Track Leveling

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:09 am

Guy's... can you give me some advice/techniques in balancing the track levels? I'm using sony vegas...usually I find the kick very low so I'll move up the volume but when it's done and play it, the kick is too loud...

please give some advice..thnx

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:11 am

Maybe only turn it up half as much?
rtfm

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:42 am

thnx greener..

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:45 am

Mixing is an artform unto itself. It starts with quality speakers and the listening environment. The key is "translation", the mix sounding solid in a variety of situations - cars, living rooms, PA systems, iPods...

Before you mix listen to songs from other artists in your genre; that will give you a sense of the quirks of your mixing environment. I have a couple of CDs I bring with me when I freelance so I can acclimatize myself to a new room.

Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 9:09 am

I use Vegas as well. Most of the time after importing audio in Vegas I have to normalise the tracks. Right click on the track and under switches chooes normalise if you havent already. Also you can set what level to normalise in the options. But the default is decent. Other than that you may have to cut or add eq to ket the kick to stand out in your mix. Pushing the volume in vegas will cause clipping. There is just not enough head room there.

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 8:05 am

Next time try to record a bit hotter, but not too hot. Somewhere around -6 dBFS for loudest peaks.

Respected Past Moderator Joined: Mar 13, 2001 Posts: 1255

1. never normalize.

Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 8:43 pm

thanks guys..

Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 12:39 am

RecorderMan wrote:

1. never normalize.

I was wondering when and who would point this out

gain structure
you can't get away from it

Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 5:51 am

Bluemonster71 wrote:

I use Vegas as well. Most of the time after importing audio in Vegas I have to normalise the tracks ... Pushing the volume in vegas will cause clipping. There is just not enough head room there.

You don't have enough headroom because you normalise.

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:32 pm

I normalize because every once in a while the tracks I import don't import at the level they were recorded. I don't do it to every track all the time. If you normalize to 0dB there is no hope I understand that.

But if I take the track from Vegas and open it in Soundforge and use Volume or Wave Hammer ect. it creates to much noise.

I have been using Vegas Sound Forge since the first release and followed the directions for the why normalize.

Why would normalizing be bad on a track or two? Seriously though have I been missing something all these years?
If I gave bad info I am sorry.

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:38 pm

IIRs wrote:

Bluemonster71 wrote:

I use Vegas as well. Most of the time after importing audio in Vegas I have to normalise the tracks ... Pushing the volume in vegas will cause clipping. There is just not enough head room there.

You don't have enough headroom because you normalise.

Vegas is weird some times. A single track at low volume will clip the master even if the bus is well below 0db without normalize. Doesn't happen all the time but it does. I suppose it could be a bug seeing that most of the time you can't hear the clipping.

Respected Past Moderator Joined: Mar 13, 2001 Posts: 1255

I'd lose vegas....

then it would be "Lost Vegas" Wink

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:50 am

http://www.lostvagueness.com/

Wink

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:21 am

Bluemonster71 wrote:

I normalize because every once in a while the tracks I import don't import at the level they were recorded. I don't do it to every track all the time. If you normalize to 0dB there is no hope I understand that.

But if I take the track from Vegas and open it in Soundforge and use Volume or Wave Hammer ect. it creates to much noise.

I have been using Vegas Sound Forge since the first release and followed the directions for the why normalize.

Why would normalizing be bad on a track or two? Seriously though have I been missing something all these years?
If I gave bad info I am sorry.

Again, never normalise. Your tracks are quieter because you are importing them into a different environment. There is something wrong with your gainstaging in your multitrack if you're experiencing a difference. This is why standardising is so important. When moving from one app to another, it means that you get consistency in this regard if your gainstaging is consistent across both apps.

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