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.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 02/16/15 01:58 AM.
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