Maintaining volume after bounce to disk

I

inno

Guest
Once i have mixed my track, instruments and vocals, how do i maintain volume? Each time i listen to my music in the car, i have to turn it all the way up. Is there something I can do in protools to get the volume where it should be before i bounce to disk? or after?

inno
 
inno said:
Once i have mixed my track, instruments and vocals, how do i maintain volume? Each time i listen to my music in the car, i have to turn it all the way up. Is there something I can do in protools to get the volume where it should be before i bounce to disk? or after?

inno
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Do you use a mastering software? I use T-racks.
 
No, I don't. Is that the only way to get the volume where it should be? I heard mixes that don't require you to turn the cd player all the way up. Could I be mixing incorrectly?
 
inno said:
No, I don't. Is that the only way to get the volume where it should be? I heard mixes that don't require you to turn the cd player all the way up. Could I be mixing incorrectly?
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Record as hot as possible. Check out T-racks. It helps my overall volume.
 
Record hot, with or without clipping? Also, should i add eq and compression to all of my instruments? could that add volume?
 
have u tried normalizing the final stereo mixdown. thatll boost the volume loads without clippin

God Bless
 
Roland said:

Record as hot as possible.
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NO!!! NO!!! NOT AGAIN!!! :cry:

*NEVER* record "hot" - Especially if you ever want to have ANY potential for sheer volume during the mastering stage.

Record where your gear is *designed* to work at. 0dBVU translates to roughly -18dBFS. Keep the "meat" of the track around there.

YES your mixes will be quieter than most commercially available mixes. There's several very good reasons for that. One of the reasons is NOT recording using levels that are 12dB+ into the headroom of the front end. But if you want your mixes to have the potential for that kind of volume, recording your levels hot is the first and one of the most effective ways to insure that your mix will NOT HAVE that potential.

Volume is easy - A monkey with a decent limter can smash a mix just as well as anyone. But for it to actually sound decent at those levels, the mix needs to be clean and clear and focused with plenty of headroom and little added distortion - ALL these things get pushed aside when the meat of the signal is riding in the headroom of the gear. The focus is gone, the S/N ration gets thrown out the window, the distortion levels rise dramatically - There is no upside to recording hot - There is no downside to recording levels where they're meant to be recorded - On the contrary - You have everything to gain from it. The potential for sheer volume is just a tiny part of it.

Where does this stuff come from?!?
 
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MASSIVE Mastering said:

NO!!! NO!!! NOT AGAIN!!! :cry:

*NEVER* record "hot" - Especially if you ever want to have ANY potential for sheer volume during the mastering stage.

Record where your gear is *designed* to work at. 0dBVU translates to roughly -18dBFS. Keep the "meat" of the track around there.

YES your mixes will be quieter than most commercially available mixes. There's several very good reasons for that. One of the reasons is NOT recording using levels that are 12dB+ into the headroom of the front end. But if you want your mixes to have the potential for that kind of volume, recording your levels hot is the first and one of the most effective ways to insure that your mix will NOT HAVE that potential.

Volume is easy - A monkey with a decent limter can smash a mix just as well as anyone. But for it to actually sound decent at those levels, the mix needs to be clean and clear and focused with plenty of headroom and little added distortion - ALL these things get pushed aside when the meat of the signal is riding in the headroom of the gear. The focus is gone, the S/N ration gets thrown out the window, the distortion levels rise dramatically - There is no upside to recording hot - There is no downside to recording levels where they're meant to be recorded - On the contrary - You have everything to gain from it. The potential for sheer volume is just a tiny part of it.

Where does this stuff come from?!?
Click to expand...

Volume is not easy at first. It takes time to learn your gear. I will continue to record hot into ProTools. I don't have the time to go into what plug-ins I use to control those hot levels. People want to hear a hot bang'n beat not some low level bullsh*t. My beats and vocals are loud and clear. Distortion... Not here playa. Maybe I know something you don't know. I tried that record low bullsh*T. Not no more!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get commerical level music everytime... T-racks homie... It's the sh*T.
 
If people want to hear a "hot bangin' beat" during the mixing session, turn the volume up.

If you're actually willing to compromise sound quality on every single track in favor of sheer volume (which you'd actually get considerably *more* of when it's done properly) then go right ahead.

T-Racks? :bigeyes:

Distortion... Not here playa.
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Right... You keep telling yourself that. If you're running your preamps 12-15dB too hot, I can gurantee you that you're losing focus and clarity while screwing up the S/N and adding distortion.

Seriously - It isn't "low" it's "normal." It's the way the system is designed. If you want to throw T-Racks or Waves or some crazy plugs all over it to boost the volume of the finished mixes, that's all good. But you can hardly argue that mixes that were made with a good amount of headroom at every stage will handle the boost MUCH better than a mix that has been robbed of headroom at the track level.

As mentioned - "Commercial volume" is easy. A deaf person with a limiter can do it. Quality takes care.
 
cosign,

record low and in the final stage you can squeez it to hot volume with a limiter if you want that.

Recording hot is seeking for a terrible sound... Recording low and squeezing it in the final stage on the masterbus is way better, but the best is to keep de dynamic range (maybe a little limiting of 1-3db MAX), it gives you the real clear sound if it's recorded and mixed good. It's a bit more silent, but there is a volume knob on your system, use it!!!!!!!!
 
selector waxx said:
cosign,

record low and in the final stage you can squeez it to hot volume with a limiter if you want that.

Recording hot is seeking for a terrible sound... Recording low and squeezing it in the final stage on the masterbus is way better, but the best is to keep de dynamic range (maybe a little limiting of 1-3db MAX), it gives you the real clear sound if it's recorded and mixed good. It's a bit more silent, but there is a volume knob on your system, use it!!!!!!!!
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Cool... I respect your comments. Good day sir.
 
Roland said:


Volume is not easy at first. It takes time to learn your gear. I will continue to record hot into ProTools. I don't have the time to go into what plug-ins I use to control those hot levels. People want to hear a hot bang'n beat not some low level bullsh*t. My beats and vocals are loud and clear. Distortion... Not here playa. Maybe I know something you don't know. I tried that record low bullsh*T. Not no more!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get commerical level music everytime... T-racks homie... It's the sh*T.
Click to expand...

that's crazy talk man ...
need volume ? turn up your monitors in the control room, so the homies can feel da beat, doing it at the tracking stage is the best way to run out of headroom very quickly and smear the mix, digital meters are not accurate cuz they dont show intersample peaks, you need oversampling meters to show if you got a clean signal, also everytime you add a plug in even if its flat and don't touch anything your levels WILL change because of all that extra math going on, so most of the time if you got no time to check those hot levelz you'll have internal clipping everywhere and u wont even know it ...

when I stopped doing that hot level crazyness a coupla years ago I gained 12 db's of extra headroom, the difference is so obvious even one of my clients mom noticed it (not kidding), everything sounds tighter cleaner and sooo much better, mr. massive is right, he's not talking out of his ass ya know
 
MusickMan said:


that's crazy talk man ...
need volume ? turn up your monitors in the control room, so the homies can feel da beat, doing it at the tracking stage is the best way to run out of headroom very quickly and smear the mix, digital meters are not accurate cuz they dont show intersample peaks, you need oversampling meters to show if you got a clean signal, also everytime you add a plug in even if its flat and don't touch anything your levels WILL change because of all that extra math going on, so most of the time if you got no time to check those hot levelz you'll have internal clipping everywhere and u wont even know it ...

when I stopped doing that hot level crazyness a coupla years ago I gained 12 db's of extra headroom, the difference is so obvious even one of my clients mom noticed it (not kidding), everything sounds tighter cleaner and sooo much better, mr. massive is right, he's not talking out of his ass ya know
Click to expand...

Hey thanks...
 
MusickMan said:
mr. massive is right, he's not talking out of his ass ya know
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I typed out of my ass once - Sat on a keyboard on a desk.

Wasn't much left of it... :bigeyes:
 
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