PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production CD mastering

The question is, is there a way to even out all the songs so they are around the same volume level? and doing this before the burn. Thanks

Yes. The best way of course is to use the same recording levels in each song and that does half the work for you. I realize this is not always possible.

I don't know what software you use beyond PG, so I will tell you how I work to achieve the same approximate levels in my songs.

First, it's possible to get close but realize that each song is different. If you have an acoustic song, for example, and follow it with a hard rocking song with a "wall of guitars", there is going to be a perceived difference in the two in every way possible. The goal is to simply get them both to sound close to the same levels given their differences.

The way I do this is not rocket science and I don't use the Red Book standards knowingly.

All composing/writing is done in BB and tracks are generated in RB... from there.....into Sonar where I add live tracks and mix.

I export the song from my DAW (Sonar) after I have applied Ozone to it. Ozone is simply 6 modules that provide EQ, reverb, loudness, multi-band compression, multi-band EQ excitation, and widening. Essentially giving a polished sound.

At this point the song is not to it's final level but due to the compression and the limiting and other things used in O4, the song is "louder" than it was coming straight from BB/RB or even just Sonar. Ozone makes a big difference. It is referred to as "Mastering Suite Software.

My final step is to take the song into my favorite wave editor.....Wavepad. In it, I trim the start and end as well as use the normalize function to bring it up a few db but always shy of 0db. I normally use the 96% setting. Most times, normalizing the file yields a very slight increase in volume since it's already close to it's final level.

This gets me in the ball park as far as levels and comparing favorably to the stuff you hear on the radio.

If, however, you are planning to burn a CD of several songs, you should go one step further to ensure all is well. Take all the songs and load them into your DAW software and put each one on a different track. Mute them all. UN-Mute the first track and let it start to play. Now... go down the track list and un-mute them one at a time to listen to the relative volume levels..... MAKE NOTES. If track 3 is too low.... you can apply a gain increase to the entire track to raise it a few db at a time.... or the opposite if it's too loud. The danger is that if the track is close to 100% or 0db... a gain increase may take it over and you don't want that. It's better to reduce all the other tracks than to take one over 0db. Having "overs" in the track can induce clipping that becomes audible and digital clipping is ragged, not at all like analog clipping.

Once you get the tracks to the same approximate levels.... burn an experimental CD and play it to see. It's not necessarily a difficult thing to do, but depending on the initial variations in levels between the rough song files, it can take a bit of time and be a bit tedious to get them all in the same general level range.

The final judge of the levels of the songs has to be your own trained ears listening and saying that everything sounds to be at the proper levels in relation to the song in front of it and behind it.

In addition to Ozone, I use CD Architect from SONY. This software allows you to adjust levels, and also skip around quickly to test each song's intensity against others.

There are also programs that can help you mathematically if you want to do it that way as a double-check. Sound Forge or Adobe Audition, for example, can analyze each song.

I will also import a similarly recorded song from a publically released CD and A/B that song with mine.

That gives me a general idea of how my song is compared to a pro recording.

My work flow is very similar to Guitar Hackers. After getting each song mixed I render it to a WAV. I then import each one as a separate track but I stagger the WAV files and leave them all enabled. I too use ozone and use an instance of ozone on each track. I start with the same preset and adjust from there. I use a preset designed to add saturation and enhancements. I tend to leave the mix bus empty until all tracks are treated with ozone and balanced for volume.

Staggering the WAV files (songs) allows me to very quickly jump back and forth listening to each file while playing, altering the preset and volume to bring them in to balance with each other. Once I'm happy with the overall sound of all the tracks I put ozone on the mix bus and use a preset that adds a volume boost and limiter (remember the setting). This is only so I can gauge where the final volume will be. Once I'm satisfied I will render each track as a WAV with its own Ozone setting. Then each track can be reloaded individually and the volume boost and limiter applied per the setting you had earlier. Then render the track as a final.

One thing I will say. If you can't get a song WAV to fit well with the other songs go back into your song and remix it.(this is much easier than trying to get the mastering plugins to do it) Then render it again and add to your CD track adjusting as before and recheck it. You may never reach the level of a true mastering engineer (or you might) but you can get them sounding pretty damn good in the mean time.

This is my way of doing it and I like the results. This may not be the way most would do it. I'm not an engineer and probably will never have any of my songs or mixes go commercial but I'm happy as a hobbyist can be.

As mentioned, there are some metering plugins that can tell you rather quickly if you are close.
The best tool though is your ear. You know how you want the collective work to ebb and flow, build up, etc.
The final CD should be more than a collection of songs at same volume.
Just my opinion.

Knowing where you are at with each one can help shorten the time needed to accomplish the above.
One plugin I like for this is PAR Meter.
It is older but does just fine measuring the sound in a number of ways.
RMS, regular VU Peak, Peak over time avg .. pretty helpful to use in the slot after Ozone to get the settings just right in Ozone before removing PAR Meter and actually rendering. There is lot of volume adjustment available inside Ozone itself.

If I get the RMS around -11 and the Peak average where I want it for a given song (it can vary from being dynamic to 'hot') I know I'm in the ballpark... usually. Sometimes RMS is -13 and even -15 on this particular plugin for a given project but it does seem to help just having the ability to measure in a few different ways that help tell the truth, without letting your eyes fool you by watching VU meters and such. Or your ears working from memory.

Loading all tracks and auditioning is a good way too, as long as All Tracks have the Same Volume settings all the way through the signal path.

You can't load them up and have different track volumes, or some tracks running through AUX and others not .. etc.

I go from RB to Mixcraft 6, I do the vocals there and the first mix, then I use Nectar 2 to work on the vocals, Alloy 2 for instruments, and then Ozone 6 for the mixing. I've only had the these three since December so I am far from knowing all they can do but sure is fun working with them

Nero Burning ROM has a leveler for Audio CD's: (no, I'm not endorsing Nero... it just happens to have this feature)

A simple process such as normalizing a group of songs to burn to a CD can easily be done for FREE in Audacity. That's pretty appealing if you are satisfied with the overall sound of your productions and only need to address the overall levels between the songs.

Also, carefully choosing song placement within your CD will help minimize level contrasts like between a rocker and a soft ballad.