Burned cd has low volume

When I create a beat in P5 export it then burn it to cd, when I play it in my car it is much lower in volume than both the radio and other cds. Any help would be much appreciated.

thanks
jaydub

Commercial records go through a process known as "mastering". Mastering consists of several things:

1) Emphasizing each track's harmonic content (according to the style of each track)
2) Making all tracks of an album sound similar in frequency content and overall volume
3) Raising the perceived level of all the tracks

Professional studios use very expensive hardware to achieve these goals, but you can obtain some very good results in a home studio by using a good EQ, compressor and limiter. However, you must have in mind that these processes degrade the quality of your tracks, so there's a tradeoff between quality and loudness. In the last decade, the scale has leaned more towards the loudness side, resulting in records which are too loud and too tiring to listen.

Anyway, what you must do is find a decent limiter plugin. In the freeware domain there's two I can think of: the Kjaerhus Classic Limiter, and the 4Front W1 Limiter. The W1 is (supposedly) a recreation of the Waves L1, but I never liked the Waves so I suggest you use the Kjaerhus one.

There are some commercial limiters which will allow you to push them harder (ie.- obtain higher gains) without degrading the quality as much as the free ones. I use the Voxengo Elephant, but there's also the WaveArts FinalPlug, the Waves L2 and L3, the new Finalsis, and others.

Now, the first step is make your mix sound as good as you can. If you think your mix has too much bass or too much highs, solve it before rendering the mix (ie.- exporting to WAV). Mastering is for polishing, not for correcting.

Now, assuming you don't have any other software but Project-5, you would insert your limiter plugin as an effect in the Master output section. I'm going to use the Kjaerhus Classic Limiter as an example. It's very easy to use since it only has one knob.

A limiter is nothing but a compressor with an 1:infinity ratio. It won't let the signal's level go over the threshold. This means that if you limit a signal, it will have a lower volume than before (and also a lower dynamic range). But you're supposed to compensate that volume reduction by raising the "output" knob of the limiter. In the case of the Kjaerhus Limiter, there's no output knob since it automatically compensates for the gain reduction. This means that if you set the threshold to -6 db, the whole signal will be pumped by 6 db. Of course, if the signal was already loud, the peaks will be squashed by the limiter - this causes distortion, so the key is not to let the distortion be too noticeable. This means you must *use your ears* to see if you hear anything wrong (for example, listen to the attack of the drums).

It is also a good idea to insert an EQ before the limiter, so you have some control over the overall "color" of the track - again, this is not for correction purposes, but to make a group of tracks sound like they belong to the same album. A parametric EQ is ideal for this (if you want a free one, look for NyquistEQ). Some people (ie.- me) also insert a compressor or tape saturator either before or after the EQ to tame some unwanted peaks and/or add some warmth. There are too many options here to mention, so when you're ready, you should experiment with different plugins.

Anyway, that's the basic idea.... and remember, mastering *is not* about making a song as loud as you can, but about making a group of songs sound as part of a whole.

Good luck!

hi jaydub...

what you're experiencing with commercial CD's these days is the wonderful world of super compressed ultra maximized and uber-limited music.

If you were to take a song off a commercial CD and open it in your wav editor you'd see something like this:



The more "green" you see in this picture, essentially the LOUDER the song will be....


How do I get my track this loud? :
A good tip is to apply both a multiband compressor and then a limiter plugin on your MASTER channel of your P5 song. (Just click on the Master Aux and choose the FX bin and add each of these FX to it in a chain).
As a minimum, you need at least a limiter to do this....you can get a great free Limiter HERE!!

Alternatively, you can open your exported wav in your wav editor and apply some "limiting" from there.

By the way, if you use the above freebie limiter, (which I use!) try using the PRESET called CD Mastering...it's a great catchall setting!!

Good Luck!

edit: wow...I saw no one had responded and by the time I answered I'm the 5th post! LOL

At the risk of Hi-Jacking jaydubs thread,

I was curious as to "why" someone wouldn't push for the MAXIMUM VOLUME in every song? I've heard people like Wrench say that they like to keep some headroom in their mastering...I dont understand what this achieves other than making it quieter. I've heard that it allows for greater dynamic range in the song but I don't hear it...perhaps its more subtle than I thought, in which case if I can't tell, then 90% of the listeners can't either.

DA,

It's not only about losing the dynamic range (although that's already bad enough). Overcompressed music is very tiring for the ears. I have quite a few CD's which contain some good songs, but I can't stand listening to them for more than five or ten minutes. They make my head hurt. Some examples are the latest Outkast CD (The Love Below/Speakerboxx) and Radiohead's Hail To The Thief. IMO, these albums have been ruined by trying to achieve the loudest volume.

I've definitely gotta side with fac on this one. I despise compression. When you listen to say, any Beatles or Zeppelin album the dynamic range is wonderful. Listen to some of the albums from the 80's onward and they are unlistenable to me due to their over compressed nature. I could quite happily live without it altogether on complete mixes.

i love those Voxengo plugs
when bubblefish took that piece 'Fallen Snow' he was amazed too how loud it was and still how much range there was
it's all Voxengo transparency
the sound just has this rich, clear quality

Inspector just lets you see what they're doing

i just wish i could figure out how to use the Sonicformer
until I can figure that out I can't justify buying CurveEQ
but someday

It's a bit late now, DA, but I'll try to make some examples tomorrow. In fact, the WAV file you showed in a previous post looks pretty square (ie.- overcompressed) - is that yours?

ORIGINAL: fac

It's a bit late now, DA, but I'll try to make some examples tomorrow. In fact, the WAV file you showed in a previous post looks pretty square (ie.- overcompressed) - is that yours?

no..its not my wav sample, but it is typical of what I try to achieve...thats why I would like to know why some people say its not good.

thats why I would like to know why some people say its not good

Well, the thing is, "good" depends on the context. If you tell me that WAV file corresponds to a dance or heavy rock track, then I would say it's probably ok. Those genres, almost by definition, try to achieve the loudest levels *at all times*, since you don't want people stop dancing or whatever. In the case of rock music, well, limiters always cause distortion, but since the original sounds are already pretty distorted, most people won't notice an overlimited track ;)

But if that song corresponds to a slow ballad or an evolving electronica piece, then it's probably too compressed. There are absolutely no level transitions (ok, maybe you just displayed the loudest part of the piece, but you get my point). All the transients are pretty squashed which might have messed up the percussions. Unfortunately, since you don't have the original, un-mastered mix, you'll never know what you're missing (that's why I asked if it was yours).

I'm at work right now, but in the afternoon I'll take one of my songs with plenty of dynamics and I'll post the original mix, the mastered mix as I have it, and an overlimited (but certainly louder) mix.

Oh, and just to clarify, I'm not an audio pro, by any means. I'm just a hobbyist, like most of you, but I enjoy the technical side of things, even though I don't always apply it to my tracks (as I said, I'm too lazy and I just want to make music).

It took a bit longer than expected but here are my experiments:

http://www.cimat.mx/~falbac/music/limiter

Please have in mind that this is the school's server and it might be pretty slow at some hours. I probably won't keep those files online for long (a month, maybe).

Anyway, the page is (I hope) self-explaining. The examples should also show how good a limiter Elephant is. I crushed the hell out of those mixes and they still sound pretty clean.

hey FAC ... thanks for doing that! I've been soooo curious..I'll check these out tonight when I get home!