Originally Posted By: edshaw
Thanks for that, Herb. With the help of this forum and a lot of patience, I've been able to see some progress in the final results.
EQ and COMP still have grey areas for me. As a hands-on learner, the only real course is to keep on keeping on. All information from they who been there is vital and appreciated.


compression and loudness boosters will put you over the line quicker than anything else. The important thing is to keep the dynamics in the music. I always use a wave editor so I can look at the finished wave. If it looks like a flat top wave, where everything is extremely level, I will go back to the original project in Sonar and look for my mastering plugs and see which compressor I have turned up a wee tad too much. I like to see hills and valleys in the wave. That lets me know I don't have the dynamics squished out of the music. I really only like to see my peaks touching 0dB in one or two places and nothing that is an "over".

Any time I have a mix where I have to put a booster (like Boost11) into my vocal signal path, I know one truth. I have everything else too loud. So it's time to turn down the band rather than trying to bring the vox up. Trying to boost the vox will result in overs and a brick looking wave on export.

A quick, handy, DAW trick, is... rather than going back through all the instrument tracks and lowering them....especially if they have volume envelopes... as that can be a tedious task.... I will simply pop in another BUSS and call it BAND.... and send all the instruments to it. All the volume changes are kept intact, and now, I can lower the overall band volume while leaving the vox at a good level.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 11/05/19 05:44 AM.
You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add 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.