Increasing the loudness to match commercial CDs?
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Posted on Jun 23, 2003 04:52 am
glynb
Member Since: Dec 16, 2002
I record using a Fostex mutitracker.
I was trying to burn a CD including some commercial songs and one of mine. I noticed that the volume level was a lot lower for my song
and decided to have a go at increasing the loudness via Soundforge, as i've read about other people doing this. This is my first attempt at 'mastering' of any kind.
Looking at the wave form (exported from the Fostex) displayed in SF of the commercial song compared with my own, I noticed (apart from the overall level being higher)
there were fewer peaks and troughs compared with mine. So I tried to get the wave form for my song to look more like the commercial one and achieved this, but it sounded awful! I mean the compression use was obvious, so much so that it affected the sound of the song.
Incidentaly, to achieve this I used the SF normalize 'RMS' option and pushed it to '0' db.
In the end the only way I could get the level higher without significantly altering the
sound quality of the mix was to use the 'peak' option to '0' db, but no way did that volume level and look of the wave form approach that of the commercial CD.
So what's the best way of increasing the 'loudness' in Soundforge to a reasonable loudness to the commercial CDs, without spoiling the sound of the music? I realise I can't match those produced by the Pro's but I want to
minimise the volume difference between my stuff and the commercial, so poeple don't have to turn up their hifi when they listen to my music!
Do I have to ditch Soundforge and go for something more sophisticated? Remember we're talking low budget here!
As you'll have guessed I'm a beginner at all this mastering stuff, so make it simple please!
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Jun 23, 2003 08:11 am something you should know about commercial music today; they regularly ruin the records by super-maximizing the volume and sucking the life right out of the songs. open up any contemporary metal or rap song in a wave editoe and you'll see how the kick drum is just *smashed* against the digital zero so hard it pancakes. and the unfortunate thing is, this sounds good to the "listener".
this is a huge debate among mastering engineers these days and i'm for the most part with the purists to the extent that if you want it louder, don't turn it up and destroy the recording, just turn up the stereo amplifier on playback, but at the same time i realize the purpose of radio stations limiting their output and I've been in the clubs with chest pounding bass, and I've been in the cars with 2000+ watts, and I understand why someone would want to maximize their recording to be louder and harder than the last song, but it's a self defeating means. I really think compressors should be built in to every car stereo, home stereo, etc, so that if someone wants to squeeze the life out of their music, they have that option. Then the poor mastering artist could be spared the terrible duty of trying to make a recording as loud as the latest radio hit.
if you really want to destroy your music you can master with one of those maximizer plugins cranked into oblivion, but if you respect all the hard work you put into careful tracking and mixing, i think you find that just a touch of maximization is really all you need.
don't turn your music up. turn theirs down
Jun 23, 2003 08:20 am At the same time, those maximizers, if used subtly can add power without sucking the life out of the music...I really like my L1, Magneto and Ozone...I don't kill the music with it, but I certainly use it.
Jun 23, 2003 09:14 am Yeah, I don't know. Some recordings are definately pushed overboard. However, the compressed, maximized sound can really make things sound tight and full. When the audio is actually clipping, that's a problem. It's not like it really bothers me, though. I mean, let them do what they feel like.
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Jun 23, 2003 09:29 am L1 (and it's big brother, L2) by Waves are the answer to this one. They are essential brickwall limiters, but they work incredibly well.
jues.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Jun 23, 2003 10:29 am Jamie,
Man you are getting this stuff down pat! Excellent commentary on maximizing! Amazing what people will listen too! I'm with you; Let me hear the music not blastisimo distorted studio effects! However, I guess if that is what John Q. Public is going to look for in the store, and we want to sell him one, maybe we better learn how to destroy music? What a revoltin predicerment! Ya, used descreately, maximizing will bring life to a piece. Used to excess it will bury the poor thing.
Jun 23, 2003 10:40 am bottom line:
"Maximizing, Enjoy in Moderation"
Jun 24, 2003 01:29 pm I remember running into the same problem about a year ago. I did the Sound Forge thing also. By cranking the volume it seem to compress the heck out of it and really change (actually eliminated) most of the dynamics.
It seems like how busy the song is affects what you can get away with also.
Jun 24, 2003 03:41 pm When you do that in Sound Forge, aren't you actually clipping the signal, not compressing/limiting it? I think you're just chopping off the top of the waveform as is, which causes horrible distortion. What you need is a special limiter (a.k.a. maximizer) intended for that purpose. And yes, it will eliminate the dynamics, which most of the time you don't want to overdo. As dB said, "Enjoy in Moderation."
el musicoFreeleance Producer/Engineer/GtrMember
Since: Aug 11, 2002
Jun 24, 2003 04:19 pm that is a great article...
Jun 24, 2003 08:26 pm excellent article!
Jun 25, 2003 01:19 am Jamie, I like the way you think man.
Jun 25, 2003 12:45 pm Thanks dude, I've learned alot since i pooped on your three song demo a couple months ago. Sorry about that, I didn't know what I was doing back then.
Jun 25, 2003 04:51 pm It's cool. That incarnation of No One's Hero sucked anyway. Version 2.0 is so much better.
glynbMember
Since: Dec 16, 2002
Jun 26, 2003 10:23 am Thanks for the responses. I'm aware of the issues around loudness and it spoiling todays music. All I want os for the volume difference between my track and the comercial ones to not be as great as it currently is. There is a real issue here, if for example my CD and a commercial one are put in the hifi on 'random' selection setting then whenever my track comes on it will be too quiet! I don't want to kill the dynamics, but just increase the overall volume. I'm not after increasing the 'power' just the volume, my stuff is mainly pop tunes not heavy metal!
You may be interested to know that the track I compared volumes with was Deep Purples 'BUrn', which is hardly a modern track. Though of course some engineer may have been asked to squash it (er, re-master it) in recent times!
I have since been told that Soundforge's 'wavehammer' is the program I need to get hold of. It is in version 6, whereas I only have version 4.
Jun 26, 2003 02:28 pm Quote:
I don't want to kill the dynamics, but just increase the overall volume
You might not be able to achieve the latter without the prior. Sorry, i'm not familiar with the Deep Purple song.
You might find it useful to make two versions of your song. One being just the plain premaster without alot of compression and excitation and stuff, just leave it pretty much alone and keep it in it's current state until you're ready to master the entire CD. The second version of your song will be a temporarily maximized stand-alone song that will have it's RMS boosted to match the volume of the other songs in your carosel.
