How Do I Get a Relatively Uniform Volume On All My Tracks?

[chris ott]

I am seasoned with creative production with Ableton but just started getting into mastering my own work.

With the introduction of the limiter, it is difficult for me to decide how loud a track should be so that it's relatively similar to other commercial recordings. I tested my track yesterday on my mp3 player and realized that the volume was too low for an everyday stereo. Today I went back and beefed up the levels and applied limiter. I put the new track back on my mp3 player but its way too loud.

1. Is there a tool so I can get the average volume of a track so I can match the others on the album?

2. Is there a certain standardized dB or method of choosing a volume?

[4.33]

http://tarekith.com/assets/mixdowns.html
http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

[chris ott]

Thank you

[Earwax69]

I did not read Takerith tutorials but for my 2 albums I did it by ear. Normalizing will not give you an equal volume for all the tracks. I put them all in one timeline, each on a different track, and I limit and adjust gain until they all sound ok to me.

Its annoying because its the kind of stuff you can tweek forever. What seems ok monday will seems wrong tuesday.

Sometime you just have to let it go.

[ethios4]

^^ I think that's part of the reason for having someone else master your tracks.

[leedsquietman]

First of all - you need to be able to do statistical analysis of a commercial CD in your genre (or several). Live (unlike other programs such as Cubase, Peak, Wavelab and Soundforge, etc) does not give audio analysis statistics for peak and average RMS. Then you know where to aim at - but remember, pro mastering was probably done at a real top notch mastering facility where they have great converters and analog outboard gear and immaculate monitoring environments, so they have expensive tools which can push your mix further with less artifacts than using a DAW and some software plugins. So unless you are willing to compromise a little on levels, you are best off getting a pro mastering job if you have the budget - many commercial releases sound like arse anyway because they are hypercompressed and pushed too hard, try matching that with your mix in Live and an L2 and it's gonna sound even worse.

http://www.har-bal.com/index.php?/maste ... torial.php

this is also a pretty good tutorial. Harbal is a great tool (I always use it as a reference even if I don't always use it to adjust, sometimes I just note the problem regions and use a different EQ such as Sonalksis SV517 etc), just don't let it rule you and use it manually not auto adjust for best results.

BTW - you do not NEED Harbal, you can use other forms of analysis (human ear in conjunction with spectogram such as Live's spectrum tool or voxengo span etc can be just as effective). You can get freeware phasescopes http://www.uk-music.de/index.php?page=gonio