What techniques do you use? Do you compare a already released song from similar genre to you song and than match the "volume" - RMS - or whatever? IS there any program that would tell me, now you are there?

I hate this loudness war to, but labels do not accept anything else. That sux but I guess it is the only way :\

Any tips?

here is a nice video.. is this the way to do it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgA1CiF9fHc

another question.. these freeware plugins that he uses are any good?

when will this f**king loudness war stop? ........................................................
Last edited by kitkonis on Sun Jul 29, 2012 8:58 pm; edited 1 time in total

I just listen to a Noisia track to determine how loud something should be ;p (if I'm doing EDM)

I don't compare actual levels though, I go by the feeling of the song.

I do as you said, I just compare my track to one thats in the same genre. Or at least thats what I did when I started out, now I have a fine enough ear for it to know what the level should be. You pretty much make it as loud as you can, with weighing in how much dynamic range you still want to keep. Genres like Techno/EDM, dynamic range isn't very important, so you can push the limiter a bit harder than say, a guitar/vocalist tune where you want to keep intact the minor volume fluctuations and nuances of playing a life instrument.

Not to mention the noise floor! When you have mic'ed amps, finger squeaks and slides or a less than perfect room, raising the overall volume brings out all those elements, for good or ill. The Gotye song "Used to Know" is a great example. Hiss EVERYWHERE! But still a big hit, though, so it just shows to go ya...

As you mention, JDG, being totally ITB lets you get away with a LOT more in terms of noise floor, so of course those records sound big and present without the issues mic'ed anything faces.

For more subtle stuff, sometimes riding the master fader will give better results than trying to find the right limiting or compression, and be a lot more transparent too.

Warning! Boring analog engineer story ahead!

The cleanest and quietest recordings I ever got (or heard) weren't digital, they were 2", 24-track tape encoded/decoded with a dbx noise reduction system. The dbx couldn't tell tape hiss from mic pre hiss or mic self-noise hiss, so it took them ALL out!
Barely finger-picked guitars could be raised to crazy levels, and fussy amps never sounded better!

Strange I haven't seen more modeled dbx or dolby nr, it was a HUGE factor in many records of the 80's and 90's.

And BTW, +1 for doing song levels by ear, it's an art with just a little science...

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

+1. I throw my track in the middle of a playlist with comercial tracks of the same genre and "feel" the flow between them. Then, I try to listen at various ambients like home, car, bus, streets, work, lo-fi speakers...

I never use any spectral tools to compare waveforms or so. I use Inspector VST only to see if there isn't any untamed peak freqs.

I put in a "maximizer" across the master fader as an insert first thing as I start a song for myself or a client.

Because everything that was to be subtle will stay a bit that way when it starts to get "crunched" in the mastering process.

It is all relative and as the peaks hit their ultimate peak at the ceiling, the rest down below is raised proportionately including any hiss and noise and all the subtle stuff you recorded.

Also, keep a close track on any unwanted distortion, it will be increasingly apparently as the "loudness" increases.

Maximizers distort when pushed too hard, use your ears to detect when it too much is tooooo much!

You want to master that bad boy so it is full but not over compressed use a compressor and by inspecting the rendered waveforms determine where the compromise point between loud and how much the compressor is compressing. So start with very little compression work your way up to an equilibrium but pump the volume so you get the desired loudness using the compressor to tame loudness spikes.

Hope this helps it is a bit vague.

Use square waves only

For me, I don't worry about loudness, only how it sounds to me at the time, and then making sure the end signal is healthy and sensible. Why worry about anything else? Music is there to listen to, not to move the most amount of air with the least volume setting. We have digital systems and volume knobs!

Not a fan of hyper-squashed music. When I compile albums I'll do volume matching and have occasionally had to limit or otherwise modify a master to make it fit with the others in terms of percieved volume (which often vastly differs from actual waveform volume).

I once released a track on Beatport that was so loud that it actually distorted their player. Once that happened, I knew I could back things off a bit.

Just keep cranking it higher and higher. When your ears start bleeding, add another 5dB and you will have it.















This post is for satiric purposes only,and should in no way be taken seriously. The poster is in no way responsible if anyone actually tries this

that is sick, tnx guys,just found out that i dont need to care about this anymore.

I will have now 2 releases on beatport, one coming... and my master was not extremely loud... but it was a nice mixdown and the track sounded well.. that is most important.

i guess whatever you do, at the end labels want their own master and ask you to send an unmastered track, because they want to have this specific "signature" sound of the label... no mather if m-nus.com, 1605, alchemy... or any other label


i will not care about this anymore:)

It is arbitrary, you can make it as loud or quiet as you wish ultimately. The tools you use will also be a factor in how acceptably loud any given mix will go. Any given reference track may or may not be appropriate for your tonal and instrumental balance. Most tracks have a loudness potential beyond which the merits of a louder perceived volume very quickly evaporate and succumb to loss of space, dynamics, details, worse tonal balance, stereo image narrowing, distortion, loss of punch etc.

Bear those factors in mind when making judgments.

cheers

SafeandSound Mastering
Online mastering studio

The tools do matter as some distort quicker than others.

It is like enhancing a photo, you can saturate the colors until they get "surreal", harsh and distorted or enhance them just enough to make the picture as attractive as possible.

We all have amazing tools at our fingertips and used well they can end up really enhancing your work.

One quick loudness tip is to nothing think of it only at the master stage, when you'll be squashing everything out. Work from the ground-up. For instance, get the kick, snare and hihat as loud as you can individually, and then get the drum bus as loud as you can, and then the master. Do this with every element, up is hierarchy up to the master. If you put off loudness until the master channel, you'll never get it loud with it still sounding good.

If you want to be extra sure you're at the same loudness as other commercial tracks you could compare the RMS level of your song with a reference song.

Have in mind. Commercial songs can be mixed on analog and therefor possibly 6db louder than your song will ever be (if it is mixed digitally).