How do I export my tracks so they are louder?

[Lizh]

Hi all, I am a pro musician but amateur producer. I am using Logic Pro X with an apogee maestro 2 to write and mix and wondering how I make my mixes sound more full and export them so they are louder. I am guessing it has something to do with pluggins, but not really sure where to start. Here is a sample from my sound cloud page for your reference. What would you suggest? Thanks. https://soundcloud.com/liz-hennessy/hope
Liz.

[TheElement]

Hi Liz,

What I do is I dont low cut that much. only if there is a conflict with some sounds. if you low cut too much you end up with a thin mix. so only eq if really needed.

as for volume I like to add a compressor and limiter to the master channel. There are so many master chains you could do. for me I just use EQ > Compressor > Stereo Enhancer > Limiter. And I have a lot of headroom in my DAW so mix hot and that also helps with volume. If I need to tweak I will turn down the pre amp on the master buss.

But there are some quick tools to get you a louder mix like Rob Chiarelli's MixBussLite. Thats a low cost one.

And then there is Ozone. Of course there are many more out there but those are the two I have tried.

[Len911]

https://youtu.be/b_nuqKID26s

Liz, limiter is what you are defining. Compressors/limiters. There should be a few in Logic Pro X, the one in the youtube is the "adaptive limiter".

[andygabrys]

liz - looking at my meters on my interface while your track was playing makes me think you have mixed with a fair bit of headroom (which is positive - don't change that aspect of what you are doing) but also brings up a few things that can be done to make your mix "louder" "fuller" and "more impressive" to the listener.

so three things to check out:

a) peak normalization - if you have mixed a production and have left a fair amount of headroom (say the master fader peaks at -3 dB) then you can make your mix louder by normalizing it so that the peak volume of the track now happens at -0.5 dB instead of -3.0 dB.

Logic can do this in 2 ways

1) in the bounce dialogue window - there is a drop down menu beside "normalization". Geneerally if you have used a limiter et al as advised above you would leave this "OFF". The second option is "overload protection only" which will export a "clean" undistorted mix even if you are careless with levels and the master output is distorting.

The third option "ON" will perform peak normalization - and if you have mixed your track with headroom, it will take the loudest point on the track and increase its volume to 0.0 dB. Lets say the peak of the mixed track was -3.0 dB. It will increase the volume of the entire track by 3.0 dB - linearly - meaning that it won't change the relationship between the loudest and softest points of your mix - but everything in the track will be 3 db louder.

2) within logic is the Audio editor - there is a normalization function as well as a gain change function. You would have to mix down your track and bring it into another empty session to effectively use this.

b) Compression - dynamic range compression.

This is taking a track that might have a peak of -3.0 dB, and the lowest volume point may be -20 dB - so about 17 dB of dynamic range - and squeezing it so that it might have 15 dB of range, or even less. Maybe 10 dB or 5 dB.

Since a lot of your music has orchestral type instruments of a sensitive nature, you have to be careful how much you compress things but its definitely an effective way of making you "hear everything" in the track, and is common and necessary to get your music sounding like most commercially produced CD's unless your music is orchestral in nature - where extreme dynamic range is generally preferred.

I recently mixed a classical piano CD and we were really light with the use of eq and compression, just trying to bring out a few subtle things, but also wanting to squeeze the entire mix just a little so it was more audible in a car stereo.

3) Limiting

Limiting is a special kind of compression with a high ratio (tech speak that you can google)

Most productions of any pop, rock, or EDM mix are going to end the master plugin chain with a limiter. You fix the ceiling at some value less than 0.0 dB so that you can make clean mp3 conversions of the mastered mix later - that might be -0.5dB or even -1.0 dB.

And then all limiters have an input or drive or gain control that allows you to add volume to the track. The sound will get louder and flatter as you drive it harder, and will eventually distort. Sensitive sounds exhibit distortion more quickly. Synths and things that are common in EDM allow a lot of limiting before they sound "distorted"

If you have no idea what "Mastering" is - you can check out some tutorial videos from places like http://www.macprovideo.com (sale on today as well I noticed), you can find some free videos on YouTube or you can just find the plugins in Logic and start fiddling around.

You will see on the master out in Logic (Output 1-2 if you are working in stereo) has a bunch of channel presets that you can call up and it will put various types of plugins on the output channel. These will all need to be tweaked to suit your particular mix but they will give you some of the basic idea

Hope that helps.

[Lizh]

Wow! Thank you everyone. That has given me a lot of food for thought and a place to start. Got a lot to learn in terms of tech speak, but with your guidance at least I know what to google/youtube now. Thanks heaps!