How do I get things louder without peaking?

[shaneynclan]

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

Kevin why don't you just smash the fuck out of it with a limiter, it's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays.

[MUT3]

Can you recommend a saturator?

[EDN]

[MUT3]

[serox]

Make ur room smaller.

[Trichome]

Oh my dear god. NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING, should be even CLOSE to clipping in your track

There can be exceptions..
Funtcase and Reso both have their drums and bass very loud
Reso uses the gain on logics ad-limiter to turn things up without going over 0, and Funtcase softclips his master to smooth off the peaks and stop it from going over 0..
both may not be the most sensible solutions, but their music does sound good..

[paravrais]

I find it very hard to believe that Reso renders mixes that hit just below 0 :s surely by this point in his career he'd have been bollocked by mastering engineers so many times he'd have learnt to just put his levels lower from the start?

Can you link your sources for that?

[Trichome]

I find it very hard to believe that Reso renders mixes that hit just below 0 :s surely by this point in his career he'd have been bollocked by mastering engineers so many times he'd have learnt to just put his levels lower from the start?

Can you link your sources for that?

both their masterclasses

[Trichome]

I find it very hard to believe that Reso renders mixes that hit just below 0 :s surely by this point in his career he'd have been bollocked by mastering engineers so many times he'd have learnt to just put his levels lower from the start?

Can you link your sources for that?

both their masterclasses

oh and i didnt mean they had their drums at 0.. i meant that they both squeezed the maximum volume out of their mixes.. look at the waveform of one of their tracks and it looks like a big square

[mmjdw]

Nah you're wrong

Reso is completely different.
If you listened/looked, he basically uses limiters on individual drum hits to shave off peaks, therefore allowing the same percieved volume but with less volume on the meter, letting you boost the overall volume. Described as "squeezing out every last dB"



Not chucking an adlimiter onto the master out

[bassinine]

random tip (didn't read every post, sorry if it's been mentioned) - have GAPS in your sub bass! if you're sub bass is running all the time, your ears become accustomed to it. if your sub lowers or fades out completely, when it hits again it's going to sound MUCH louder than if it were running the whole time. yeah, like one of the users said: this adds dynamics, and will definitely make your song hit harder.

[paravrais]

Nah you're wrong

Reso is completely different.
If you listened/looked, he basically uses limiters on individual drum hits to shave off peaks, therefore allowing the same percieved volume but with less volume on the meter, letting you boost the overall volume. Described as "squeezing out every last dB"
Not chucking an adlimiter onto the master out

This. Using compression on your drums to reduce their dynamic range greatly but give them a lot more prominence in the mix isn't the same as mixing them to 0db.

[zerbaman]

When stoked, re-set everything on the mixer, then mix it around your main element?

[Electric_Head]

Make sure your starting material is of the highest quality.
Make sure the synth sounds clean and crisp.
The bass kicks hard, etc.

Create the best starting point and most often the resulting track will sound solid and not muddy.
Reducing the muddyness will help to keep individual sounds clear in the context of the track.
Then reducing volume on the individual tracks becomes easier.
The sounds will fit better because of less overlapping frequencies.

Oh and of course EQ your sounds to maintain your clean sound.

[Aquathesis]

Im left wondering why none of you just hit Reso/Funtcase up and ask for clarification... they both lurk this forum, and theyre both solid dudes....

[staticcast]

Hard clipping.

[paravrais]

Im left wondering why none of you just hit Reso/Funtcase up and ask for clarification... they both lurk this forum, and theyre both solid dudes....

I just don't care enough XD

On a side note, is your previous alias 'dead' now? Never seem to see you on that account anymore

[Isturite]

Kevin why don't you just smash the fuck out of it with a limiter, it's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays.

hahaha whats up shane?

I guess I'm not cool then... I like dynamics... and I like my beats fast with my bass down low too!

[Nacklewicket]

random tip (didn't read every post, sorry if it's been mentioned) - have GAPS in your sub bass! if you're sub bass is running all the time, your ears become accustomed to it. if your sub lowers or fades out completely, when it hits again it's going to sound MUCH louder than if it were running the whole time. yeah, like one of the users said: this adds dynamics, and will definitely make your song hit harder.

yea definitly good tip!! less is sometimes more (powerful)

[hifi]

lowpass your sub. and if any kicks are in the range of 30 - 75 hz find better samples with a not so low end and don't sidechain it does not sound good on a sub woofer well at least that's my opinion