, but should fall within the overall mix.

I'm not one for using a lot of compression on individual tracks unless there are some serious peaks and valleys, but even then I'm more likely to set up some automation rather than lose track dynamics. A bit on the vocals or bass, maybe piano, but that's about it for me.

The advice given here about using multiband compression during the mastering stage is absolutely spot on. There's very little chance that many of us here have access to an LA-2A, let alone a pair of them, so we must take advantage of what we can afford. Most DAWs come bundled with at least a basic multiband compressor that will work well for mastering. Check out some of the presets and find one that helps boost up your hot eq'd mix and then tweak it to fit your track.

During the mastering stage it helps me to A/B my recording against a few different studio tracks to compare how hot my eq and levels are. These are my preferences and they cut across several decades and styles of music: Boston, More Than a Feeling; Aerosmith, Young Lust or F.I.N.E., and Nirvana, Nevermind.

I don't know if any of this will actually help you or not, but this is my process and what I am thinking about at each stage of recording, mixing, and mastering. Keeping your end product in mind at every stage of the game will help to make it come out the way you envision it.

[Geoff738]

Um, just turn it up when you play it back?

That sounds like a smartarse response, but it isn't really. See the Bob Katz book on mastering - that's basically his advice. Further to that, radio is gonna squash it more than whatever you do to it. They'll level it out. But if you squash the life out of it in your mix, the compression radio adds is not going to help your music stand out. Probably the opposite.

So, yeah, you could get the compressors out. But multiband is not for the weak at heart. Easy to make things sound very very bad in the wrong hands. You can monkey about with the width of the stereo field (sacrificing width for a bit more volume). But in doing so, are you making your recording better, or just louder (and paradoxically often smaller sounding at the same time)?

Honestly, if you just want it louder - turn it up. Competing with the overcompressed major label stuff on volume is just not gonna be a pleasant way to spend your time and it is not gonna do pleasant things to your music.

And I say this as someone who is a bit of a compressor fiend.

My advice - DO NOT sacrifice the integrity of your music to compete with flatlined corporate boring rawk that has had all the life squished out of it so it's "loud". Particularly if you're more into the folkie end of Americana.

Might be worthwhile getting somebody sympatico to master it. Not to make it louder - although that may be one possible end result - but to get an objective set of ears on it.

That said, no harm in experimenting on your own. Serial and parallel compression and limiting are great techniques to have in your toolkit. Multiband too, although it can really be made to sound awful. Don't forget to use your DAW's automation - maybe you can do what you need by moving the faders and you don't need compression at all. (And I say this as a compressor fiend).

But it ain't all compressors. Getting a big, impactful mix is arrangement, eq (which is a function of arrangement, really), and everything about it is a compromise. Want huge drums? Something else has to be smaller. Etc.

To sum up: it's hard! But don't sacrifice quality just to get it louder. There's a knob for that.

And, concentrate on your songs - it's about a bazillion times more important than their perceived loudness. At the end of the day if the song sucks, no-one will care how loud it is. If your song is great, the same applies.

Cheers,
Geoff

[ScatMan]

Originally Posted by ?????

..I just don't want to have them thinkin the music sucks because they have to adjust the volume.

Originally Posted by Chud

Volume level and compression use have gone up by several orders of magnitude over the last 50 years or so. Everyone else's recordings are stupid loud now so everyone thinks that theirs has to be too. Have you ever looked at the waveform of a red book mastered song file? It's basically just a solid block of sound with little to no dynamics whatsoever.

Take everyone's advice about getting your recordings sounding better (and a bit "louder", maybe) using arrangement and judicious use of compression and EQ..

Please don't try to win the loudness wars by driving your army into a brickwall limiter and smashing everything flatter than the Great Plains.

[Old Cane]

Originally Posted by ?????

I believe that is a huge common misconception in music. I am also not a musician. I am a songwriter. I really don't want someone putting their "touches" on my music. I know I don't know it all, but my "hobby" has gone well past expensive.

Buddy, you're right. I only did singer/songwriter for 25 years for a living (and owning 2 music stores, a publishing company, studio and sound company) and nearly 40 when you add me doing some as a hobby for the last 12 or 15. I won't go into my residuals from my writing that let me pay cash for a farm. Well, actually 3 years before I had enough in hand to pay it off. But good for you. What do I know. And yes, that's a statement, not a question.

Sorry to be short with you. I'm not good with sentences that say exactly what I mean. If you don't want anyone "touching your songs" then, well, yeah, it can be a very expensive hobby. I wonder what I mean by that? Hmmm.

Good luck to ya.

[vjf1968]

Originally Posted by ?????

I am pretty sure I haven't seen this posted as of yet. Weird though. It seems all the noobs have a problem with VOLUME after mastering a track. I am also. Every single one of my recordings are coming out considerably lower.

My set up is either everything running, one by one, into my Tascam DP02. In the case of the Tascam, since the effects send sucks, I run all my effects in line before the recorder. That is one of the ways.

The next is a Tascam US 122 interface into a MacBook using GarageBand.

For each of the two setups, I use my Peavey 14 to run drums into the recorder/interface. I also sweat and toil over clipping line limits. I typically run everything a hair below to avoid clipping pre-recording.

Some of the tricks I have tried:

1) Monitoring each track in SOLO to find any and all clips (if any). I do this so I can boost individual tracks if necessary, but after all the tracks are unmuted, and the mix sounds good, the volume is too low once again.

2) Normalize... Just because it's there. I tried it, and it doesn't work. No Bueno Por Caca. I even tried mastering at a lower volume because I heard the magic behind Normalize was to make sure it wasn't clipping AT ALL. Then it should boost to infinite and beyond.

3) Running the mastered version of the song back into the recorder at a higher volume. But, this just gave me some odd EQ phenomenon. Especially in the mid to Hi mid range.

4) Using a wav file that I imported into the DP02 as a reference "recording". I was hoping it would give me a good idea of where to keep the master/channel faders during mastering to achieve the highest output.

I know a lot of this comes down to RMS. I have a cheap recording set up and I am not willing to believe it will not achieve the master volumes of the million dollar studios. I used an old Roland once with 8 inputs that worked just fine. No problem. What I am set up with now is in my eyes quite a bit more advanced than that, but not by much. They scream compression, but I also read something that anything higher than 2:1 ratio is not smart. It makes the music sound compressed. I have applied that religiously after hearing the sucking sound of the compressor and limiter working against each other.

Also, even if I mic an acoustic at a mic level, or run it straight in at line level, I don't hear a bit of difference. Sonically yes, but no reason for me to consider either better than the other.

Anyhow, I would be glad to answer any questions that would aid some great person in helping me solve this. Ask away....

It may also be the room your are working in. Standing waves and other sonic anomalies can cause problems and cause you to over or under compensate levels in volume and EQ. There is also the issue of consumer equipment which records and plays back at -10db as opposed to +4db which is pretty standard with pro gear.

Your main goal at the beginning is to make an accurate reproduction of the instrument you want to record. Sometimes cheaper consumer gear sacrifice quality in the transducer of the mic to the mic pre in the recording unit.

There can also be an issue of phase cancellation with either your monitors or with your microphones. If you have passive monitors using a power amp check the speaker wires and make sure they are inserted in to the terminals properly. If you are using powered monitors, make sure you are using the proper connector and that the speaker output is set a +4 db and you are plugged into the +4db balanced input. To know if your speakers are in phase
just click this link http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_polaritycheck.php

If you have down time I suggest that you dismantle your gear, and re-assemble everything and make a note of what you are wiring into. Set your playback monitors where you will be sitting. They should be at equal level with your ears and should resemble a triangle then do a speaker phase test.

There maybe an issue of ear fatigue too, especially when the one recording is also the one performing. Take frequent breaks and always playback and mix at a low level. It is here where you can hear when certain instruments are too loud or too soft.

In other words there could a multitude of issues but some of them can be rectified by you and for free.

So before you run off and spend money, take some time and take a look at your gear, see how its wired, check your speakers, and the room you are working in. Sometimes it is a question of having something plugged in the wrong way. A little detective work and patience can go a long way