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I there a standard volume level for the final mix? Meaning, and I hope I'm asking this in an understandable way, when I listen to others songs here, often they are much louder than mine, I have to break a leg to get to my volume to turn them down. All the songs I have in Soundcloud are, give or take, the same volume and I want to know if they are too far below a standard level.
Thanks.
Andy
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What I try and do in the mix (before master) is set the levels so I don't have any peaks more than -3 db or so.
Then I use Ozone 3 to master the mix, I add a little compression (not too much) and the Ozone auto-normalize function to bring the volume up so that the loudest peak is -.1 db.
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Thank you, Dave. I'll give that a try.
Andy
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Andy, google "loudness wars" for a description of this, including the downside.
I use Ozone but Dave gave good advice to use it sparingly. My general technique is to use loudness until I can hear the effect, then back off by half.
SoundCloud may be like YouTube and compress what you upload; I'm not a user so I don't know. If it does, then little adjustment would be needed on your side.
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Thanks, Matt. Wow, there is/was a war! Very interesting, and signifigant differences in some of the power. That's great information.
I think I didn't pose my question well, so just in case this more clear, when I play other's songs (from this forum) often they are substantially louder than mine. At Soundcloud all mine are about the same level, so were you listening to them all, once you set your volume level for the 1st one, you probably wouldn't need to adjust it for the 2nd, 3rd, etc.
When I play, examples, David Snyder's Long Distance Runner, and follow with Janice & Bud Merritt's Out of Your World, both are (guessing) 25%+ louder and I need to turn my volume down.
So, I wondered if there was a rule of thumb to get to their volumes, of if it's just arbitrary, and only based on maximizing the quality of my songs. I haven't compared Dave's -.1, but did listen to it.
Regardless, thank you both for responding. Great info!
Andy
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Every song is different and deserves its own treatment. No rule could work for all songs because the average loudness differs, not just the loudest parts.
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If you dig into this topic at all, you will hear about the "red book CD standards". These can be pretty confusing and from what I understand, they are not used much except among the "audio snobs" and mastering houses as a scare tactic to get you to use them. Essentially, what you need to do is learn how to get the best level out of your project in the end. And in order to do that, you want the tracks at the start to be nice and full, strong tracks and not skinny wimpy things. AS you progress through the various steps, you want to be sure you are keeping all your levels at decent levels. Not into the clipping and not way down either. Loudness wars were mentioned. That's a thing of the past for the most part. I like to use a DAW and an editor for my mp3/waves that lets me see the waveform I have. That waveform can tell you a good bit about the file you have. This first photo is a wave that has way too much compression on it. I guarantee you, it's loud. But there are also no dynamics. This is an example of the loudness wars and what files looked like when they were party to the wars. You don't really want your files looking like this. I did this simply as an example..... turned the compressor settings up to the max.....or close to it. Notice there is no headroom above the wave and very little drop from 0dB at all.  Example #2 is on my music page.... In a World without you. This one is quite different from the first. Lots of head room and lots of dynamics. This song is relatively loud but not overly so. You will also notice that not a single spike hits 0dB. everything is well below the point of clipping and in spite of that, there's a good sound level that doesn't have anyone reaching for the volume control to turn this up.  Most songs that I hear in the showcase and on other sites tend to be low in comparison. The way to check to see if your music is low, high or just right is easy. make up a play list of songs.... mix in your originals and commercial stuff off of a CD from a big name artist. If yours are any different in volume, start working on getting them up to that level. It's not magic but it's also not simply dialing the gain, normalize, limiter, compressor or whatever else you use up to the max. The trick is to get the volume and keep the dynamics. Last example. This is a file more compressed but still with some remaining dynamics and headroom above it. This file could be bumped up a few more dB of volume before burning it.  You don't want to over do it to the point where you can hear the compression working or evident in the final song. On the other hand, if you notice that most of the other music from home studios is louder than yours, you probably could stand to turn it up before you do that final export to call it done.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 03/09/17 09:29 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Loudness wars were mentioned. That's a thing of the past for the most part.
I so wish that were true. In the Oct 2016 issue of Recording Magazine, author Paul Stamler gives another very good reason to be aware of this. Even if you mix a CD well enough, if it peaks at 0db then converting that to MP3 can cause problems. A lot of this trend was about radio play, hence it seems like old news, but I've noticed that streaming services have the same concern where you don't want tremendous discrepancies between songs.
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Herb, as always, fantastic info. And it makes perfect sense even to me! It's screenshots. And I use WavePad, so perfect for examples. I use compression and normalization there, but now I can see more of what/why it should look like (sort of) and then test on the ears.
Thank you both. I'm looking for a Slim Whitman album now to compare yodeling volumes!
Andy
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Here's a link to a free VU Meter. It hasn't been updated in many years, but it works in Windows through 10. Get the VU Meter 1.2 Your audio player/editor/DAW software no doubt has a meter. What I like about VU meters is that they are somewhat damped, so not everything hits the 0 db limit immediately. In other words, it gives you a better sense of overall loudness. No need to tell me that calibration is needed and different VU standards exist; just try it and see if it helps you. http://www.vuplayer.com/other.php
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Andy
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Loudness wars were mentioned. That's a thing of the past for the most part.
I so wish that were true. In the Oct 2016 issue of Recording Magazine, author Paul Stamler gives another very good reason to be aware of this. Even if you mix a CD well enough, if it peaks at 0db then converting that to MP3 can cause problems. A lot of this trend was about radio play, hence it seems like old news, but I've noticed that streaming services have the same concern where you don't want tremendous discrepancies between songs. Yeah, there will always be bands trying to push the limits. But there are many more who are now aiming for the fuller dynamic range obtained by NOT pushing the limits. And that's why the radio and amp has a volume control on it.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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IMHO, it depends on your intended context.
If I suspect the mix may be played in with other 'commercial songs' I'll try to match it to such.
If it is meant to be part of a given performance I'll work within those parameters.
There are tools available to measure relative loudness. Use them when you want to or need to. Just know you can measure it.
/The root cause for the loudness wars in the beginning (again IMHO) was to make a given song 'stand out' from the others .. if you are trying to make it 'fit in' that's a whole different goal.
'Fit in with what' is the real question.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Regarding the loudness wars.....
The place where this is still evident (on occasion) is in TV commercials. Years ago everyone was wondering why TV commercials were so much louder than the program content of the TV show.
Quite simply, the advertisers wanted the commercial message to "stand out" and above the other things..... so they compressed the holy heck out of it to boost the levels.
I don't notice that as much now as I used to back in the day. The TV commercials that still do this tend to be the local yokel car dealer or mom and pop stores.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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SO TRUE, Matt! I'd forgotten about those commercials. Now it seems to be limited to the Ronco-like commercials (Super-slice-and-dice). The FCC doesn't have much in the way of teeth to solve it. Individuals have to file complaints to cable companies and the FCC and they have to have time to review. Who knows how long that takes, but it's not overnight I'm sure. And by then Ronco doesn't have any Super-slice-and-dices to sell.
Andy
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The commercials on network TV have been better for a year due to an FCC directive. On cable TV, I still encounter commercials that make me run screaming for the remote.
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IMHO, it depends on your intended context.
If I suspect the mix may be played in with other 'commercial songs' I'll try to match it to such.
If it is meant to be part of a given performance I'll work within those parameters.
There are tools available to measure relative loudness. Use them when you want to or need to. Just know you can measure it.
/The root cause for the loudness wars in the beginning (again IMHO) was to make a given song 'stand out' from the others .. if you are trying to make it 'fit in' that's a whole different goal.
'Fit in with what' is the real question. What he said. 
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