Device or technique for keeping gain constant while mixing

[skeej]

I'm still working on adjusting my ears to not respond to volume differences when mixing (by default, louder often seems better), particularly A/B tests. Is there any technique, plugin, m4l device, magic potion to keep volume mostly consistent on a track? Currently, I'll just adjust the gain till they seem mostly equal for comparison, but this takes a bit of time.

By consistent- I guess I'd just want the peaks at the same dB level regardless of how I'm affecting them. So in some cases, gain might need to be increased or decreased.

Also, I know that apparent loudness (i.e. some signals sound louder even though they're not) is more important than whatever is on the meter when making these decisions, but like I said, I'm just trying to train my ear to be more sensitive to non-gain related differences.

Thanks!

[12RT2]

what you are looking for is called "normalizing", i.e applying gain change so the peak will sit on 0dB.
There is a built-in way to normalize clips when in arrangement view: consolidation. after consolidating a clip, the volume is normalized and to retain the original loudness, the clip volume (the fader found in the clip view) is lowered down. all you have to do is to set this clip volume fader to 0 dB.

[Stromkraft]

what you are looking for is called "normalizing", i.e applying gain change so the peak will sit on 0dB.
There is a built-in way to normalize clips when in arrangement view: consolidation. after consolidating a clip, the volume is normalized and to retain the original loudness, the clip volume (the fader found in the clip view) is lowered down. all you have to do is to set this clip volume fader to 0 dB.

That's some really bad advice right there. Run every track on 0dBfs? How does that change the fact that a plugin may drive the volume up (or down)? It doesn't.

[chrk]

That's some really bad advice right there.

On so many levels (pun almost intended)!

the volume is normalized and to retain the original loudness,

Volume DOES NOT equal loudness.

[beats me]

Slap a brick wall limiter on the master channel?

[Stromkraft]

I'm still working on adjusting my ears to not respond to volume differences when mixing (by default, louder often seems better), particularly A/B tests. Is there any technique, plugin, m4l device, magic potion to keep volume mostly consistent on a track?

That depends a bit on the circumstances. I use Sonalksis FreeG to gain stage tracks. First from the sound source into Live at some level, usually -18dBfs RMS. Then I maintain that level by ear as well as reading the meters from FreeG, so I have the same level all the way to the fader and into to the buss. Something like this is what you already do?

When you do this the level should be the same if you turn the effect off as when it's on. I do the same with parallel processing, but measuring at the master with just the affected track running a signal. You may want to note that distorsion and saturation may make a signal appear louder than what it really is. Use that to your advantage.

Both on busses and on the master I have compression, saturation and other treatments, so that on the master I peak at -6dBfs or so and the RMS might be marginally higher depending on the track. After all I'm adding up all tracks here so RMS should be higher. I typically dial in compression that sounds good and then take it back a bit.
If I'm going to play this track somewhere I go all the way up to peak -0.3dBfs or so, but that's after mixdown in some kind of proto-mastering stage.

[Stromkraft]

Slap a brick wall limiter on the master channel?

Well, that does of course maintain a consistent peak level on the master, but I think what the OP is after is to take out the "louder is better" bias when treating the signal on individual tracks.
If you squash the audio in a track or in a buss with compression and manage to compensate the overall volume too much you will still perceive that loudness factor in that part of the track. So what you want is to remove that factor by maintaining a consistent level the whole signal path.