I've been working on some new songs, with my shiny new digital 8-track. I have a dozen or so that are probably 95% finished - I just need to give them a good mix-down - take those 8 tracks and blend them into a single stereo mix, maybe with a little creative editing of the levels of individual tracks, to fix mistakes. So, I've been doing rough mixes to my PC, converting to MP3 and dropping them on my iPod, so I can listen to them at work, where I listen to everything else - a little bit of Boris, a little bit of myself, a little bit of the J Geils Band (their "I Do" is playing on the iPod right now), a little of me. I'm getting sick of the songs, which usually means I'm close to done mixing.
But one thing I've noticed is that, compared to most everything else on my iPod, my songs are all quiet. I literally leave my iPod's volume control at the point just above total silence, because I can't take it any louder - sensitive little ears, I guess. And some songs, those from the White Stripes, for one example, are too loud even at that level, which is a drag - more on that later. But my songs require me to crank the volume up to 1/4 or 1/3, before they match the loudness level of even tolerable professionally-recorded songs. So that's annoying. And this problem isn't happening because I need to turn the levels of the instruments louder during mix-down; I do all the mixing with the overall level running right up against the point where it'll start to distort the inputs on my sound card. Any louder there and the songs will be full of horrific digital snaps, crackles and pops. So, what's the trick?
One big trick is to decrease the dynamic range of the entire track: make everything louder, except the parts that are already the loudest - those, you reduce a little, and that gives you more room to make everything else louder still...a.k.a. "compression". I've tried using various compression tools on my stuff to pump up the 'loudness' (perceived volume, rather than actual volume), but never got exactly the right effect. I've tried my little NanoComp box, I've tried mastering to tape, which provides natural compression, I've tried software compressors, but I've never got it just right. So, I did a little Googlin about compressin, to see if there are any tricks I'm missing out on.
Well, I haven't yet learned anything to help me get that in-your-face White Stripes loudness. But I have learned that professional sound engineers and musicians are bummed out over compression, especially recently. I even found a neat little video clip that does a great job of illustrating exactly what compression does, and why all those engineers are upset.
So, who do I side with: the engineers, or my lust for loudness?
Don’t know much about the technical issues, but I have been playing with mp3Gain recently as an alternative to the iTunes “Sound Check” feature (which makes my music collection too quiet).
http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/download.php
There was some controversy about the last Red Hot Chili Pepper’s album use of compression – engineers making it sound as loud as possible, causing detrimental side-effects to the actual quality of the sound (the dreaded “clipping”). Apparently a nice loud rock song gets your attention when it comes on the radio though, so that’s OK eh?
When a re-ripped my CD collection last year I was amazed at the difference in volume between recent (i.e. last 6 or 7 years) CDs and ones from the early 90’s.
was amazed at the difference in volume between recent (i.e. last 6 or 7 years) CDs and ones from the early 90’s
yeah, i just found this page which shows that change, graphically.
You need to ask your cat, it fixed your guitar.
good point.
and since her luthiering skillz were a surprise, she might have other talents i don’t know about. maybe she’s a natural-born sound engineer, too.
I’ll second the mp3Gain suggestion, it does seem to do a reasonably good job, so long as you specify all the songs you want to be adjusted together. But yeah, there’s just not a lot you can do when mixing heavily compressed tracks with those that have a fair bit of range. Either you lose the quiet bits in the latter, or get startled by the former.
you can click on a song, and in File (I’m doing this from what I think would be the PC method – on a mac its “Apple ‘I”) select Get Info. Maybe this can be achieved by right clicking.
Go to “Options” and move the Volume Adjustment bar. An increase 10% is noticeable. Do not do an increase of 100%. Its deafening. I use this for a lot of early 90s hip hop cds (Tribe and De La Soul especially) because they’re half as loud as everything else.
Kinda a poor man’s fix but it should work; be sure to retransfer your music back onto the ipod.
in iTunes… I meant to put that first.
sure, i can adjust volume post-mastering. but i think it’d be better to get the final song ‘loud’ enough on its own that it won’t require any adjustments by the end-user (so to speak).
Apparently my “ask the cat” advice is being outclassed, wankers!
i’ll ask her now…
her response was “this wire doesn’t taste as good as this other wire. i think that’s your problem.”
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