Mastering: Consistent Volumes Between Songs

[Quinn9]

Hello,

Quick scenario.

I am planning to have songs by various Blues artists available for listening at my website. For example, I will have a Robert Johnson page and I will have a few tunes on the player for visitors to hear. Also however, I will have a few other renditions of any given Robert Johnson song on the player. For example I might have Cross Roads Blues by Robert Johnson and next on the player could be Crossroads by Cream and next there might be Cross Roads by whomever. And I may have a such a page for Albert King as well. I am concerned that the overall volume settings for each tune will vary. I do not want one version to be louder or softer than the next. So just like in mastering an album, I want to know a quick and dirty (and simple for a non recording engineer) way to use Protools 8 to make consistent volumes from song to song. I guess I need a permanent set up (template) which will have the settings which I can apply to each version of a tune so that they will all be consistent.

Thank you in advance.

Yes!
Quinn
P.S. I do not have any processing equipment or software other than what arrived with the Protools package. Not being an engineer, I wouldn't know how to use it anyway and so I go to a professional studio for any of my mixing needs.

[albee1952]

I would load each song file into a PT session(each to its own stereo track) so you can solo between and compare. Then get a good mastering limiter(I like Waves L2, but Massey L2007 is a great plugin for $89). Insert the plugin(I'll assume Massey L2007 on each track and set the output ceiling to -.01. Now audition each song and adjust the limiter to bring each song up in level(each song that needs it) until you have everything balanced the way you like. Then you have a choice on how to finish. Option A-solo and bounce to disk, one track at a time. Option B-open up the Audiosuite version of the same plugin, highlight a track/region, open the plugin you have inserted, match the settings on the AS version and render, export the rendered audio. If this is not making sense, then I would recommend hiring a mastering engineer to do it. BTW, have you worked out the licensing for all those songs?

[YYR123]

Yeah licensing that's what I was thinking as I was reading ur posts -

Follow Dave's advice - Massey plug sounds good yes - read the manual and he gives u a hint that u can set the output ceiling for I believe -0.6 and I think he said in the manual or on his site that it's a sweet spot where u can pick up more harmonic distortion at that setting - probably TMI but if u go with Massey - a good read would help u get the most out of ur endeavor !!! Good luck

You also may have to put a master eq setup for ur audience of computer speaker listeners
You may also have to have boosts (compressors the stock ones are fine in PT8) on some tracks and other tracks bypass them b/c the audio level is fine without

[waltz mastering]

Some good advice already. I would just add that first, with eq ..try to even out the frequency balance of the songs. Ie. you don't want songs that are to boomy or dull mixed with songs that have a high end tilt. try to get them all well balanced within and between themselves and then use your ears to get them to the same perceived energy level.
.. you can use certain indicators like the lead instrument as a guide (vocal/guitar) or whatever it is. Low end and brightness should be consistent...

RMS values aren't really that helpful and there is no quick and dirty way that I'm aware of.