MAKE IT LOUD!!!!

Hi Guys,

How can I make my song sound louder - Post mix?

Cheers.

You have to think about it all the way, from arrangement through tracking and mixing.

To make it simple: You need to use (EQ and) compression subtly on many tracks, then do a finall compressing/limiting to the finished mix as the final "mastering" move. It's also very good to do manually volume envelopes to even out the biggest jumps in volume, so to make compressors task easier.

If you just throw a limiter in the mixdown track with very strong original dynamics, you will most likely destroy your sound if you aim for "near commercial" loudness.

If your ony option in this case is post mix editing you could try: Volume envelopes> EQ > Compressor > corrective EQ > Limiter.

Izotope Ozone is an excellent mastering tool.

Roey Ishakis book "Mixing Audio" is a good book about these things. It includes a CD with examples of different edits.

Exactly, stop trying to make it faux loud. It's done nothing to help music, and at this point NOT being loud would make you stand out from the crowd instead of just being another wannabe trying to create music with zero dynamics. Don't become part of the problem, become part of the solution and stop contributing to the destruction of music for the sake of an illusory advantage.

+ya

Kalle Rantaaho


You have to think about it all the way, from arrangement through tracking and mixing.

To make it simple: You need to use (EQ and) compression subtly on many tracks, then do a finall compressing/limiting to the finished mix as the final "mastering" move. It's also very good to do manually volume envelopes to even out the biggest jumps in volume, so to make compressors task easier.

If you just throw a limiter in the mixdown track with very strong original dynamics, you will most likely destroy your sound if you aim for "near commercial" loudness.

If your ony option in this case is post mix editing you could try: Volume envelopes> EQ > Compressor > corrective EQ > Limiter.

Izotope Ozone is an excellent mastering tool.

Roey Ishakis book "Mixing Audio" is a good book about these things. It includes a CD with examples of different edits.

Correct..  Loud tracks start in the mix..   You have to have a very tight volume balance...  and than during mastering stage you can get a banging master...

I dislike having to get off the couch to turn up volume knob on the receiver.

If you are using sonar producer, it comes with a plug in called Boost 11. As the previous posts have mentioned, this WILL kill your dynamics if you over use it. The red on the waves on the left represent how much of the song is affected. The waves on the right show the output. You will notice it's a very uniform volume which can definitely be a bad thing depending on how much you use.

Jonsey asked WHY do you want it loud.... 

I'm asking does it need to be loud. Many times, the answer to that is No.

Don't go loud just to be loud. 

Keeping the dynamic range to me is more important than loud. You can always turn up the volume.

An overly compressed and squashed song is still squashed when it's turned up, but a song with dynamics really comes alive when it's turned up. 

Tread lightly on those compressors and limiters.

When I developed cleaner mixes with properly miked amps and correct EQing, also with the introduction of a better audio interface, I found my mixes to be much louder. hence I only use About -6db threshold mastering compression with ozone 3. Mixes are plenty loud.   Also, I mix down my songs without any mastering. Then open it up again as a stereo track to add limiting and ozone. That way I can go back and undo or redo the mastering.

While Limiting (I hope is done with discipline if an ME doesn't do it), it's not really necessary at all. Most keep saying just turn up the volume; however, "I don't wanna touch every single slider - or do the trial and error thing (which perhaps involves math)." (However, do document!)

This is why Sends are are best friends. More often you hear when they're used when tracks share effects to alleviate CPU load (ie: Delays, Reverbs, etc.), but they can be used to boost/cut the volume as well as EQs.

I'm listening to a track with 3 sends (Volume + 2 EQ) with the volume decreasing when off, but increasing when on and I never touched a track slider (The master is @ -.3dB).

Without those Sends the peaks (Master VU) don't touch or just barely touch -18dB (The kick goes over, but that's fine); however, with them on - Volume alone pushes this to -12dB, with EQ 1, it goes to -8dB, with both on, it's about -2 or -1. (-6dB = 0 with the VU measurements)

As far as the tracks themselves, they're pretty low which is why the overall track is low without the sends.

AAMOF, these sends before they became sends were on my Master Track. I still have FX on the Master; however, using sends helped alleviate some of the Master Track's weight. And given their purpose, why neglect them? Simply don't.

So, yes, you can have a track (or tracks) "bumped up" in volume, but routing through a send is much more preferred by me at least than Limiting. In fact, if Volume sends are used (and make sure you tell the ME this) then, less limiting may be applied which means more dynamic headroom.

Again, I could be wrong about this, but when you do something wrong for so long, you do think it's right. I always Limited my tracks until I read up on dynamic preservation and all that comes with it (on here and else) and will now no longer do this. I'm not saying that it might not be needed; I am saying it isn't nor should it be the end all be all - especially if used incorrectly.

Bit liked when I said that "every knob isn't a volume knob." This is when I didn't understand compressors (I'm still experimenting) but the same can be said for/when Limiting as that is not a volume knob either.

Track Volume sliders. Master Fader, Automation and Volume sends.

I agree with "non-mastering" a track. However, you may want to master so the ME can have a reference. Yes, I understand about self-mastering being too close to a tune. However, as Danny and others have said: "How it should sound and not how you think it should sound." He also said that compromise isn't a bad thing and a great ME can give a track what it needs without totally obliterating what you want.

This also means not letting egos (for lack of a better term get in the way.) I also know that Mixing and Mastering are to different things, but compromise needn't elude either function. "Cut as opposed to Boost," yet, don't do too much of either. Which is the sole reason for the LW - compromising dynamics for loudness, but many perceived these to terms to be synonymous.

Looking at this classically - (as classical is often referred to as the most dynamic genre) the piano is the most dynamic instrument out there. AAMOF, it's full name name evokes dynamics - pianoforte - soft and loud. And if you think about it, when someone bangs on it constantly the instrument - or at least the output - is getting crushed. Not too pleasing, is it?

If pianists can get by without playing fortississmo (crushing the sound or instrument) ... then, producers can get by without limiting tracks (prior turning them over to the ME) Of course, if the piece calls for a reasonable amount of fff (Automation is this nowadays); however, you can play a fff, without crushing the track.

Could you just imagine if Beethoven said to be heard (famous), I have to be louder than Mozart; therefore, he bangs out his symphonies? Of course, live play can only go so far on it's own, but I really don't think these two and the others during there time, made this into a LW. Would they fall victim to the LW war today? (Note: I do not mean to provoke a discuss, but if you're interested, feel free)

Whether or not you listen to classical music fervidly or just know familiar tunes from the encompassing umbrella of this genre, this is something to think about. These composers not having the technology we do today, is not the point because LWs exist within live play as well as recorded music and what's ironic is, the only option you have is turning the volume up or down (sans a sound person to handle that and/or all the intricacies).

If you are going to use a Limiter, be very careful, but be aware that there are more ways to increase the volume.

Bonus points for anyone who can answer why I bolded what I did?

^ LOL This you really do not want. No volume is just as bad as too much volume (Limiting)

The song on the CD is so low, when I switch to the radio ... 

Then again, John Cage that exact piece where that sound lasted 4'33. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E

Silence is golden!!

The loudness wars was something driven by marketing, not by musical considerations. Then it went on so long that now you have a generation of kids who think that anything not flat-lined is somehow wrong. It's pretty pathetic, and another nail in music's coffin because it leads to less variety.

If you think there's no loudness war, you can't be actually listening to any music. There clearly has been one for a long time, and it's driven by marketing concerns. I guess you could say that there's no 'war' anymore because everyone has already dropped enough atomics bombs that there's nothing left to war over I guess.

As the second point, that's one of those statements that are true but meaningless. The fact that it's available means nothing if it's not actually listened to. The vast, vast majority of music being made is heard by almost no one. It's being made based on the mistaken belief that all you have to do is create something and the world will beat a path to your door. This has been proven incorrect innumerable times in the entire history of the universe as we know it.

The music that people actually listen to in large numbers is almost all highly artificial and extremely dynamics limited. That music effectively defines what this decade will be remembered as musically, as does the popular music of every decade. It also controls what music can actually make money and therefore make it likely that people will get financial assistance to help them do it as a professional.
 
There are probably a couple million books written every year. You have access to all of them. How many do you go out of your way to consume? How many of them are ever known outside of a small group of people, barely or insufficiently large to sustain the author? Probably most of them. In the music world, everyone can 'publish' their work, with the delusion that they will be discovered and made famous. But in actual fact it mostly just dilutes the value of the people doing the actual good work, and certainly it dilutes the value of people putting in the years of time required to become highly proficient on an instrument, when they could just make dem beatz, yo.
 

droddey


The loudness wars was something driven by marketing, not by musical considerations. Then it went on so long that now you have a generation of kids who think that anything not flat-lined is somehow wrong. It's pretty pathetic, and another nail in music's coffin because it leads to less variety.

How would you explain the examples you yourself just posted in that other thread? Or Gotye? Or a whole slew of others?