How do I get broadcast quality?

[jlaplante]

I have gotten much criticism for the sound quality of my music. They say that my songs sound GOOD but ...NOT QUITE THE BROADCAST QUALITY NEEDED FOR THIS LISTING. How do you all achieve broadcast quality for your submissions?I don't have much money, so I can't afford to record in a professional studio. I have a Yamaha 16G which is great and allows me to record all of my songs. When I listen right from my system with headphones, my stuff sounds amazing. When I burn the CD from my system and listen to the product, that is where the problems start. The overall volume of my songs are way lower than a commercially ready CD. Also, they often sound flat and distant. How can the songs sound so good on my system but so bad on CD? I know that there is something called Mastering that would maybe solve this problem. Again, I don't have the money to pay a mastering house $100 per song. Is there any way to boost the overall volume of your music without going through a mastering house? Can I do it myself? Is there a decent computer program that would help me? Please help! -Jeff

[mazz]

Jeff,You realize you've opened Pandora's box, don't you? On this forum there have been many discussions about this very subject. I suggest you do a search and start reading, that will help you get going on your journey and we won't need to cover the same exact ground over and over.Another suggestion would be to give a listen to music that has been posted here that has been forwarded and hear how it compares to yours on your system. This will help you determine the sonic flaws in your system and will help you compensate for them when you mix your own music.Any decent audio editor software will allow you to boost the overall volume of your music but I suggest that you check the levels you are mixing at first. If your track volumes or your master are set too low while mixing, you're not using the full headroom capabilities of your system. Of course, if your tracks are recorded too low to begin with, you risk boosting noise when you raise the levels of your tracks. You might be cranking the headphone output of your recorder to the point where it sounds great but your actual master might be what is low and you're making the gain up in your headphones but not on your mix.Also, post some links to your music as it is right now and we may be able to give you some tips to get you started.Good luck,Mazz

[billg]

Hi Jeff. If you google "mastering software" you'll turn up tons of programs for mastering. If you don't know what you're doing it's better to get a program that offers a lot of tweakable "presets". With some practice you can learn what will get your mix closer to the commercial cds by doing a lot of A/B comparison, But BEWARE; it's also pretty easy to screw-up by over doing it! I use Mackie Final Mix which comes bundled with Tracktion, others here can probably offer others. Are you sure this is the only thing that's keeping your tracks from being considered "broadcast quality?". If I were you I'd post a few songs on this forum & let some of the "gurus" offer their advice. It could save you a lot of headaches in the long run!

[hummingbird]

I'm not sure if this will be helpful, but I have had a couple of similar crits in the past, so this is what I would do:- don't mix on the same day that you record- take off the headphones when mixing & use speakers at no more than medium volume- pan the tracks effectively & have all filters set (reverb, compression, etc)- set the levels on all tracks to "0" - begin by nudging down the sounds that cover the lead and keep working until the mix is warm and each instrument can be heard (panning) but is in its place (volume)I have a final mix plug-in so I will play around with settings until I hear the depth I want & boost the master volume as well.As I do this I reference samples of similar works (go to Amazon and listen to artists referenced in the listing) to try to get the same "feel" or "texture" to the sound.- leave the mix alone for 24 hours if you can, and come back & listen with fresh earsTHen I create an mp3 and post it on-line and listen - that will often tell me if my levels are high enough. I will also run off a mono mix to double check that the levels are good. And I burn the stereo mix to CD and go play it on my crappy player to see what it sounds like.I'm not sure what software you are using for mixing. At the moment I do this in Tracktion2 which you can buy as a download for $110 or so. Hope that helps somewhat. "Studio Buddy" - which can be downloaded from the Taxi site - is helpful with some of this.this is useful too...http://www.musesmuse.com/00000825.htmlc ... mmmin'bird

[davewalton]

Hey Jeff,I would really be helpful to hear an example or two. It's hard to identify the problem based on the writer's description. I would say almost for sure that it's not a "volume" problem. A broadcast quality recording with a low volume is still broadcast quality, just not as loud. Of course there's no way to hear the tracks right from your system for a comparison but maybe someone familiar with your setup will offer a reason and solution.Post links a track or two if you can.Dave

[diogenes]

I think everyone gave great advice. A couple things I would like to add however are the differences between apparent volume and actual volume. When mixing an averaging meter (the vu type) is very useful to have in addition to the peak style segment meters we all use today. With the peak style you see what your hitting but not what your averaging. Basically you need to be as close to "0" as often as possible throughout your mix. For that particular application, the VU is the way to go. There are some available very cheap that you can patch between your main out's and mix down deck. Also, depending on your DAW the cooasional peak above "0" wont hurt anything, but be careful. A word about mastering. I've had projects mastered at very expensive world-class mastering houses (like Airshow in CO) and I've also used studios closer to me, that aren't dedicated mastering houses, but are very affordable and do quality work. Now first off, there really is a huge difference between the two, but for most of my clients the closer and cheaper studio is sufficient. It brings your volume up, adds continuity to your tracks, puts a nice sheen on your music etc. It's very worth it. You could probably do an entire album for less than $200 if you shop around. And be very picky, trust your gut. A poorly mastered song is worse than un-mastered any day. My last client mastered a 4 song ep for $130. And with regards to doing it yourself, I like to leave one phase of every project to some unbiased ears. I do all the tracking and mixing and feel that I'm just to close it to objectively master. Not to mention mastering is very much it's own thing. It's different that mixing and involves it's own unique tools. It's very much becoming a lost art. Take a look at the credits of some CD's you own. Every single one of them was professioanlly mastered. Probably by Bob Ludwig! Not to say you shouldn't do it yourself. But be prepared to investigate and educate yourself. Look into multi-band compressors, limiters, eq's etc. There's a lot of great info on the web. Check out some forums like tweakhedz, gearslutz, tapeop, etc. Good look. Your first time around I would definitely let someone else do it just to have a great reference when doing your mastering.

[matto]

Just to point out...you do NOT need to have your songs professionally mastered for them to be broadcast quality...Dave is right about broadcast quality being broadcast quality at any volume .Most music libraries (which run a large portion of Taxi's "broadcast quality" listing) do their own mastering anyway, so they generally want unmastered tracks.That being said, it's a good idea to have your CD's be at a decent volume (although they don't have to be as hot as commercially released CD's), but this is easily accomplished in any number of inexpensive PC applications...then again, it should certainly be possible to get a decent level from your Yamaha.

[jlaplante]

OK. Thanks for all of your advice. I really appreciate it. Here is the link to my myspace page where you can listen to my songs. If the link doesn't work, just copy and paste. (How do I link to a song on my taxi hosting page?) Anyway, I would love any feedback on my songs. Thanks again. http://www.myspace.com/thelaplantebrothers