try mixing louder!
for example if you like the overall balance try raising the sound near 0db! but make it so it doesn't clip!
if necessary try hard limiting!

It's all in the mastering. Talk to the guys in the mastering forum and see if you can get one of them to give you a free demo.

You need to compress and peak limit the 2-mix. It will help to try to eliminate peaks on individual tracks as well.

David French wrote: It's all in the mastering. Talk to the guys in the mastering forum and see if you can get one of them to give you a free demo.

mmmhmmm. There's a reason those guys do what they do. It's the only way.

EricK wrote: You need to compress and peak limit the 2-mix. It will help to try to eliminate peaks on individual tracks as well.

Only if you're NOT going to have it mastered - Otherwise, NEVER limit (or compress for voume) the stereo bus. Keep your PEAKS at around -6dBfs and worry about the MIX - not the volume.

Once limiting is done, that's it. You will severely limit what the mastering engineer (even if that's YOU) can do.

I can never stress this enough.

Massive Mastering wrote: [quote=EricK]You need to compress and peak limit the 2-mix. It will help to try to eliminate peaks on individual tracks as well.

Only if you're NOT going to have it mastered - Otherwise, NEVER limit (or compress for voume) the stereo bus. Keep your PEAKS at around -6dBfs and worry about the MIX - not the volume.

Right on John, I'm with ya. I just figured he wasn't going to have it mastered. But either way, compression and peak limiting are the tools that a mastering engineer will use to achieve that heightened state of RMS.
8-)

yeah, have it professionally mastered, it's the only waaay, yadayadayadah.....
well, i'm pretty sure you're not going to get every experiment you mix professionally mastered , so i'd say: peaklimit your mix with a decent plugin, it makes your mix louder, and, when done right, it gives your mix punch...

Compress the snot out of everything, compress the snot out of the mix as you're printing it, then find some Marcussen disciple to master it. Your product will come out as loud [and boring] as everything else on the radio. It's funny, but for some reason when you reduce the dynamic range as much as has become vogue in the past few years... you for all intents and purposes also remove a good portion of the excitiment and attitude that used to accompany most "popular" forms of music.

It's funny, but the "louder" we get stuff, the "safer" the product appears. If we look back at the roots of modern popular music, from hi-hop to rock and roll, it was all about danger and risk. With the current production model we seem to be doing everything humanly possible to remove both danger and risk from our product.

I find it ironic [and unfortunately boring].

Peace.

Well said Flectcher! 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)

hey guys so many nice suggestions...i really appriciate that.... but again i wanna mention here is...my mix is perfect...and i know my country studios and mastering people they can't even make it louder cuz it never happened in past.....all i wanna know is there a particular mastering unit which gives boost to your mix...staying under the peaks.....thats all i wanna know...or should i get it mastered from studios in America or Canada....can anyone tell me how much does it cost to master each song... and good one....

shezan wrote: hey guys so many nice suggestions...i really appriciate that.... but again i wanna mention here is...my mix is perfect...

Wow! That's a pretty bold statement! I know some guys that have been doing this stuff for over 30 years that can't say that their mixes are "perfect."

First - Fletcher is right. A bit sarcastic, but right as usual.

Second - what you are referring to is a limiter. This isn't new, fancy hardware, it's been around for years. Drive the volume up and then limit the peaks. It will give you that nice loud sound that's sure to get you a platinum record b/c everybody listening to the radio will hear your LOUD perfect mix.

If you are going to do this yourself, (and why would you - are you a mastering engineer?) please be kind to everyone listening to your song and follow these rules:
1. Please, please, please, use a decent limiter! No, the plug-in that came with your DAW is NOT a decent limiter.
2. For the love of God, leave some dynamic range. If you look at your wave in an edit window and it looks like a series of square waves, or a solid block, you have compressed and limited too much. Start over...
3. There is no step 3 - go to a mastering engineer. You will find their prices very reasonable to cure your perftect mix. There are quite a few good ones on this forum that have their prices posted on their web-pages or will gladly consult with you and quote you a price. Hint: it's VERY reasonable - probably 1/20th the price of what you'd pay for that decent limiter I recommended in step 1.

:) J

Can you please post your perfect mix!!!!! I've never heard one! This is a once in a lifetime thing!!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!

:twisted:

Do a search for Scrollworks Peak Slammer. It's well worth the $30 it costs. It has a unique approach to getting you on your way to what you are after. I believe that they still offer a 30 day free trial so you have nothing to lose.
Most important, don't let everyone tell you that you can't do it. I bet you can come pretty damn close if not better than 90% of the crap they sell us nowdays. I haven't heard a good commercial CD in 5 years. Besides, most people are listening on crap factory car stereos or MP3 on cheap computer speakers (not me)

Also, keep in mind heavy limiting WILL change your "perfect mix", and likely end up burying the drums transients and any other highly transient sounds.

I am also a fan of "a loud mix starts with the source", and heavy compression during tracking is one way to get there. Just don't over-do it. The "In your face" sound is hard to create from a nice clean, dynamic, natural mix.

I'm still a fan of the Waves L2, but I have NOT tried the UAD Precision limiter yet (A UAD-1 is on my "to get" list). The PSP Vintage Warmer is also killer for fattening up individual tracks, and adding the lovely knee distortion to saturate the sound (analog-ish).

:cool:

paulpreamble wrote:
Most important, don't let everyone tell you that you can't do it. I bet you can come pretty damn close if not better than 90% of the crap they sell us nowdays. I haven't heard a good commercial CD in 5 years. Besides, most people are listening on crap factory car stereos or MP3 on cheap computer speakers (not me)

Okay, so I'm a little confused here. First, you tell Shezan to do his own 'cuz it will sound close to 90% of the stuff you insist sucks. Wow, so, he should make his perfect mix sound like processed fecal matter?

I can think of quite a few decent mixes/masters produced in the past five years. True, quite a few on my top list are classical, but what about some of the new jazz stuff from Tierney Sutton or Diana Krall?

And what is this idea that it doesn't matter because most people will be listening in their car or on their cheap computer speakers? It's because of that mentality that crap is being turned out all the time! If you don't engineer/master for the listener who has a stack of Krell amplifiers and B&W Nautilus' connected by MIT Opus cables, (in otherwords, your ideal listener) then what is the point of engineering or mastering in the first place? We should all turn out crappy products because no one cares - their IPod won't let them hear the difference between a 96Khz source, or a 128Kb/sec MP3!

Shezan, do yourself a huge favor - If you love your work and you really do feel like it is perfect, get it professionally mastered, you won't regret it.

J...

P.s. Paulpreamble - you are insulting a good deal of musicians on this site if you say that you haven't heard a good mix in 5 years. That means one of two things - either you aren't listening to some of the peoples work on this site (and they're missing precious sales), or you are saying that you have listened and you think it sucks! Or, I guess there is the third option: you are stating this bold of a statement in hopes of making yourself feel/look better. Please be careful before making such inflamatory comments and consider your audience.

Hey Shezan,

If you're using a DAW, make sure your basic tracks don't have any DC-offset in them. Most DAWs provide a way to check and remove DC-offset. Also put a steep high-pass filter with a cut-off around 40Hz on all tracks to filter out sub-sonic frequencies. Samples transposed and played in lower registers can cause sub-sonic frequencies. Both of the above will un-necessarily limit dynamic range and cause your mix to sound softer even when normalized.

Randyman, gets it. Just wait until your perfect mix meets the very un-perfect device you are gonna use to make it louder that you don't have any experience with and don't know how use or work. Then what will you have?

Thank you...so much guys... so many suggestions once again.....i really appriciate that.....and Cucco...man you got me...sorry i got excited about my work so i used the word Perfect....i forgot that no one is perfect in this world thanx for reminding me that... now i say it its a better mix not the best. :)
and guys u r rite...i should get it mastered by the pro mastering engineer...even if its a little expensive...but it will be a worth doing if its that good......thanx once again guys...take care....i will be back soon with another query...cuz u are the only people who reply...right within few hours...and i really like that......

"Perceived Loudness"... Hmmm...

Radio is bound by law to modulate their signal at no more than 100% so they Limit the crap out of their signal in an attempt to be the loudest on the dial. Maybe competitive loudness is what is driving the Brick-Wall mastering trend as well. That's why I do it. I have gone so far as to mix while monitoring through my mastering chain, so I have a better chance of hearing everything in the end.

I'll submit that compression and EQ are also important in achieving "perceived loudness". Limiting, by itself, won't hurt a mix too terribly much, unless you squash it to the point that it almost becomes compression.

As for weather modern trends in mastering are good... For the sake of dynamics in music, I think not. For adding outrageous energy to a new rock mix, oh yeah! Your on the edge of your seat. It almost feels like something is terribly wrong and it could all explode any minute... If you call that energy. :)