My song is too quiet! How can I make it louder without it clipping?

[brianjhoneycutt]

Hi,

So this is my first post here and I don't really know anything about mastering. My recording experience is limited to 4 track tapes and recording onto digital software and adjusting levels. Nev er used compressors, limiters, or anything like that.

So this is my problem:
I have a song with just guitar and vocals that I have recorded in garage band. I can get the two tracks to sound good when mixed together, but the volume is about half that of a professionally recorded song. When I try to incerase the volume in garageband, the song gets loud enough but then starts clipping.

Is there any way to boost the volume at this point? Or am I stuck with a good sounding but quiet mix?

I have a copy of Logic Pro if that helps me.. but I would need to replace the USB key.

thanks very much!

Brian

[paul999]

There are a lot great threads explaining compressors and limiters here. I would search old threads for info. My recommendation would be to start with something simple like a limiter with only a input gain, release and output control and experiment like crazy.

[P.P.T.]

Guitars and vocals are almost always compressed in pro mixes to even out the sound and reduce excessive peaks.

Try that first. A compressor on each track and try to even the sound, reduce peaks and retain a natural sound.

Maybe that is all you need.

This isn't mastering. It is getting the mix right.

[Vulconizer]

Originally Posted by P.P.T.

Guitars and vocals are almost always compressed in pro mixes to even out the sound and reduce excessive peaks.

Try that first. A compressor on each track and try to even the sound, reduce peaks and retain a natural sound.

Maybe that is all you need.

This isn't mastering. It is getting the mix right.

I'll give the whole quote a thumbs up for good advice. The bold parts are what I find to be the more important ideas to keep in mind.

[petermichaelw]

this is a basic question. assuming you are happy with the mix already, think of the overall volume as the skyscrapers in a city. if the buildings were all flat, it wouldn't be nearly as cool to look at the skyline, those peaks and drops make the character. if you are new to the audio game, a good first exercise and skill is simply setting the levels right.

think of the city as having a all destroying laser beam at a certain height. that is what your volume control does in digital music, simply removes anything over a certain threshold. the initial goal (and this is involved in setting recording levels initially, all the way to the end of the process) is to provide dynamic sound (meaning not just the same volume all the time) with no clipping. there is alot of debate right now about maximizing volume in audio, and many are going back to a more dynamic sound as opposed to all high all the time, and this of course has alot to do with the genre.

Max out your view in your editor, and look at the wav file. Raise the volume of the recording (not your listening volume), until the wave file peaks encroach on the -3 - 0 territory, but not over 0. You should also have a level indicator that will alert you to the peaks value, and you can modify the level, then highlight and play the loudest particular part (easy to see usually), and then refine the overall volume level until it's peaking just below the top.

Now, this is overall peak information, the next point to address is EQ. But first, tell me how the sound is after you accomplish this leveling, and then we can talk about EQ. Compression and Limiting come later, and I would recommend rather than just compressing everything willy nilly, grasp the basics firmly and work to it.

The first steps you want to take are non-destructive, and the better you handle them in the beginning, the less work the electronics have to be relied on in the end.

My .02

[Nwahs]

Ozone izotope is the most affordable way to gain access to these tools. It's not just compression you need. Go to the website. I've been extremely happy with the results. Not all compressors are created equal.

[mrblitz]

Here are a couple of questions:

1) Are you mimicking a particular genre, and want your song to 'sound like' other songs which are well-known within the genre? If so, find out what other artists/engineers within that genre are doing, in order to get that 'signature sound.'

2) Are you trying to make money with your recordings? If yes, then find out what is selling, and try to sound like that.

If on the other hand, you're attempting to 'tread new ground' and establish a 'new genre,' and you don't care about money, then the course is wide open. That is to say that you can do whatever it takes to make a 'final master stereo' recording sound the way you want it to sound.

All of that aside, a quick way of raising your levels without exceeding '0 db' is to use a 'brickwall' limiter like 'JB Barricade' or 'Buz Kitty.' If you put one of those Limiter VSTs as an insert on your stereo out, you can pretty much ratchet up the entire mix until it's pressing '0 db' all of the time. Again though, this will remove the subtlety from your mix, and may induce a sort of 'harshness' into it.

These are just some quick thoughts and observations.

If you're cash-strapped and want some subtle VST limiters and compressors, check out the Stillwell/Schwartz free plug-ins, and the Modern series. I'm not sure whether the modern are still available as free. Of the Modern series, the one called 'Dyna-Killer' might help you out with this.

If you want to get into the sublety of this, find a multi-band compressor and play around with that.

The thing about getting the individual tracks correct to begin with; that's good advice. It's probably something I've got to work on.

[phantasm]

How do i know what attack, release, ratio etc. levels to set on my final mixdown? I use the compressor but it doesn't seem to do anything

[whomper]

er .... um......

if it sounds good
but you want it louder
why not just
turn up the amp driving the speakers
when you play it back

else you need a compressor
lots of books describe how to do it
and what settings to start with

[phantasm]

Thanks for the reply mate, what it is, is im on a web site called soundcloud, when i listen to my tracks on there and then listen to other peoples tracks they are much louder but have a good dynamic range not muddy or anything, i was wondering how to do this? i use cubase studio 4 and when i use its compressor this doesnt happen, how do i know what ratio to set? because you cant hear the results until you've mixed it down. if that makes sense