How do I get things louder without peaking?

[Genophonics]

I need my drums in this track to be a lot louder but I don't know how to go about doing it. I'm using Impulse and if I turn the volume up anymore it peaks....so i bring it down a bit and throw a compressor on them and the threshold is always peaking on my compressor? so i can't make it louder with a compressor or by turning up my volume in the channel or on impulse...so what do it do?

[skimpi]

turn everything else down

[EDN]

turn everything else down

^This.
Or if you must (and bear in mind this WILL affect the sound of your drums) put a compressor with a slow attack and a reasonably slow decay on the channel and then put a decent limiter after the compressor.

However Skimpi's method is more fool proof.

[Assassin]

This^

[Genophonics]

But what if everything kind of over all seems low to me? so i don't really want to turn anything down haha

[Assassin]

But what if everything kind of over all seems low to me? so i don't really want to turn anything down haha

Turn your speakers up.

[dj nation]

^This
basically its alot easier turning things up rather than trying to turn this n that down at the mixdown stage, u shud try settin all the channels on the mixer down abit before even starting a track.
This has helped me alot

[EDN]

Turn your speakers up...

What is your master bus peaking at?

[Rmut]

Try to use parallel compression, what s you daw?

[Genophonics]

I'm using Ableton live 8, It just seems everything is to low but who knows maybe I am just tripping.

[EDN]

Genophonics, what is your master channel peaking at?

[Genophonics]

Well it's not peaking anymore I turned everything else down, but maybe I'll just export to mp3 and show you guys what i mean so you guys can hear for yourselves.

[skimpi]

maybe you need to ammend the mix so that there arent any frequencies crossing over, cos if they are, you could say have some sub pressure from the kick adding to the sub which causes it to peak, or a higher frequency from the snare is adding the frequencies already coming from a pad, which everytime the snare his causes it to peak. or is it more punch that you need from the drums rather than volume? which you might get from compressing, or even losing some compression

[Genophonics]

http://soundcloud.com/dlinkwent/ladies

There, that's the highest volume I could get it without tweaking out...I find all my mixes always sound really flat too and like they have no life...dunno why...maybe it's just with being a really new producer? haha. By the way sorry for the extra little stabs, I cut it off a little to late my bad haha.

[DJ Crackle]

everything sounding too low is the smallest problem you could run into while mixing down.
proper mixdown is waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of maximum volume as far as priorities go

[Isturite]

Get ready for my novel... i'm bored at work with nothing to do... so i'm gonna get wordy here. hope I can add some good input... I use ableton live 8 also and had some PROBLEMS in the past, but I'm getting closer to solving all the problems

I've got a little receipt that I use on my master track... along with some bus tracks... now this won't make it loud like a professionally mastered track but at least loud enough that you can still play it without maxing your volume and it still not being loud enough...

a couple things to add would be... to check your frequency spectrum and see if anything is phasing or doubling... and try cutting a few db's off the 200-400hz range of your bass... it will help your kicks and snares pull through a little more... and take note on where they are hitting... if you kick bottoms at 49hz, you are going to need to sidechain it to the sub... or pick something that has a higher low end closer to 80-100hz... I keep all my kick from 85-100hz when using a sub in my track

For the drums... I put a saturator on the drum track, and a send with a compressor w/ heavy threshold and ratio (parallel compression)...

Also you want to make sure you get each sound in your drum track as loud/quiet as it needs to be... having too loud of cymbals for example will kill it and there is nothing very effective you can do other than just turning down the cymbal sample... so before you go about ANYTHING... check ur volumes... on everything, one at a time. Listen verrrry carefully to see what sounds are being drowned out, when they are, and what sound is drowning them out. Once you have this situated, then you can worry about it being louder, otherwise you are going to have some sounds that are too loud and some that are too quiet and when you boost it... you are just amplifying these impurities in your music.

Once you get all your tracks and individual sounds set just right with volume, you might need to do some eq'ing so go about that as well as you can... now you can boost the whole track... but note that I mentioned to eq first because there could be a single frequency that is causing your track to peak and maybe you can use an eq to turn down just that freq. rather than the entire sound and hence losing volume. So put a spectrum analyzer on your master track and see where it's clipping... most likely it's clipping in the bass range. So figure out what frequencies are clipping from what instruments and go turn those down!

Your problem seems to be more of the two paragraphs above rather than what i'm about to post below here, so take all that into consideration before this...

To boost my tracks i use a few effects, not necessarily the best way, but it does the job well enough to show my music to friends and stuff like that (ultimately all my tracks get professionally mastered)..

-Parallel Compression on the Drum Track... sometimes on percussion or acoustic sounds too though
-On the master track:
-saturator, set at a medium setting w/ about 20-40% wet signal... this helps add harmonics which will thicken the track making it sound louder
-compressor, this is set very conservatively... A lot of people don't care and will just smash the dynamics of their music to make it louder... I like to have the loudest part be the bass drop... and you can't do that when your compressor is smashing everything (think about songs on the radio when the intro is just as loud if not louder than the chorus, it should be the opposite)
-EQ8, boost my mids (200-400hz), cut or boost at 1-2khz depending on situation... sometimes a verrry slight boost around 17khz to add some life to the track
-Exciter bus, this I made myself with Ableton's effect rack... cut everthing from around 2-3khz and below, ran through a saturator and a sidechained compressor. Ran one signal through the exciter and one signal bypassing it so you get both... this will help bring out the high end clarity and help get rid of that muffled sound that many beginner producers get stuck with
-Limiter, this is also set very conservatively since I don't want to smash the dynamics of my music. This is set just so that it compresses just the tiny little snaps that clip for a split second. use the limiter only once you get your music to either not clip at all, or barely... so this stops the track from going over a certain level, so you may ever so slightly increase the gain on the limiter... also do this conservatively because you can hear your song start to distort and lose quality if you turn it too high

and one more trick that has nothing technical about... more philosophy of listening...

is to automate the master volume (I use ableton utility effect so that I can still turn the master track up and down without changing the automation)... Try putting your intro at -2db... then right when the bass drops, put the setting back up to 0db... this way the listener turns it up before the drop so it smacks them in the face, also so that your compressors aren't 'compressing' until the drop... Letting your compressors reset can do a lot for having "big sound"... so having the volume go up and down can do wonders. You'd be surprised how much this can do when the bass drops and shit gets loud

[paravrais]

Oh my dear god. NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING, should be even CLOSE to clipping in your track 0.o your drums should be hitting around -8db AT THE MOST!! Mine normally sit around -10 to -11. Sort out your gain structuring and your life is going to get so much easier.

Read the mixing and mastering super thread on here, it's a great place to start. The finer points of mixdowns have to be learnt yourself by trial and error but that thread gives you a really really good starting point.

[Basic A]

Oh my dear god. NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING, should be even CLOSE to clipping in your track 0.o your drums should be hitting around -8db AT THE MOST!! Mine normally sit around -10 to -11. Sort out your gain structuring and your life is going to get so much easier.

Read the mixing and mastering super thread on here, it's a great place to start. The finer points of mixdowns have to be learnt yourself by trial and error but that thread gives you a really really good starting point.

Original poster hear what this guys saying because its the truth.

You want to make everything sound as good as it can with the master meter hitting as LOW as possible, turn your speakers up to compensate. then, when your finished getting it sounding good down there, save it, and hit 'normalize' to bring the resulting highest peak to 0, and you should be amazed how much louder and clearer things are.

I know us telling you to turn everything down to make your tracks louder sounds crazy, but it is THE TRUTH.

EDIT... even compare your soundcloud waveform too some of ours... lke, you see how me and elf's are dynamic vs. yours is pretty blocky and square? Not dissing, just advice. And what are you monitoring on dude?

[MUT3]

A good technique is to do your rough mix; Just like a rough draft.

Have that snare and kick pretty high, also the main elements should be higher up there on the faders.

Then SELECT or GROUP all your faders and pull everything down till your stereo buss is no longer clipping. Dont forget to de-select or ungroup the faders when youre done or youre gonna fuck up your mix when you forget theyre grouped.

Then turn your speakers up and work on your mix from there.

Mixing is an art within itself, it takes many hours to learn what the pros can do.

[Genophonics]

Thanks I read all of what everybody said and it's helped out a bit, I think it's sounding a little more rounded now even though it's still pretty rough...and to the guy who asked what I'm monitoring on...Just a good ol' pair of computer speakers ahahaha

But I think this sounds a little better and I notice the dynamics arn't as blocky in this as someone stated.

http://soundcloud.com/dlinkwent/electro-pop