anonymous
10 March 2005
i'm having problems with my volume levels on Pro Tools. I'm using the MBox to send the signal to my computer. My playback, gain, and fader levels are fine, but when I do a playback or bounce the mix to an MP3/wav i have to turn the volume on my computer speakers up pretty much all the way to be able to hear it. i would just like to know how to increase my volume without having to raise the gain much more. also, i know about clicking 'waveform' on the tracks and choosing volume and raising it that way, but it doesn't seem to help, it just makes it have really bad static. please, any suggestions would be appreciated. thank you.
Comments
Take the two track result and open it into a new Protools sessio
Take the two track result and open it into a new Protools session. Copy it onto a second set of tracks. Normalize one of them using the audiosuite plugin "normalize." Go back and forth and compare the two versions - the one that you bounced and the same thing normalized. Is there a difference in level? If so, you are not getting your mix as hot as you'd like in the computer.
If there is little difference then the issue here is that your music is very dynamic and the nominal level of your music is very quiet in comparison to the peak level. This is normally considered a good thing - something we engineers wish we could do more often - but it tends not to sell records and doesn't sound as "cool." You need to work on compression and limiting if you want to make it sound like more off-the-shelf CDs you buy. What you'll soon realize is that engineering is science and art and it takes a lot of skill, knowledge and practice.
Nika