Ableton Forum

The rookie is back.. Last time here I had the issue of too much gain/volume. Now its opposite. Ive youtubed this problem to death and followed many instructions. Ive set VU meters from -10 up to 0, increased utility gains, increased track gains during mixing, and all its doing is changing my sounds dynamics. The ONLY way I can get more volume is to increase Master track level above 0 during mastering, but then I get faint cracks and pops in rendered project. Ive bumped it down until the cracking/popping stopped, but then I was back at square 1 with the low volume issue. My goal is simple... burn to disc, put in car, and not have to turn volume up to 90% or higher to get a decent volume. Sound quality is perfect, but is then ruined by speaker noise due to having to turn them up so much to hear the song. Any helpful hints yall can toss me? Thanks in advance.

apparent loudness depends on the spectrums and patterns of sound energy that you are hearing. listen to some really loud mixes. what do they have that your mixes don't?

also, it helps to be aware of the Fletcher-Munson and related curves. what they tell you is that our ears are more sensitive to certain frequencies. roughly speaking, if your mix doesn't have a healthy dose of sounds in the 2–5kHz range, then it will require more amplification to sound as loud as a track that does have a lot of energy in that range.

https://ledgernote.com/columns/mixing-m ... son-curve/

not that i am advocating really loud mixes, as i much prefer healthy dynamics in a track...

So, is there any way you can upload a screenshot of your track so we can see how your faders are set?

It sounds like all of your tracks are too quiet - which is weird. If you set your master to 0, at what volume is it peaking, mate?

Shift Gorden wrote:So, is there any way you can upload a screenshot of your track so we can see how your faders are set?

It sounds like all of your tracks are too quiet - which is weird. If you set your master to 0, at what volume is it peaking, mate?

The master is set at zero. The rest are set between -14 to -8. During playback, the peak of master hits @ -4.34. I've used little compression, eq'd, increased the limiter. Many of the tracks, even though they read in the -10 range, sometimes clip. Not often, but they do. I've set the VU meter to help with that on each track. Really stumped on this one. The the overall mix sounds great, just lacks volume in the exported .wav and .mp3 file.

How much are you limiting the master?

Tarekith wrote:How much are you limiting the master?

Ive increased the master utility +9.44db about 20 seconds ago, exporting now, ill let ya know what i get out of it. Im also exporting it in Mono for comparison. Trying this for the first time to see how they sound side by side.

Master peaks @ -1.27 with +9.44 added to master utility gain. Turned gain up to 10.6, max master peak of -0.22. No difference in volume. Increased all track faders 3db. Master peaked +3.81. Now im back to crackling with next to zero increase in volume. Bout to set this computer on fire.

UPDATE: I switched out compressors from Abletons stock to the Red 3 from Focusrite because it has a built in VU meter. Values were low. Bumped it up and am getting much better volume. Still not where Id like it to be, but its a great improvement. Makes me wonder what other plug-ins I am using wrong.

buj818 wrote:Master peaks @ -1.27 with +9.44 added to master utility gain. Turned gain up to 10.6, max master peak of -0.22. No difference in volume. Increased all track faders 3db. Master peaked +3.81. Now im back to crackling with next to zero increase in volume. Bout to set this computer on fire.

UPDATE: I switched out compressors from Abletons stock to the Red 3 from Focusrite because it has a built in VU meter. Values were low. Bumped it up and am getting much better volume. Still not where Id like it to be, but its a great improvement. Makes me wonder what other plug-ins I am using wrong.

There is definitely something funky going on here.

I guess the first thing to figure out is why your master needs to have gain added. Theoretically, you should be able to leave it at 0 and not mess with it. Why are your channels so quiet, mate?

You mentioned you switched out compressors - are the compressors on the master? Besides a utility plugin, what else is on the master?

On the Master, in order, are Eq3, Eq eight, Red 3 compressor, and Limiter. Every other track has an Eq eight attached with minor changes. The biggest difference in the Master channel, after switching compressors, is that my sound is actually bigger with only a 2.10db gain. Using abletons compressor, I had to crank the gain almost 9.5db to achieve similar volume.

why not put the track up somewhere so we can hear it?

Id would but i dont know how. I couldnt even figure out how to put a screenshot on here last night.

Soundcloud?

yeah, I dont have any of those types of internet based accounts. I barely have functioning internet at all. lol