bouncing to disc and volume loss

[takeouttonys]

Hey Everyone,

I have a question about keeping consistent volume levels when bouncing to disk. I have an Mbox and PT 6.

I am working on recording acoustic guitar and just getting a good signal into PT. Dont have monitors yet so i am just using my headphones. I have noticed when bouncing to disk the volume level of my track drops very significantly. Monitoring the signal while bouncing the volume sounds fine. But then when i play the .wav back with Windows Media Player the volume is noticably lower. Both times i am listening through my headphones, which i know does not make a good mixing environ. But the volume level between Pro Tools and bouncing to disk should at least stay the same. The Mbox has a knob on it that allows the listener to adjust the amount of input/playback that is coming through the phones. I have it set right in the middle so as not to favor one or the other.

Hope i explained that correctly. Anyone got any suggestions?



anton

[takeouttonys]

I realized something. I am just using my headphones, yet the output of the track i am bouncing down is to Analog Outs 1-2, where monitors would go. So perhaps the volume i hearing in my phones is not at all indictive of the actual volume.



anton

[Rail Jon Rogut]

When mixing you must have the Mix knob (on your MBox) all the way to PLAYBACK.

Rail

[takeouttonys]

Turned the knob to playback. It sounded louder in my headphones, but when i bouned to disk the volume still dropped alot.



anton

[Rail Jon Rogut]

There are different reasons why the level will appear to drop...

a) the playback hardware/device is set up at a different reference level

b) the mix you're comparing it to has been mastered

Both these topics have been discussed before.. do a search on the topics. Are you playing back WMP through your MBox?

Rail

[takeouttonys]

Not playing winamp back through the Mbox. Just listening via the out on my soundcard. I am not really comparing it to any mix. I am just recording a short phrase into PT, adjust the volume till it sounds good, and then bouncing it to disk. The resulting wav when played through media player is much softer.

I'll have to do a search on some of these topics


anton

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Different playback devices have different levels that they "talk" to the outside world at.. this is refered to as the "reference level"... some are set up for -14dBfs to give out 0Vu (1.228Vac) and others are set up to -20dBfs to give out 0Vu.. this would mean the same mix when played out the 2 devices would have a 6 dB level difference. You can't say that because your mix is playing out of different hardware it's softer or louder... it just means that the hardware has a different output level.

Rail

[Bodie]

Something pretty basic occurred to me so if it is not applicable...file it .

You said you're adjusting until it sounds right to you (the headphone mix)...I start with your input gain knob first...adjust until you once in a while see a red spike, then back down a hair.

Then in PT record.

You should have a good input to work with (still raw audio, right?).

Setup an Aux or Bus and add Compression/Limiting to normalize and then out the Master.

If you then Bounce the mix to disk and try playback, you should have something much sweeter to listen to (works for me...as they say ).

Reason is, Compression/Limiting reduces the high/lows and normalizes so you can push the output up on mix. Then when mixing down (to final) you have something that should be near the volume you want.

Did I miss anything (I'm a newbie to PT, but not to Audio)?

/Bodie

[Advocate(NYT)]

i'm having the exact same problem, i called for some tech support on it, and they told me to use a compressor/limiter, im just wondering, what do i set everything to (ratio e.t.c) i tried playing around with it and couldn't make any progress

thanks
a

[Advocate(NYT)]

oh and Rail Jon Rogut thanks for referring me here

and i remember i asked the same question to some people i know over the internet (audio heads) and they told me try bouncing the file in WAV. format, and then converting it to MP3 using a different program, unfortunately, i am a newbie period and had trouble doing this.