High quality tracks. Advice please!

What ever depth & bit rate you use your tracks will always sound quieter compared to those you are referencing. Thats because in digital the loudness is the % deviation the loudest point, basically all the Ones - 1111 1111 1111 1111. Doesn't matter how many bits are used or what sample frequency.

If your mixes are sounding half the volume then its because most of it is playing along at half volume but occasionally some transient or very short signal goes All The Ones, and so the volume can't be increased further without tricks.

So if you want it to sound loud then the short transient signals need to be brought down & the quieter bits brought up. So the loudest bits will still be All The Ones but the rest will be playing along at 95% volume.

Clipping takes care of those transients by chopping them down, its basically distortion but it is for such a minuscule time that it cannot normally be heard. And I found ducking works wonders to help bring the rest up. But clipping on its own will probably beef your tracks up a big bit.

If you can get your wav into a computer editor then look at how much empty space is in there compared to commercial stuff. But your peaks will be the same level as their stuff. So it the peaks can be knocked down then the rest will get normalised up. In the old days Tape Saturation would do this trick, but now there is usually some sort of stereo saturator plug in on a computer that will do this. I use Saturator on Ableton Live.

I use ducking to add some more meat before this stage. And then it all seems roughly there. Then light compression/limiting makes it sit.

But don't get too hung up if its not equal volume, it should be kind of ball park compared to what your tacks are now. The commercial tracks use outboard that costs at least $2500 a box, so its not going to be quite there but it'll be about 90%, which is good enough for most folks.



Just noticed - when you said the word Dynamic back a few posts Dreadful, actually you meant exciting. Dynamic in the music recording context means goes from extremely quiet to extremely loud.

Understanding gains and leveling, along with compression (and knowing when to use it) is a great start.

When I use my 2500, I usually keep the master volume @ about 75%, so i can know where I am at, sonically.

Using a lot of reverb and delay filters can blot out whole samples, like hi hats and closed hats.

You said you love to have louder beats, but that doesn't take you anywhere, it just makes things louder and most times, distorted. That's why understanding levels and gains is great, because at the end of the day, people that listen to your music and feel it, will just turn the volume knob how they want it.

Dilla had really loud snares and i really, really like that about his stuff. but he knew when the gain needed to stop going up on his tracks.

having loud beats or sounds, can make samples sound different, especially if you use Memory chase programs that use DSP and TDM interfaces, like cubase, NUENDO and protools.

If you use midi to program drums into these programs and you have a low memory system, you can possibly NOT hear the final mix until AFTER you mixdown or bounce to disk.

Another thing that I have noticed, is that people that want to throw vocals to loud beats, sometimes won't buy them, because they are just too loud. They say that it sounds like the beat is not complimenting the vocals or sounds like they are smashed against the speaker or headphones.

That's not all the time, but it is common.

Consider that the majority of great tracks is in their post process, be it a beat by itself or entire tracks with vocals, EQ, sidechaining etc.

If a beat is pretty loud and you bounce it or mix it down, it can become loss heavy, because there are artifacts that the final file size just can't read or sometimes handle. a lot of times, those artifacts are replaced with buzzing or distorted noises that default into the final mix.

If that happened and you sold a beat to a company or individual and they go to record it, even if it's HQ, it can retain artifacts that can effect the recording and ultimate mastering process.

I use hardware and DAWs to make all my music. I use an MPC, in conjunction with Live, FLStudio9 (YES, I LOVE THIS PROGRAM VERY MUCH), ProTools and Cubase 5 or SX3. I can tell you that I don't care for the sampling in FL9 all the much, so I sample out on CoolEdit and live, when I have my laptop.

I use MPC for drums, cut samples and add effects in live or Cubase and 0 track to each track in protools, so each track has fully editing functions, when I bounce them to disk. I process most of the tracks, parametrically, where it's needed and bounce the results to disk.

At that stage, I can make my drums as loud as I want, and they will not distort and them level them how I want.

The same can be done on the MPC. Throw your tracks into the open virtual tracks and them give them manual parameters (gain, effects, etc) and stick them together or group the drums together on render. That's real old school, but you can make them as loud as you feel, without (too much) hurting the sound you are trying to achieve.

I like thick drums, but if I hear like a james brown snare in a sample, It can coincide with custom snare that I make or load into the MPC.

hope I helped.

http://smavk.me
@SmackDeuce
Soundcloud.com/smackstudios