Why is my Dynamic Range so low?

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Hi everyone, I use Waves' WLM meter to measure my tracks before posting, and the dynamic range for my mixes with piano and vocals only are so limited -- anywhere from 3 to 7! I've tried turning down the compressor levels (upping the threshold) and just making sure it's compressing less on the master track, reverb buses, and main tracks, but nothing seems to help. Does anyone have any tips? Thank you!

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You need to post an example, there may be many reasons...
Dynamic range (as I understand it!) is the range between the quiet bits and the loud bits - if the music is all one level, ie no crescendos/diminuendos, no peaks or troughs, the dynamic range will be limited (no pun intended), whether the music is gentle or raucous, gregorian chant or death metal.
Post an example.

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Have you tried getting them professionally mastered? Nothing wrong with plenty of dynamic range. :)

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and the dynamic range for my mixes with piano and vocals only are so limited -- anywhere from 3 to 7! I've
That's less than my dense trance mixes, so certainly you're doing something very wrong. Post examples.
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Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)

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How should I upload it? Send a WeTransfer link to the Logic file? What if you don’t have my plug-ins? I could bounce the tracks to audio with all plug-ins? Would that be best? Thank you!!

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yes bounce to mp3 and post on soundcloud or similar :)
:ud:

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how does the dynamics look with no compression at all?

ie does the track have much dynamic movement?
:ud:

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Turning off compression didn’t help. Here are the tracks:

https://we.tl/t-8gvKD6C5VT

If you’d rather stream then just let me know, I’ll put them on SoundCloud :)

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im not at my studio system at the minute so can't listen
but from what you say about no compression not helping, im guessing it's heavy in reverb?
that if overdone can make everything one big sound.
:ud:

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Oh, ok! I didn’t think about the reverb squashing the dynamic range — I’ll reduce the reverb and see if it helps! Thanks so much!

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I measure the dynamic range of the wav file you shared at around 13 LUFS, so you've got nothing to worry about, other than finding another dynamic range meter. :hihi:

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BazJacuzzi wrote: Fri May 13, 2022 12:08 pm I measure the dynamic range of the wav file you shared at around 13 LUFS, so you've got nothing to worry about, other than finding another dynamic range meter. :hihi:
Omg really? Thank you so much!! Wow, ok, I’ll use a new meter. (It was the “YouTube” preset on the Waves meter.)

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