Why aren't my mixes loud enough.

[blinkrocker3]

I'm not sure what the problem is but any mix i do is just too quiet. I've tried everything get make the mixes sound louder without clipping, but when I compare the songs to professional or even semi professional mixes my tracks sound much quieter. Does anyone have any advice on how to get the tracks sounding a bit louder, or do i just need to get them professionally mastered?

[whomper]

Originally Posted by blinkrocker3

I'm not sure what the problem is but any mix i do is just too quiet. I've tried everything get make the mixes sound louder without clipping, but when I compare the songs to professional or even semi professional mixes my tracks sound much quieter. Does anyone have any advice on how to get the tracks sounding a bit louder, or do i just need to get them professionally mastered?

quiet is good
you want noise?

commercial music is way too compressed
with way too much added gain back

if you have truly tried everything
then there is nothing else you can do

now if you have not really tried everything
try something else

have you eqd all the peaks away so you clip later
then compress the heck out of it - say 10:1
then boost the gain to max before clipping
and repeat until your stuff is loud enough
get the dynamic range down to under 3 db and it should suit you
for loudness
if not
do it again

[garageband]

Originally Posted by blinkrocker3

I'm not sure what the problem is but any mix i do is just too quiet. I've tried everything get make the mixes sound louder without clipping, but when I compare the songs to professional or even semi professional mixes my tracks sound much quieter. Does anyone have any advice on how to get the tracks sounding a bit louder, or do i just need to get them professionally mastered?

Hi. Welcome. whomper's an ****. Spend any time here, you'll see that he masks his ignorance with curmudgeon-ness.

Back to work. Two ideas to get you started. First, solo each track separately. When you look at the waveform, esp if they are miked tracks, the range of loudness to softness will be large and have big peaks. This will frustrate the effective use of a bus compressor, because it'll have to work too hard leveling problems that should have been handled at the track level, not the Master Bus level. You will write volume automation for each entire track the entire length of the song. After you have made that track's volume quite uniform, you will thereafter control the relative volume with a Trim control, NOT THE FADER. The fader will be reading and riding the volume automation. In the olden days, humans had to do this work live. Don't be afraid to put a very light compressor on any and every track. They always did this in the old days, but then it was call "tracking to tape".

Second, Bounce what you consider a finished mix and open it in a second, new project. That's right you're gonna master it separately. Mostly what you are going to do here is roll off the the extreme high and low ends, pull 3 or so dB of peaks out, esp in the 250-700 range, 1.25-2.5k if things are really going sideways, and double-check the "shreik freq" (I made that up just now) around 5k. Feel free to use multiple EQ instances. Run this through a nice sounding compressor. You are trying to pull it together and sound nice, not limit dynamic range or smooth peaks or any horseshit like that. Bounce that. Normalize, EQ the same way a little less this time, set limiter to shave off about 2.1354 dB, bounce, normalize to -0.1.

This is "Express Mastering" (TonyB's term). Enjoy the results.

[P.P.T.]

The real answr is that your mix is loud enough if it is well mixed and peaking near 0db.

It's the 'pro' mixes (masters, actually) that are BS and ruining good audio with all of their trickery and maximizing.

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by garageband

....EQ the same way a little less this time, set limiter to shave off about 2.1354 dB, bounce, normalize to -0.1.

This is "Express Mastering" (TonyB's term). Enjoy the results.

GB,

You're correct, except 2.1354 dB should be 2.1355!

MIX STAGE
Anyway, GB's right. Get it right in the mix. Your mix needs to be sounding good to you before going to the mastering phase.

Yeah, the mix won't be loud (it shouldn't be loud; it ESPECIALLY SHOULDN"T BE NEAR CLIPPING AT ALL). Just turn up your monitors to 85 to 100 dB as best you can with the mix. Is anything "shrieking?" (to use a GB term).

Listen to the mix at 60 dB and lower. Is anything missing?
Slowly turn down the monitor as you carefully listen. Do the vocals go to "zero" before the other instruments? If so then your vocals may be too low in the mix? As you turn down the monitor volume do any of the transients stick out (i.e., snare, kick, etc)? Does one instrument dominate over the other in certain portions of the song? If so then determine if some compression on the offending track or volume automation would do the trick. You are basically reducing the overall dynamic range of the song.

Reducing the dynamic range can make a song sound "fuller" (not to be confused with "louder"). But you need to be careful, because reducing the dynamic range can lead to some unintended, non-pleasing results. It's a balance and why it's called the ART of Mixing.


MASTERING STAGE

As this point your mix should be relatively full and pleasing to the ear. "Full" meaning the "mastering phase" should not need to do any hatchet jobs to fix a mix.

As GB suggested, in mastering you should be solidifying or gelling (is that a word?) the mix; not just bringing the volume up.

"Loud" doesn't necessarily mean "full." "Squashing the living hell" out of a mix is loud, but not necessarily full sounding.

[String7th]

Originally Posted by garageband

Hi. Welcome. whomper's an idiot. Spend any time here, you'll see that he masks his ignorance with curmudgeon-ness.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I was wondering when someone was going to point that out. I have no clue what curmudgeon-ness describes but sounds very amusing.

But loudness these days is kinda measured by over-compression. Sucks. But there are a few tricks like this one by Garageband.

Also, a main part of it is the skill to enginner every track to fit with eachother. Meaning tracking, eq'ing, compressing, and mixing every song so that no instrument steps on any other's toes. Every instrument sounds louder than the next. This doesn't happen overnight.

Once you make the tracks fit better, you can put a pre-fader limiter/compressor to add a few bd's. Waves L-series is great.

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by String7th

Also, a main part of it is the skill to enginner every track to fit with eachother. Meaning tracking, eq'ing, compressing, and mixing every song so that no instrument steps on any other's toes. Every instrument sounds louder than the next. This doesn't happen overnight.

Well said.... in fewer words than I could say it!

[brandondrury]

The real answr is that your mix is loud enough if it is well mixed and peaking near 0db.

It took a whole chapter to explain this one in Killer Home Recording: Murderous Mixing. I don't think I could do it justice on a simple thread like this. The advice in this thread is all good...well, except for the part about "who cares if your mixes are loud???".

double-check the "shreik freq" (I made that up just now) around 5k.

2 points for Garageband. I like that. I'm stealing it.

The real answr is that your mix is loud enough if it is well mixed and peaking near 0db.

Agreed. Mixes that are deficient in level are often dificient in other areas as well.

One trick I like to employ is to go ahead and slam the 99% finished mix pretty hard with a Waves L2. I'm calling this one "The Stress Test". I do this on the 2bus while in the mixing stage. The idea is not to leave it on there, necessarily. The idea is to go ahead and crush it so the loudness is what you ultimately want and see what falls apart. Then go back to the mix and deal with those elements.

Do the drums disappear? That means you are relying on transient energy excessively to meet your loudness goals. Parallel compression is often the solution.

Does the low end or low midrange get muddy? You've got some notching to do somewhere.

Do the essses leap out? (shreik freq) Some de-essing may be in order.

When you get it all right, the mix won't need much help meeting your loudness goals. As Garageband pointed out, a good mix shouldn't need more than 2-3dB of reduction in the limiting / mastering stage. (I personally prefer doing all of this at once....taking the mixing emphasis even further, I guess).

It's also important to bypass the limiter just to double check that your reaction to the Stress Test didn't cause new problems. This should sound good on it's own as well.

Good luck!

Brandon

[garageband]

One trick I like to employ is to go ahead and slam the 99% finished mix pretty hard with a Waves L2. I'm calling this one "The Stress Test". I do this on the 2bus while in the mixing stage.

Does this work well with all genres of modern music or some better than others?

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by blinkrocker3

Does anyone have any advice on how to get the tracks sounding a bit louder

Here's how I do it, which avoids compression artifacts yet still gives a good 4 to 6 dB increase or even more:

Peak Slammer Review

You can do the same thing manually with volume adjustments if there are only a few high peaks that prevent normalizing from making the music loud enough.

--Ethan