Man, this post smells familiar. A person who seemingly has recording knowledge (recorded and mastered their own tracks), is asking for suggestions about changing something that they are already happy with and they measure levels using the volume knob on their stereo. Very JP22ish.

I don't mean to poke fun but you're using Pro-Tools and Wavelab which both have volume meters of some sort, but you can't tell us what the average level of the track is and how much you would like to increase it by. Instead you say that you don't know how many "decibles you're missing" and say that it's 3 ticks on your volume knob?? That just sounds ridiculous.

If you are sincere about your request, then I apologize and offer the following suggestion:

If the difference you want is, as you say, "3 ticks max", then I'd recommend that you leave it alone and just let people turn up their radios.

Go here and read.

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C

Ya.. nice reply.. dont even bother with your smart remarks for one, i already have read ur article, and even if i told you that my RMS level was hiting -6 ud say that is ridiculous too, but guess what, its the closest ive gotten to it sounding professional, and... even if u though it was ridiculous u dont know ass, cuz ive seen hit songs it
-1 RMS...anddd.. even if i told u all the information i have, it still really is useless, cuz unless u hear what im hearing, then theres no point, and if ur so smart, u should know that. also sometimes general statistics about RMS or peaking just dont apply to everyone. sometimes u gotta push the boundaries. also,if i were talking about live instruments, this would be a whole different story, but i am working with reason and digital samples which are already recording in great sounding environments, which to be honest is with you is not even close as hard to deal with compared to a home studio environment...
All i was asking is any suggestions maybe on some hardware or software that might help squeeze that potential couple of dBs out my of tracks. No need for your point-less smart remarks.
am i not getting from my waves plugin.. should i maybe be looking at the UAD stuff,
if anyone has any suggestions, particular experience on this matter, please post..
Thanks anyways pr0gram..

:shock: JP22 returns!!

Read [="http://www.digido.com./portal/pmodule_id=11/pmdmode=fullscreen/pageadder_page_id=33/"]this[/]="http://www.digido.c…"]this[/] grab [[url=http://="http://www.elementa…"]this plug[/]="http://www.elementa…"]this plug[/] then if you still want to ruin your mixes, go ahead..

rg7620 wrote: ive seen hit songs it
-1 RMS...

Wow! Which ones? Did you use the volume knob on your stereo to determine that? :roll:

"I am trying to squeeze volume/punch out of these tracks."

this is where it goes wrong...

volume is (mostly) the opposite of punch :shock:

Don't guess.

Go here and download this plugin. http://www.elementalaudio.com/products/inspector/

Then look at your mixes.

-6dBFS for RMS average is WAY TOO HIGH unless you seriously want to take all the life out of the recordings. Maybe if you are doing hip hop, heavy heavy metal or reggae you might approach -10 dBRMS but -6 is almost flat line.

As far as sounding professional.....what does that really mean? Sounding professional means the recording was well done, the mixing was well done and the mastering was well done and the songs are good to start with. If you are meeting all of these criteria then it should sound "professional"

My advice would be to have some one who is a real "professional" (a mastering engineer) do the mastering with you in the room so you can observe what he or she is doing to the mixes to make them sound more "professional" If you only want them to do one track it would give you some good ideas and would be worth the money.

All the fancy equipment and or software in the world can't help someone who does not know what they are doing. You cannot buy experience at GC or Sam Ash. (however in order to fatten their bottom line you may get a lot of suggestions as to what equipment and or software you should by to do what you are asking but as for experience-FORGET IT!

The other question you have to ask yourself is why ask a question that you already seem to know the answer to. You state you read the article and the article is very well written and what the author says is very true. Why don't you believe it?

Asking for help and then jumping down someone's throat smells like a Troll.

You can't get to the level of "professional" without taking the time to learn, though experience what you are doing. There are no shortcuts, miracle cures or software/hardware that is going to do it for you. It takes hard work and lots of it.

Thomas W. Bethel wrote:

-6dBFS for RMS average is WAY TOO HIGH unless you seriously want to take all the life out of the recordings.

Thomas, you are conservative when you say "take all the life out of the recordings". It is more than that, it is distortion & artifacts. Life has been pulled out way before reaching -6dBFS, imo.

Thomas W. Bethel wrote:
My advice would be to have some one who is a real "professional" (a mastering engineer) do the mastering with you in the room so you can observe what he or she is doing to the mixes to make them sound more "professional" If you only want them to do one track it would give you some good ideas and would be worth the money.

Way to go ! 8-)

with hip hop, you can peak the rms at -6. I would say that you are pretty much at your limits with plugs. If you want to squeeze that extra 3 ticks out, it's going to cost a boat load. How does the saying go? "the last 10% is 80% of the cost". You will have to go the harware route, the expensive stuff.

IIRs wrote: [quote=rg7620] ive seen hit songs it
-1 RMS...

Wow! Which ones?
Well, there's a track by:
The Square Waves

and don't forget that really popular one by:
The White Noises

and who couldn't remember that famous chart-topper by a collaborative group effort from:
The Ear Bleeds and The Unlistenable Shits

:wink:

Ah yes the The Unlistenable Shits, boy that takes me back. They simply don't write songs like that anymore.

Obviously my instincts were correct! I officially retract my apology.

this post reminds me of : Level Control in Digital Mastering
Music mastering is becoming a battle for maximum level rather than a quest for audio quality, because counting consecutive samples at OdBFS is not an adequate restriction of level.
which is a pdf in tcs tech library. Its a good read and so are the other docs there.
http://www.tcelectronic.com/media/nielsen_lund_1999_level_co.pdf

In short (sorry i just woke up), if you dont know exactly what you are doing, use a long release as a starting point(1sec +) and monitor the reduction meter for no more than 6db of reduction.

If you dont have a decent monitoring system, use spectrum analysis to see whats going on in your mix.

If you are not getting the results you want, go back to your mix and redo the parts you think are lacking what you need. You cant have all sounds play overcompressed to death, there has got to be some dynamic separation of the sounds so they all co-exist in the mix. If its still not there, the best thing to do to glue the sounds between each other is reverb, not compression.

Take care

after the first 3 posts this thread should have been closed

Calgary wrote: Ah yes the The Unlistenable Shits, boy that takes me back. They simply don't write songs like that anymore.

They're back and doing rap now.

This does remind of JP, but the spelling has gotten worse.