How to monitor volume between tracks?

[carilive]

Ok, another strange question from me ... sorry.

Each completed song has different audio effects and instrumentation, so when I've completed a song, it may have a different volume than the other songs which I'm grouping for a collection, or a CD. Is there a better way than just listening? I would like to have a way to limit the loudness, but nothing seems to be consistent.

For example, I exported with Normalize, but that doesn't always guarantee the same volume. Does this make sense? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance -

Cari

[UKRuss]

This is where Mastering comes in to play. If you have no experience then you need to send your tracks to a mastering engineer.

You can simply use a limiter to get your tracks to the same perceived loudness but if you're struggling to record and mix your tracks at more or less the same level to start with then this probably will take you a while to get your head round.

[wehkah]

Hi Cari

mastering is needed to get the best results.

To compare the Volume between two signal you can use this free plugin / RMS BUDDY:
http://destroyfx.smartelectronix.com/extras/

good luck
T

[fishmonkey]

nothing strange about this question, it's an unavoidable part of the mixing process.

the two most common measures of audio signal levels are 'peak' and 'RMS' levels.

when working with digital audio, peak levels are important because they tell you if you are overloading an audio channel (you should always try and avoid this on the master channels. and although you can get away with it on the track channels, it is good practice to avoid this too).

normalising raises the level of all the audio by the same amount so that the loudest peak is at the level you specify. however, unless all your tracks have very similar dynamics and frequency spectrums, this will not result in all tracks having the same perceived loudness. this is because peak signal levels do not accurately reflect how we perceive loudness (do some research into psychoacoustics if you want to know more).

RMS levels provide a better measure of power and perceived loudness, but it's still not straightforward because your tracks are unlikely to have constant RMS levels throughout, unless you specialise in a genre where extreme compression and maximum loudness are the norm. as much as anything else, there are artistic decisions to be made about how you want a group of tracks to fit together volume-wise, especially if your music has a lot of dynamics.

as well as using RMS metering, it may help you to also compare the entire waveforms of the tracks that you are level matching.