Loudness?

Hangee_77 · Post by **Hangee_77** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 8:28 am

Whenever I give my music listened to somebody, I always received a complaint about one thing that my music are too small (not loud enough). They love all the eq balances but the volume.
I have tried to put the Waves L2 maximizer, Scope tools, and the UAD-1 tools, they help but sometimes the peak part sounded harsh on the mixdown.
Any idea?

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:54 am

I really like Sonic Timeworks Mastering Compressor for Scope.

http://www.sonictimeworks.com/p_pmasteringcomp.php

/dave

Post by **hubird** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:57 am

you don't mention if you tried a compressor...
Just use a (good) compressor, and put a limiter (L1 indeed) after it to cut all those very small but too loud peaks.
That should do it

If it's not enough, you can start thinking of enhancing the more agressive frequencies of the hi mids.
Also a psycho-acoustic processor like the CWA PsyQ will do good.

If all this doesn't help, change your friends

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2005-12-09 10:00 ]</font>

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 2:12 pm

When you are setting up the compressor/limiter/etc, make sure you are playing the peak part in question. This way you can setup thing as optimally as possible for that part and prevent any harshness (which was most likely caused by too high levels.)

Look into multi-band compression, like Optimaster on Scope (there's plenty of native ones also, and UAD/PoCo have them too.)

Finally make sure your mix is good, a good mixdown will affect the final quality of the song as much as good mastering tools.

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 2:30 pm

i believe the L2 is a multiband compressor...isn't it?

R

djmicron · Post by **djmicron** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 2:35 pm

it's not just a question of mastering, it's very important the mixdown work.

valis · Post by **valis** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 6:58 pm

On 2005-12-10 14:30, nprime wrote:
i believe the L2 is a multiband compressor...isn't it?

L1 & L2 are single band 'Maximizers' (really fast limiters). L3 is a Multiband Maximizer, even the version that doesn't offer control over the multiple bands I believe.