Uniform level of output

motioneso · Post by **motioneso** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:43 am

I play in a three piece band and we use Live live to run synth tracks, bells, strings, and various other accompaniments. It's been working relatively smoothly (minus frying a firebox firewire port while setting up perform) but there is one main issue I'm having trouble resolving. First, we run the backing tracks as a rendered .wav from another project. One column in a scene is the "sample" and the other is the click to send to the drummer. I use a behringer FCB1010 to switch between scenes, but there are times where volumes of the rendered material differ greatly. More specifically, one track could be the perfect level, not too loud where it over powers the instruments and fits in nicely, but the next track is WAY too loud and forces me to turn it down while playing. Is there an easy way to set a max output for the master channel? I tried messing around with compression and limiting, but I'm still really new in that area and couldn't really get the results I need. Essentially, I want the loudest part of one song to be the same output level as the loudest part of the other songs. I'd like to keep the quiet dynamics in there as much as possible.

So what, oh wise gurus, would you recommend I do?

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 8:52 am

Adjust the clip volumes (not the track volumes, the volume slider in the clip view) to bring them all to a uniform level. If you don't know what you're doing with compressors/limiters, don't use them.

chapelier fou · Post by **chapelier fou** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 10:49 am

Maybe you could normalize all the tracks in an editor (soundforge, etc...).

laird · Post by **laird** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:05 pm

I would do what ollyb suggests: set the clip volumes correctly beforehand.

Then, you can add a compressor to the master channel as a backup if needed... a compressor is kind of like a robot who you can tell "turn down the volume slider this much if the volume goes over that much".

I think the best way to set up your robot is to tell it "turn down the volume if things get way too loud", meaning a high threshold setting and hopefully a low ratio setting.

other people use them in a way that's like saying "set all my levels to X no matter how loud of a signal I send you" (i.e. using a brickwall limiter preset), which I think is less than ideal, but still possible. I hate overcompressed audio live, most PAs sound best playing music with dynamics/punch/etc... in my opinion.