Mixing to Commercial Levels

[x3rdretina]

Hello,

I am just getting used to working with Pro Tools version 7.0 and a digi 002 rack.

I was wondering if anyone had any advise on mixing my tracks to one file that will have volume close to commercial levels. I have mixed the tracks within Pro Tools to sound fine in reference to eachother but everytime I use the "bounce to track" option the file comes out at a low level. Much lower then commercial cds. I can't figure out what I need to do to fix this.

I understand this being a very "beginer" question but I would really appreciate any help.
Thank You

[albee1952]

The process is called "mastering" and while you can acheive some semblance, for anything intended for sale or broadcast, I highly recommend sending your mixes to a mastering engineer. If you are simply making demos for fun and practice, get a mastering limiter plugin such as Isotope or Waves L2 and ease into it. Its easy to slam the levels and match commercial recording volume, but its also easy to create crap as well. These volume wars are IMHO not helping music's quality but as long as the public doesn't care(mp3's anyone?), I guess it will continue. Sorry for the rant. I prefer to do my mastering(no I am not a mastering engineer) as a seperate step so I import the final mix into my mastering session and apply Waves L2 and dither(I always record at 24 bits) to 16 bit for CD burning.

[x3rdretina]

I intend to eventually pay someone else to do it right. But right now I would like to learn how to do it on my own just for rough edits. So thats it, I have to buy an extra plugin? There is no way to do it on the basic software without a plugin?

[JFreak]

I intend to eventually pay someone else to do it right. But right now I would like to learn how to do it on my own just for rough edits. So thats it, I have to buy an extra plugin? There is no way to do it on the basic software without a plugin?

if you're "wasting bits", you can always bring levels up by "normalising" your final mix; that process doesn't do anything else to your mix, it just calculates how much headroom you have and then gets rid of it. for example, if your mix is peaking -6dBFS, then normalising will just make it 6dB louder bringing the mix to 0.00dBFS, which means some sample(s) somewhere are peaking.

but if you're fine with sacrificing some quality (audiophile-wise), just insert any (brickwall-)limiter plugin to your master fader and bring the fader up as much as you want to. but know that what you're doing is killing transients and the mix will not sound as "open" and "alive" as before. digirack has a free limiter included, but it's not very good. for good results, i'd recommend trying sony oxford limiter, that sounds very nice for a limiter.

you can lessen the transient-flattening effect by inserting a compressor before limiter. the idea is to cut some dynamics before the mix hits the limiter, so the limiting action will not be just as harsh. relatively low threshold and ratio of below 1.5 could be a nice starting point for this kind of compression...

[CRM-114]

I've always been far from happy with the overall volume of my final mixes (unmastered) too. I can't help but wonder what the final mixes of my favorite artists' songs sound like before they get mastered. It'd be great to know if I'm anywhere close.

I mean, part of me feels like I shouldn't be overly concerned about volume until I get to the mastering stage, but another part of me thinks, If my mixes are too soft, the mastering engineer is going to have to do too much tweaking to get them loud enough, which could take away from the original mixes.

[graveleye]

fight the loudness war. Turn volume knob on stereo to the right.

[badperson]

It's good to learn to use the limiter, though. Just be aware that it can be over used.


The stock digi limiter more or less sucks (compared with others) but will get the job done.

Good luck.
bp

[CRM-114]

fight the loudness war. Turn volume knob on stereo to the right.

I do, to some extent. I don't bother trying to get anything as loud as a current major-label release.

But here's a question for anyone who, like me, thinks it's ridiculous how CD levels keeping getting louder and louder: What IS a good overall level? (give a time period).

I think CDs manufactured in the early to mid-'90s were plenty loud for me. Most '80s CDs are a little soft for my taste.

[JFreak]

[What IS a good overall level?

Movies are mastered to -20dB (RMS) and radio hits about -12dB or even less than that. While most agree that radio levels are too hot, most also agree that most songs could be a bit louder than movie soundtracks; so, I'm recommending you find proper levels between these two numbers.

90's analog era was about -14 to -16 dB levels, but some took it closer to the -20 and naturally were applauded by audiophiles. I recommend you first listen to some great music and then analyze the waveforms

[Rock_Artist]

Just to get some information organized.

The -14, -20, -12 is refered to dBFS (The PT Meters are dBFS which is how digital domain show information)

Those levels are for 0VU (usually +4dBv) and 0VU is the average/middle of the music it can get higher or lower but this is a reference to where you want to be most of the time

0dBFS however is the END of your digital domain. above 0dBFS is clipping.


Now another thing to understand is Peak, Average & RMS
Average and RMS sometimes refer to the same thing.
Peak is where the volume "hits" so sometimes the meter will show a big peak but you won't even notice it as our human perception don't find quick peaks as loud.

RMS is where you need to search.
You can find mix @ 0dBFS with -8dBFS RMS and another mix @ -2dBFS with -4dBFS RMS.
The 2nd will be "stronger"...

Mastering usually improve the RMS / Peak ratio (diminish it).
That's ofcourse only one of the additional things being done in the mastering process.

L2 or other brickwalls helps you with peaks but they won't help you much unless you've already made the average volume in relation with the peak information.

"simple" way to get some improvement (though Mastering usually use outboard gear with gifted sound enginners and it's a different thing)
is using Multiband Compressors.

The LinMB can help you compressing the areas which peak and get the peak/rms relation more in context.
This WILL affect the sound but will help brickwall limiters to get you hotter levels.