Rendered mix sounds quiet and lacks punch

[danshaw]

Ive spent a lot of time getting my tune to sound the way I want it, comparing it to commercial tunes of a similar style I think its fairly close.

But when I render the tune to disk it seems to lose its punch and loudness. I select to normalise it but that doesnt help. Its not just a volume issue theres a real lack of beef as well.

I do intend to master the stereo file in soundforge, but I just want to check I am not doing anything wrong so I can be sure I am starting in soundforge with the best possible file. Should I put anything on the master channel in Live? Limiter, compressor etc? Or is the rendering process acting correctly?

Thanks alot

[j2j]

Got a sound example?


No, you should in no way, ever normalize a track, you plan to have pro-mastered.... OR DO a " home grown master " of......


a quiet track, may or may not, mean that the track lacks punch.............

( volume and punch don't really have much to do with one or the other, but than again, when mixing music every is also related on some level )

What a bitch right?


Do you have some plug ins on your master bus? -- I am going to say, this is a big no, no.... Somebody will come along sooner or later, probably I saying I am wrong... But


Whatever's clever....

Give us a sound examp plz....

[Angstrom]

released songs are 'mastered' to within a micron of listenability in the loudness war. That's why your renders sound quieter.

the over-simple solution is rendering to 24bit and then using a multiband compression in soundforge. It will probably make your music louder, but also a little shitter sounding.

there's a real art to fighting in the loudness war, the big players all hire dudes with the chops and the monitors to make sure they aren;t making a balls up of it.
you have to decide exactly how much sonic quality you want to sacrifice if you are going to try and do it yourself. Everyone will tell you that over compression is a bad bad thing, but it is a necessary evil these days.

just don't overdo it, search around the web for "loudness war"

[Pepehouse]

Limiters/maximizers are very transparent today music doesn't sounds bad if you use them carefully. Download this and put it in your master channel, it's free: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html

I use this settings for my DJ mixes but them should also work on a single track: Ceiling=-0.2dBs Threshold=-6.0dBs Release=40ms.
If you like what it does to your music think about buying a good one like Voxengo Elephant or Waves L3.
And never normalize.

[Johnisfaster]

I'm guessing he's clipping on the master when he's writing the tune, but when live renders the track it soft clips anything thats above peak so it'll sound like it's losing punch. I'm just guessing this is what he's doing.

I think a way around that would be to resample to a track within live, and make sure that particular track isn't clipping, that way you can keep the dynamics of what you're actually hearing from the master as far as I know.

that might not be the problem at all though.

[tylenol]

If you're listening to rendered files in itunes, make sure "sound enhancer" and "sound check" are off. In general, make sure (for judging things like "punch") you're comparing versions that have been matched in volume -- a few db of difference for otherwise identical audio can easily cause the effect you're describing. You may want to even load the rendered track into the live set it was generated from, to A/B in the same program and make sure it isn't just a volume effect.

[leedsquietman]

This is about the 3rd or 4th instance we've had of 'my rendered mix sounds horrible compared to listening in my DAW' of late.

Combine what was said below and you solid reasons why. First - NEVER Normalize. Learn how to use compressors and limiters properly to enhance your sound, normalize is a one button click but it is never a one stop shop solution. More often than not, it is wrong.

Second - clipping. Watch your meters ! In 24 bit mode,you have 12db more headroom, so unlike 16 bit mode (which you render to for CD audio or mp3 etc), when you hit the ceiling 0dbfs, it 'soft clips' as mentioned. When you dither this down, it will either suck away the punchiness (as John said) or you will hear artifacts or distortion.

I personally don't recommend using multiband compressors unless the mix is f**ed and you lost the master file. Go back, re EQ, reset your track compressors so they aren't pumping too hard and causing hypercompression. Use a peak limiter (preferably one with oversampling such as Voxengo's Elephant to prevent intersample peaking) and set it to about -0.3db to prevent digital overs.

If you are running 24 bit, did you remember to use a dithering plug or choose a POW-R dithering option in Live's audio export dialogue box. *assuming you have Live 7 as L6 and previous have no dithering options* Undithered (truncated) tracks often sound terrible.

Get some good mix books and read up on the subjects mentioned. It's a learning process and we're all learning and improving all the time. I've had 22 years recording experience and have a shit load to learn still. But knowledge is power, so gen up .

[shaynekasai]

I had the same problem last night: my render was a lot more quiet than the DAW (spectrum was showing -18db to -12db) but when rendered, the spectrum would be at -24db.

The problem, I found, was my mix - I'm guessing this had something to do with poor levels and overall balance on each track. To fix this I took out all of the compressors, all of the eq8s and started clean. I then made sure that each track was mixed properly - as a result I didn't have to use as many compressors. So really, start with a good mix and you should get the same result when you render.

I also had Ozone4 running on my master and I took that out. You could probably add Ozone4 back in at the end of your process to polish the sound

[outershpongolia]

I had the same problem last night: my render was a lot more quiet than the DAW (spectrum was showing -18db to -12db) but when rendered, the spectrum would be at -24db.

The problem, I found, was my mix - I'm guessing this had something to do with poor levels and overall balance on each track. To fix this I took out all of the compressors, all of the eq8s and started clean. I then made sure that each track was mixed properly - as a result I didn't have to use as many compressors. So really, start with a good mix and you should get the same result when you render.

I also had Ozone4 running on my master and I took that out. You could probably add Ozone4 back in at the end of your process to polish the sound

Leave the Ozone4 "electronic music preset" out if it.. it's not a magic master bus utility that you can pop onto everything to make it sound nice - just do what you can with the mixing in the first place and you wont need that

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Limiters/maximizers are very transparent today music doesn't sounds bad if you use them carefully. Download this and put it in your master channel, it's free: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html

I use this settings for my DJ mixes but them should also work on a single track: Ceiling=-0.2dBs Threshold=-6.0dBs Release=40ms.
If you like what it does to your music think about buying a good one like Voxengo Elephant or Waves L3.
And never normalize.

Why can't you normalize? You already normalize when you limit your track and hit the ceiling. What happen if yu normalize it after that?

[timothyallan]

Limiting your track is not normalizing.

Normalizing after limiting will do nothing good... unless you limited the track with an output < 0db.. in which case, it will still not do anything good.

[nopattern]

there are 1000 dance tracks coming out daily on beatport that all sound pretty decent which have been "mastered" by the artist.

there is also a fairly wide range of RMS levels that are acceptable, songs do not have to be maximized or mastered to "within a micron" to sound loud and punchy and stand up against anything else. i regularly play out my unprocessed tracks to test on the dancefloor which are usually around -18 RMS and they stand up on a big system to mastered releases, i just increase the gain slightly on the mixer, because of the headroom mine usually have more punch than the finished releases if it's a digital track

most professionals these days are doing all of the mastering as part of the production process. it makes so much more sense to do it that way considering the tools of the modern DAW

Of course a really great mastering engineer can do things i can't do but its really becoming a matter of diminishing returns. Mastering will always be important for inexperienced musicians who only make music and dont know or care about technical things. one of my good buddies makes super super sick techno music but it sounds like shit when he plays me his ableton tracks. his masters always sound great though and he doesnt know or even care about the process, just likes to make music

For the OP:

get some quality metering tools and pay attention to your RMS levels compared to the peak, not just on the mix but for all the sounds individually and bus channels as well. also throw an oscilloscope on your master to visually view the mix. load up your favorite reference tracks and start learning about all the sonic traits they have from an objective, visual perspective. For things like punch, the oscilloscope makes it easy to see if for instance the bassline is causing the transients of the kick drum to become distorted and masked or if the snare is creating a sharp peak on top of the kick. all of this stuff, even the balance of the entire mix can be objectively measured and balanced

the more comfortable you get with this, it becomes easy to see why mastering is not needed anymore unless for pure artistic benefit. if i can create all my sounds in operator to possess the optimal signal levels from the beginning, why would i even want to process it at all after that. audio and graphics are very similar. what happens to an image when you make it bigger vs. making it smaller. i can make an image smaller in something as crappy as MS Paint without losing any quality but making a graphic larger will distort it no matter how good the tools are. saturation vs. compression becomes valuable at this point where you can add volume by adding sonic content as opposed to simply making something larger than it's capable resolution.

moral of the story is start with optimal signals as early in the chain as possible

[The Carpet Cleaner]

there are 1000 dance tracks coming out daily on beatport that all sound pretty decent which have been "mastered" by the artist.

there is also a fairly wide range of RMS levels that are acceptable, songs do not have to be maximized or mastered to "within a micron" to sound loud and punchy and stand up against anything else. i regularly play out my unprocessed tracks to test on the dancefloor which are usually around -18 RMS and they stand up on a big system to mastered releases, i just increase the gain slightly on the mixer, because of the headroom mine usually have more punch than the finished releases if it's a digital track

most professionals these days are doing all of the mastering as part of the production process. it makes so much more sense to do it that way considering the tools of the modern DAW

Of course a really great mastering engineer can do things i can't do but its really becoming a matter of diminishing returns. Mastering will always be important for inexperienced musicians who only make music and dont know or care about technical things. one of my good buddies makes super super sick techno music but it sounds like shit when he plays me his ableton tracks. his masters always sound great though and he doesnt know or even care about the process, just likes to make music

For the OP:

get some quality metering tools and pay attention to your RMS levels compared to the peak, not just on the mix but for all the sounds individually and bus channels as well. also throw an oscilloscope on your master to visually view the mix. load up your favorite reference tracks and start learning about all the sonic traits they have from an objective, visual perspective. For things like punch, the oscilloscope makes it easy to see if for instance the bassline is causing the transients of the kick drum to become distorted and masked or if the snare is creating a sharp peak on top of the kick. all of this stuff, even the balance of the entire mix can be objectively measured and balanced

the more comfortable you get with this, it becomes easy to see why mastering is not needed anymore unless for pure artistic benefit. if i can create all my sounds in operator to possess the optimal signal levels from the beginning, why would i even want to process it at all after that. audio and graphics are very similar. what happens to an image when you make it bigger vs. making it smaller. i can make an image smaller in something as crappy as MS Paint without losing any quality but making a graphic larger will distort it no matter how good the tools are. saturation vs. compression becomes valuable at this point where you can add volume by adding sonic content as opposed to simply making something larger than it's capable resolution.

moral of the story is start with optimal signals as early in the chain as possible

Can we hear some of your production ?

[timothyallan]

"most professionals doing their own mastering" is a pretty bold statement.

I'd say that most professionals (i.e. people who's career is music) are at a point in their career where they realize that getting someone else to master their tracks is 95% of the time better than doing it themselves if not simply for the impartial 3rd party perspective.

However, If by 'professional', you mean guys on small labels who can't afford mastering as they don't recoup from sales, then yes, I'd agree... and yes, I know a good selection of 'professionals', and I also know a lot of dudes on small labels

[3phase]

"most professionals doing their own mastering" is a pretty bold statement.

I'd say that most professionals (i.e. people who's career is music) are at a point in their career where they realize that getting someone else to master their tracks is 95% of the time better than doing it themselves if not simply for the impartial 3rd party perspective.

However, If by 'professional', you mean guys on small labels who can't afford mastering as they don't recoup from sales, then yes, I'd agree... and yes, I know a good selection of 'professionals', and I also know a lot of dudes on small labels

yep.. the mastering studios here in berlin have lots to do... Mastering is quite an impact to the sound.. what of cause should be userdefined... but when you dont have an 100% accurate listening situation your best experiance in your room is still guesswork..especially in the bass area.. So mastering is allways usefull when done by the wright personal in the wright technical surrounding.. Theese days we actually call the stuff you deliver to the mastering pre mastered..