Mixdown : overall volume soft compared to other cds

Hey,

I'm new to this forum and did quite a bit of searching before i registered to ask for some help. I recently started doing multitrack recording with Audition but I'm having trouble when it comes time to mix down to a stereo file. It seems no matter what I try, i can never get a full volume out of my mixes even though i've normalised and hard limited to -0.1. I have to turn the volume up significantly to get the same SPL levels as other CDs I play. Where have I gone wrong? Any help at all would be great.

- dez

my first suggestion would be to post a couple of short clips illustrating type of material you do

with brief overview of what or how you'd like it to be different

there's all kinds of loud  and recorded 'loud' is not necessarily a notable goal

but first guess is that, if you have lots of voices (instruments) in the mix that you have considerable competition in various frequency bands . . . colloquially speaking this produces a muddy mix . . . and 'mud' tends to fatigue human ears fairly rapidly . . . you are failing to make the interesting bits loud

if you're recording via mics phase issues can easily come into play

it is certainly within the realm of possibility that your mixing environment is simply not robust enough to let you hear what's going on (in any universal sense) . . . you achieve an acceptable result in that specific environment but the mix does not migrate effectively to any other location or medium

with modern equipment and digital recording signal to noise should not be the issue it was (when I started) but here a again the recording environment plays a significant role . . . simply compressing and normalizing will raise apparent noise level . . . which might not be what you want

strategies for dealing with any and all of this are dependent on your target and content itself (which is another reason for suggesting some clips . . . )

there's a 'sticky' labeled 'string line mixer' (or some variation on the idea)  that makes a reasonable place to start addressing some of the issues

you might also take a look @: http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/OzoneMasteringGuide.PDF

then please drop back in with specific questions

(and oh, I'm definitely not a fan of the 'make everything louder then everything else' school of mixing/mastering . . . somehow retained the idea that it was actually beneficial (for the music, if not the pocketbook) if audience could actually hear material, if their ears didn't fatigue in 13.3 sec . . . that said it's too bad Link Wray isn't around any more because some of his live shows could not only have provided a new definition for 'loud' but demonstrated how to deploy it in ways that would make a lot of modern music seem a bit anemic.)

here's a sample of a recent mix. the overall volume is just lower compared to other CDs.

It appears that the issue might be one of improper EQ balance.  You'll see a roller coaster display of the EQ ranges in the mix.  Extreme low frequencies are probably less than they should be, and, what appears to be the entire range from maybe 400 Hz up to about 6KHz is on a steady decline.  And that range would be the actual meat of the music, so you're giving away a tremendous amount of punch.  Then, there is a sharp rise around 7KHz to perhaps 9KHz, which will definitely mess with your normalization expectations.  What is happening is the normalization process is taking those highs to the max, but leaving the rest of the spectrum terribly low.

Fix the EQ and you'll see much improvement.  I'd give it a go, but the song won't download, only play.

don't mean to get off subject, but what's the scoop with Ozone? Is it a worthwhile product as compared to what one can do with built in Auditions tools or with perhaps comparable free VST plugins?

thanks

don't mean to get off subject, but what's the scoop with Ozone? Is it a worthwhile product as compared to what one can do with built in Auditions tools or with perhaps comparable free VST plugins?

Generally yes, it is worth it. There are a few threads you could read (maybe you already have?), like this one, but they don't really go into a lot of depth about what's good about it - the short and sweet answer is that as far as AA 1.5 was concerned, it had a number of operational features that made it an absolute must, some of which can be replicated in part by AA2.0, but it still has features that are worth it anyway - like the multiband exciter - because Audition doesn't have one. That's not all though - read on.

As far as this thread is concerned, one of Ozone's big advantages is that if you must get a track to sound really loud, but still generally okay - if that isn't a contradiction in terms, which I personally think it is - then it's an extremely useful tool for doing it, because it makes it very easy both to hear and see immediately what effect various combinations of processing are having, and I think that it's still easier to use for this than Audition's effects chaining. It's not cheap, and it's still a bit of a processor hog, but in terms of a quick result you can get a long way very quickly. What it also does is to let you try completely different combinations of processing (both the type and the order) that could potentially achieve the same result with consumate ease.

But all this ease of use makes it very easy to overdo Ozone processing, especially when the enhancer is involved, and that's something that you have to guard against all of the time. And also I'm aware that I'm being very positive about it without telling you any of its weaknesses, and it does have a major one - the master reverb sucks - I wouldn't use it for anything! Other than that though, it's an excellent tool.

thanks a lot for the help Cal. I've been remixing for a few days now, just playing around. I think I'm getting slightly better results, but still am having trouble.

I did get it downloaded and did a little work on it.  I used a combination of a nice little program called Har-Bal that gives a visual of the frequency layout and the means to make corrections, then some multi-band processing in the Multitrack View in Audition.  Now, i don't have version 2.0 -- I have 1.5, but the processes would/could be the same in MT view.

The bottom is pretty even now, the highs don't have that mountainous peak, and the middle is much better.  The little spikes showing in the center are your vocals.  To get a better sound, though, you'd have to redo the mix and take care not to rob the guitar(s) of their middle range, and not to push their upper range too high.  It could be an issue with what kind of speakers/lmonitors you are mixing on.  They may not be giving you a true representation of what's there.

And.... and this is the big one: In this type of music, more than likely commercially done songs are going to be compressed pretty heavily, and hard limited to the max so that their audio waveforms look like one solid block of sound, ensuring they get everything in it as loud as possible.  I did a bit of that on your song, but not to the extreme.

Visually AND musically it's a good improvement. Well Done Cal