done with arrangment. not loud enough?
done with arrangment. not loud enough? Posted on: 20.04.2010 by Laurel Litchko i've completed a song and i'm pretty happy with the arrangement. i followed some tips from tarekith regarding the mixdown and left some headroom (i also have a version of the same song with very little headroom and one with no headroom). when i export any of these versions they dont seem to compare to other songs in volume. how can i get these to be louder without making it sound crappy?obviously, i don't want to master it myself but i'm a college student and kinda broke atm. just thought i'd mess around with it for a while until i can send it off (probably to tarekith lol) for a pro mixdown/master. | |
| Xavier Emanuels 20.04.2010 |
Originally Posted by munizj
Look at some online mastering tutorials and start to learn how to do this yourself, you will gain a more respect for mastering engineers(i am NOT saying you don't have respect for, but the more you learn about mastering the more respect you gain for them i find) and learn some stuff about how you should present your track to an mastering engineer along the way which is always a bonus. I am sure you will get lots of different peoples opinions on this though, but there is no right and wrong answer. However... you should be able to during the mixdown stage get things sounding pretty good so they atleast offer some competition against mastered tracks - if the difference is chalk and cheese you need to go back to the mixdown stage and refine things. A good trick is to have a highpass filter on all your channels and cut out as much bass out of your non bass elements of your track which will to give you more headroom so you can apply more gain to your track. Even with the bass elements of your track you should apply some high-pass filtering to knock out the low frequencies that don't need to be there. Where you set your high pass filters will depend on the content, this takes a bit of time to learn and gain an ear for where the highpass filter should sit on all the channels, but with practice and some research into the genre your producing in you will get there. On your master channel cut out everything below 30hz, that will also help give you some more headroom |
| Laurel Litchko 20.04.2010 | i've completed a song and i'm pretty happy with the arrangement. i followed some tips from tarekith regarding the mixdown and left some headroom (i also have a version of the same song with very little headroom and one with no headroom). when i export any of these versions they dont seem to compare to other songs in volume. how can i get these to be louder without making it sound crappy? obviously, i don't want to master it myself but i'm a college student and kinda broke atm. just thought i'd mess around with it for a while until i can send it off (probably to tarekith lol) for a pro mixdown/master. |
| Steeve Lauritano 04.05.2010 | Quick and dirty answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm14hI6oWTc |
| Corine Kasman 21.04.2010 | Thanks Alex |
| Marcel Ei Gio 21.04.2010 | if you want to send it for mastering, you shouldnt put any mastering plugin on the master channel. you want to send the guy mastering it with headroom, he will make it bring it up to the right volume. |
| Laurel Litchko 21.04.2010 | thanks bento as always, very helpful =D. should i use the ableton filter or something 'better' |
| Xavier Emanuels 20.04.2010 |
Originally Posted by munizj
Look at some online mastering tutorials and start to learn how to do this yourself, you will gain a more respect for mastering engineers(i am NOT saying you don't have respect for, but the more you learn about mastering the more respect you gain for them i find) and learn some stuff about how you should present your track to an mastering engineer along the way which is always a bonus. I am sure you will get lots of different peoples opinions on this though, but there is no right and wrong answer. However... you should be able to during the mixdown stage get things sounding pretty good so they atleast offer some competition against mastered tracks - if the difference is chalk and cheese you need to go back to the mixdown stage and refine things. A good trick is to have a highpass filter on all your channels and cut out as much bass out of your non bass elements of your track which will to give you more headroom so you can apply more gain to your track. Even with the bass elements of your track you should apply some high-pass filtering to knock out the low frequencies that don't need to be there. Where you set your high pass filters will depend on the content, this takes a bit of time to learn and gain an ear for where the highpass filter should sit on all the channels, but with practice and some research into the genre your producing in you will get there. On your master channel cut out everything below 30hz, that will also help give you some more headroom |
| Corine Kasman 20.04.2010 | I too am quite interested in this. The first full song I did in Reason sounded weak and bland compared to other tracks in the mix (no pot shots at my track! LOL). I added a mastering suite and tweaked the settings and BLAM, my track sits great in the mix. Now if I want to send this off to proffesional mastering, do I do it before or after the Reason mastering suite? The same can be said (weak and bland) for a few drum loops I made in Kontakt, but I put that down to my drum tuning as I tend to like dry drums (wet rings better in the mix, but is too much as I'm building a loop). Phil. |
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