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getting maximum loudness in a Mix/Master w/o Clipping
So..........I want to be able to get my tunes I record louder. I don't want to win any Loudness wars, but....When I play my mixed and mastered songs, and then compare them to others in the SOTMC, and the music by professional artist on my ipod and pad. It is much lower.
I have Auria, Pro-L, Pro-G, and Final Touch, Audio Mastering. So I've got some useful tools, just can't make em do what I need them to.
I've been recording at -18db or close to. Then when I mix, I bring the level up, before mastering. Not really sure how much to bring it up, I do it just so I don't get clipping on any of the tracks, and so things sound evenly mixed.
Then, I have my master track. I put on the good juice FX. Stick on a limiter, haven't really figured out how to use the Pro-G in all of this yet. Get my Master track loud, with out clipping. Mix it down, and listen. It sounds to be a good level, until I compare it to other songs.??? Like I said I'm not looking to win a Master War with the loudest track around, just want a better result than I'm getting.
So, if I need to provide any additional info, please let me know, and I know this is a loaded question, so if there are articles I can read out there that address this specific thing, please post a link for me to read! Thanks.
Comments
Everyone does things differently, and I don't think there is a right and wrong. But first of all I wouldn't worry about your tracks not being as loud as other people's, the main thing is to be happy with the overall dynamic range and sound - your listeners can alway turn the volume up.
Ok having said that I will share my approach: I mix with the Limiter on the Master bus from the start, and I try and keep my verse to just below 0db and then let the chorus hit the limiter. Seems to work well for me, but I am careful not to push things too hard.
I don't know what's "right" but in Auria I try to get my RMS levels peaking at around -12 and my peaks levels topping out as close to 0 as I can without my RMS levels going into the yellow when I'm mixing (I'm pretty sure Peak is in the center and RMS is on the left and right in the master meter in Auria). I mixdown a 24 bit .wav to AudioShare and import from AudioShare to Final Touch. I like the maximizer in Final Touch for making things louder. I like the interface of that app, but there's some distortion since the last update, so be careful. If you pull the threshold slider down a bit, you'll get your mix louder. As @richardyot alludes to, you will lose dynamic range. I've not been able to make the Pro L in Auria work for me. Sad, really.
I'm surprised, Pro L is really good.
Ok, thanks for the tips guys! So..... What does letting the Chorus hit the limiter mean? You automate the Limiter to really come in hard on the Chorus? Or you use a Chorus FX in the chain before the Limiter? lol..... My I must sound Dense............
Subby frequencies will eat up your headroom, and make your master seem quieter, it is shocking, how little bass there is on commercial releases, just a present, but small amount. Also you can try limiting individual tracks harder, especially live instruments and vocals, that way a big transient on a track won't drive the master limiter down and affect the whole track. one last trick, if you have a daw with the ability to side chain a compressor, is to duck the bass a couple dB when the kick drum hits, that way there isn't as big of a volume build up of bass frequencies, when they play together, so then you can get the mix louder.
All in all, as long as you can get somewhere in the lower ballpark of commercial loudness, that's good, the real, brutally pumped commercial releases are inevitably suffering sonically from the heavy processing done to them to make them that loud. I'm reading from you, you just don't want it to sound dinky if it comes on in a playlist.
I have been having excellent luck with Pro-L. I try to record at minus 10 to 12 DB. Then I run it through L on mastering, generally to the point where I can see some squashing of some spikes. I think the last one I did, I boosted it 18 db in L. And I do compress on individual tracks, to get rid of the large spikes.
Ok, this is great, thank you guys for the input/help. The whole side chaining stuff is confusing to me ATM. I need to re-read the Auria manual on that. And some other resources.
I know. It's really frustrating. I've got all the Fab Filter stuff and I always find myself using the Fxpansion ChanComp and PSP plugs. Definitely not getting my money's worth on the FF plugs.
" I'm reading from you, you just don't want it to sound dinky if it comes on in a playlist
Ya, this is pretty much it. In a nutshell/concise/to the point/perfect little sentence. Sums up what I would like tod do nicely.
I tend to avoid automation as much as I can, and do multing instead. Multing just means splitting all the parts into different tracks, so for example If I have two guitar tracks going through the whole song, I split them up and put the chorus, verse, and bridge sections onto different tracks. That means I can control the volume of the chorus independently of the verse without needing to automate. I do the same for vocals, even sometimes putting each verse onto its own track.
I record at around -10 to -15, and then I often go to Process -> Gain in Auria to make the recorded files louder (without clipping obviously). I mix fairly hot, letting the master go to just below 0db for the verse section, and then in the chorus section and at the end of the song I deliberately turn the faders up so that they are hitting the limiter. To me that seems a more deliberate and controlled strategy then limiting in post, since I control what parts of the song are going to be louder, and I can hear it happening at mix time.
A big part of making songs loud is having:
A well balanced mix in the first place. As mentioned, excessive sub-bass can limit how loud you can push things before you get distortion, but the same is true with the mids too. Overly compressing elements in the mix can actually work against you too, so if you're using a lot of compression or limiting on individual tracks, try removing those.
A simpler arrangement. Busy and complex songs with a lot going on tend to be harder to boost compared to songs that leave space for things to breath,. It gives the limiter more time to recover between peaks, and limiting can often be a lot more transparent too. Keep your song focused on the main elements, and don't be afraid to put supporting tracks a bit quieter. Or get rid of them completely if they're not adding anything to the song.
If you're using Pro-L, try these settings as a starting point: Style Allaround, Lookahead 0.25ms, Attack 130ms, Release 50ms, Output -0.3dBFS.