Normalize? Mastering? Need help.

H

HollowPoint

New member
Hey guys, to make my music i use reason for drums and loops ive purchased. I use acid music studio for the template to put them all on, my question is when i put all my loops/tracks together to make a song it clips obviously with no adjustment.
What i have been doing for a while is just leave everything the way it is on the program and just adjust the tracks to the volume i want whether they are clipping or not.
Then i use sound forge to normalize it to the same volume i use for all my songs, but the fact is they dont sound bad but you can tell they are computer made, what do i do to get the "professional sound"?
Now ive heard that mastering is "way better then normalizing" well what is the defintion of mastering then? Do i go through each track and adjust so it does clip?
 
You don't want to have any tracks clipping. If you have the levels where you want and some tracks are clipping bring all the tracks down a few notches equally accross the board.
 
HollowPoint said:
Hey guys, to make my music i use reason for drums and loops ive purchased. I use acid music studio for the template to put them all on, my question is when i put all my loops/tracks together to make a song it clips obviously with no adjustment.
What i have been doing for a while is just leave everything the way it is on the program and just adjust the tracks to the volume i want whether they are clipping or not.
Then i use sound forge to normalize it to the same volume i use for all my songs, but the fact is they dont sound bad but you can tell they are computer made, what do i do to get the "professional sound"?
Now ive heard that mastering is "way better then normalizing" well what is the defintion of mastering then? Do i go through each track and adjust so it does clip?
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If you want your songs to sound "professional", you should start by treating your music with care. The first step should be worrying about whether your tracks clip or not.

Next, you need to learn how to mix your music. This means more than setting levels. You need to "sculpt the sound" to make it "work" properly.

Learning to mix well will take a lot of practice (years of practice). Research mixing techniques online, buy books, ask questions, pay attention, etc.

Until you learn how to "mix", you should not even worry about "mastering." Mastering is the final step... and, by the way, "normalizing" is not a substitute for mastering and really has nothing to do with mastering. Normalizing only raises the overall peak level... it will not maximize the perceived volume of the track. Normalizing does not make all your songs the same volume.
 
theres plenty of topics on here about what mastering involves etc. have a search through and read as much as you can.
it will atleast lay a good foundation for dealing with anything more specific that you may have to ask
 
thanks for the help guys, so for me to start mixing or learn how where do i start? just manually set the tracks to where i wanna hear them and they dont clip?
so normalizing is for what?
ill ive ever done is had a overall song that was clipping and normalized it so it wouldnt.
 
HollowPoint said:
thanks for the help guys, so for me to start mixing or learn how where do i start? just manually set the tracks to where i wanna hear them and they dont clip?
so normalizing is for what?
ill ive ever done is had a overall song that was clipping and normalized it so it wouldnt.
Click to expand...

Normalizing is not meant to releave clipping. It's used for samples or tracks that could use a slight boost in their level. Fix the clipping upstream when you first set the levels for recording the track.

You can't polish a turd, but you can eat better food! : )
 
lol thanks again guys.
i thought normailzing was to set all tracks in say a cd to the same volume cause if you mix a bunch a songs arent they going to be differnt volumes? or is that the skill that comes with mixing?
 
Normalizing simply adjusts the peak of a file to match a specific level. It has little or nothing to do with perceived volume, and is never really used for anything. I'm surprised it's still a function in so many programs.

But if you have individual tracks in a mix clipping, you've got serious, SERIOUS volume problems. You're looking for volume in the wrong place. You should shoot for the "meat" of the entire mix to sit somewhere around -14dBFS or so (basically equal to 0dBVU) and save the volume for the mastering phase - Whether you send them out OR attempt it yourself (which is for another thread).

The most disturbing thing in home recording (in my opinion) is the reckless treatment of levels - This is 24-bit digital audio we're talking about here - It has a dynamic range of 144 dB - INCREDIBLE amounts of clean headroom. Headroom we would've killed for 20 years ago. Yet SO many people insist on using up every last bit of headroom on every single track they record - Then again on every channel in the mix, every subgroup, every buss, even the 2-buss - which is SO harmful to the overall sound, and does NOTHING for the *potential* for "sheer volume" - it blows my mind.

This (setting levels and gain-staging) is the absolute basics of audio recording - and whatever started the misinformation campaign in the first place, people need to use some common sense and rise above it. Your recordings will thank you.
 
I actually just took two of my songs and went through each track toghether to make the whole song not clip sounds good but defintley lower which i know is always a funny topic on here cause everyone wants thier stuff to be so loud.
Thanks for the help, and i know this is for another forum i guess but when you say mess with volumes at mastering what does that mean?
can you actually make a song that is not clipping louder without it clipping?
thats what i thought normalizing is for.
also i wanted to ask, when a artist finishes an album do they go through something to get the songs all at the same volume? or is that way off
 
when you say mess with volumes at mastering what does that mean?
Click to expand...

Just what it says. The final volume of a mix (or a collection of mixes) is determined during the mastering phase. Of course, the *potential* in those mixes is determined before the "RECORD" button is ever pressed - But that's for another thread...

can you actually make a song that is not clipping louder without it clipping?
Click to expand...

That's part of the mastering phase. Many consider it to be the MAIN part, which really isn't the case, but depending on what you're hoping for, many consider it to be a very important part. I only wish it wasn't...

when a artist finishes an album do they go through something to get the songs all at the same volume?
Click to expand...

They send it to a mastering facility.

Or if you mean go through *something* in particular, such as a dynamics chain, yes. Compression, limiting, etc. are part of the chain that determines the final volume.
 
just to add on a little,
the only tool that can gauge relative volume levels is the human ear.
as a result theres no short cut to getting all your tracks sounding the same with respect to perceived volume.
you have to compile them all together and then adjust incrementaly until you have the flow you want or that sounds right.

how loud something is perceived as being is a complicated combination of average levels and dynamics.
 
neilwight said:
how loud something is perceived as being is a complicated combination of average levels and dynamics.
Click to expand...

yes, and much more. the spektral-content(frequency) is very important, too. don't forget the harmonic distortions. and to be exact, the current air-pressure (also the temperature :) ) and the health your ears.

additionally, our ears can adapt very quickly to new "levels". a constant loud signal is not loud anymore after 1min. this is the reason why you will need a high long-term dynamic-range (and why a high average level is not automaticaly loudness). contrast is everything.

i learned, that a light squashing is not a problem, if only short parts of the song are affected and the other parts remain unprocessed.
 
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so for someone like myself who is making cds and just passing them out, puttin online ya know doing things to get it out there, should i just manually mix them the best i can and put them on a cd?
or get some kind of program etc. to make them the same level on the cd?
iam tryin to make my music as professional as i can when i put out these cds to people.
 
mix them the best you can, leave around 3 dB of headroom and use 24bit. then find a good mastering engineer. if your mix is good, the ME will make it excellent. don't think this is a programm, you need an expert in mastering. it's not very expensive, look around.
 
certainly it can be very inexpensive but your likely to have your audio ruined for the price :) moses is right though, contact some places if your serious. you might just be surprised

as i said before, the only way to get your tracks the same level is to adjust them manually. its a time consuming process involving playing through in its entirity and manually moving the volumes of each track,some up, some down and then repeating over and over until theres a flow across the whole album, EP or whatever that makes it sound good and doesnt have people continually jumping up and down for the volume button.

having a quiet CD isnt an issue if its still compiled well, people have volume controls on their stereos. if you are expecting a DJ or whoever to play it out though you may have issues, theres only so much gain they can introduce and it may put them off altogether.

unfortunately many people equate loud to being professional now though if they are aware its a demo then im sure you will be ok. better low level and quality than tons of volume and mush IMHO
 
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What the mass of Mastering Engineers on this forum forget is that most people here are not musicians but people trying to gain knowledge that you inheret. They want to learn how to do it, not learn how to get around that task.

Please stop with "send it to a ME" because then he could just go into a studio and have it recorded properly.
But you don't do that with "experiments" because you make them to gain practical knowledge

I am sorry, this is not what this particular forum is about.

As much as I do respect what you can, if you need advertising space - get a banner ad.

If you want to share your knowledge, I assure you it is much appreciated.
If you don't, then don't.
 
WTF are you talking about zwaps. I think each post in this thread has been very helpful right up until yours.
 
zwaps,
following on from your post.
i'm all for explaining to people the ins and outs of mastering but for the vast majority of users their time would be far better served if they dedicate their time to working on their mixing skills not adding another feather to their cap by looking at mastering too, in a more often and not superficial way.

its worth remebering that a perfect mix will require no processing at mastering at all.

mastering itself (that is proper mastering) is highly specialised, highly technical and very different in practice to anything encountered in mixing or producing. the bulk of it is concerned with, spacing, fades, burning of masters, coding the audio, paper work, error checking etc etc

theres a strange contradiction that arises from self mastering (at any level and that includes studios mastering the work of clients they have recorded and mixed) in that if you can run a mastering process chain and improve the audio, you simply havent mixed down to the best of your abilities.
 
Hey guys... so ive finished my track and it sounds cool and nothing clips(my main L+R does bout +2/3), but its not tight and loud enough so its time for some guerilla mastering. I use wavelab lite to chop out some mids, apply high and low shelfs and compress something like -25 at a 1.19 kinda ratio to level everything off a bit but keep dynamics. Now i apply gain. My question is: can my finished track clip? or does it have to remain under 0.0 - i heard that finished whole tracks can clip because digital is not entirely true to form..is this true? I fully appreciate that while recording, mixing that nothing must clip. But can my main L+Rs clip? Say i keep it under +5. Is this cool or not? Ive been doin it for ages and the stuff i put in the stereo sounds cool, loud and clean. Thanx

Mudlover
 
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If it hits 0dBFS going in or out , it clips.
FS means full scale. IOW no more bits.
Often confused with overflow which is _really_ bad, The ugly results of overflow seems to have stuck but it's actually very different from the distortion-like clipping you see today.

Once recorded and in use within the application it (normally) won't matter.
It would take an insane amount of 24-bit audio-channels at 0dBFS to max out and clip within a 32-bit floating point environment. We are talking massive amounts of headroom here.

The only thing you need to worry about is clipping the master-output(This is integers and represents your (24-bit?)DAC).
Just pull down the master fader 'til you're on the safe side of 0dBFS.

In apps like Cubase or Nuendo the channel/Group clipping indicators going red, doesn't actually mean the audio is getting clipped.

Still,it's usually a good idea to avoid clipping the inputs and outputs.
still if you like the sound, there's no law that says you can't
 
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