anonymous
13 July 2005
Hi everyone, I have the following question. Why do my mixes always sound lower than any song on a CD? I have to pump the volume a little bit more in order to hear my final mixes at the same CD level. The Master is always set in such away that the level in the meter is good enough, or close to 0db, sometimes a little bit more. Then, by setting the Master much louder than this, of course, it gets distorted.
Is this normal? Mastering?
thank you
Comments
It's been covered a lot, but yeah, it's a mastering thing. Your
It's been covered a lot, but yeah, it's a mastering thing. Your meter reflects peak db, not RMS db (the average volume). Mastering compression can increase the RMS db, which increases the overall volume of the sound. Two things to try to see what I'm talking about is to A) run it through some sort of "maximizer" like the Waves L2 or L3 ultramaximizer, or if that's not available, throw a compresser on the mix bus, then a limiter afterwards. By working back and forth between the two, you can raise the RMS without clipping. I wouldn't recommend this for a final product, but just to illustrate what I'm saying.