Correct me if I'm wrong, but this wouldn't necessarily ensure the same loudness in your tracks, just the same peak level. If one track is very dynamic and one track is very squashed the perceived loudness could be very different with identical peak levels.
Well if you are using consistent compression techniques across all your tracks to generally tame the dynamics, ideally they will live in the same dynamic range. If you have a crazy isolated peak that really throws this balance off, maybe you can objectively say that this is not a good artifact to have in your track/ is a mistake.
I assume this guy has mastered each individual track and bounced the song down to two tracks. Now his instruction starts with importing that to 2 track semi mastered track back in to be Mastered on it's final mastering (output) Stereo Buss. PROFESSIONALS WOULD USE A LIMITER IN FINAL STEP not normalize. Also on this last buss some light compression to bat down transients [some compressors are good at this some are not], EQ [one with character], Something to bake sounds together (Add Vibe) [A secret] then the LIMITER. Remember there is a thing called perceived loudness so use your ears and perceive from one track to the next. Adjust the makeup gain on the Compressor on the Output Buss remember this is the first in the chain. To give head room happens when you are first mixing tracks. Drum Kick and Bass should be about -7 or 8 DB maybe -9 in songs with lots of stuff overlapping. Remember to sidechain the Bass with the Kick when called for. The make up gain is your life saver if you need more head room when you get to last steps of mixing OUTPUT STEREO BUSS.
I have a mix of several songs and the levels of the songs are off how do I even out the entire track so that so that the volume of the entire track is the same?
Hi there! Open a new project. Pull in the mix-down of your song as an audio file. Normalize the audio file so it will max out at 0db. Then put in a Gain plugin set to -6db to create headroom for mastering. You will need to do this individually for each song. I hope this helps!
When mastering in logic pro -during saving the file the volume gets over writed with normalization .Is there any option to change the final volume/dbl? Or any plugin that can help?
Hello, thanks for the video. but got a problem, I have the same settings but all in "functions" is greyed out, I did exactly what you said, and it works only when bouncing but the file becomes stereo and would like to leave it in mono (after voice recording), thanks a lot for your help
Happy Holidays.. Hopefully I can get an answer. Let's say the music in the region is at a good level but there's a particular section of the song that's louder and needs to be reduced.. How do I reduce this section without automation?
@@sixhatsrecording that was probably the best option.. I ended up using the marquee tool and selection based processing but changed the entire file. Now I'm trying to repair the audio because I couldn't undo or change history. Enjoy your holiday!
Think of these steps in context with other songs on your album. When mastering an album, you want all of the songs to have relatively the same volume level. 10 songs on your album, pre-mastering, may have different peak volumes. One song may peak at -7db. Another song might peak at -9db, and another song might peak at -5db. So Normalizing the songs sets all of their maximum volumes to 0... and now all of the songs have the same starting volume. But you also need headroom to EQ and add compression and limiting, so dropping the gain to -6 creates headroom. I hope this helps!
Hey Brian, great ideas... I have just finished mixing 15 or so songs and I just use the master fader to control volume and get each equal, then put the mastering plugins on top... Is there a difference to doing it your way, or even putting a gain plugin and setting it to -6 on the mastering strip?... There's so many different ways to do things, I get so confused... But great video :)
Hi Adam! Thanks for watching and the kind words. Are you "mastering" on the main output channel while mixing? If so, I'd recommend exporting a mix first, then Mastering all of the songs on an album. But if you've already done that... If you use my "Normalize" trick... Putting the Gain plugin first in your chain (as opposed to using the fader) ensures that you're not going to clip the channel or any of the plugins down the line. The fader is typically routed after the plugins. Also, using a "Normalizing" the track and using a Gain plugin first helps you set a predictable peak level. I hope this helps!
Hi Brian, thanks a lot for your tutorials, it's very helpful and appreciated. When you say mixing on an album, what exactly do you mean? Mixing all tracks together on the same Logic Project? Thanks a lot.
Hey Roberto! Just saw this... I apologize for the delay in replying. Mixing on an album would mean taking your 10 songs (or however many) and making them all sound the same volume though the mastering process.
His question was do you IMPORT all the songs (bounced stereo tracks) into a single Mastering project? I have the same question that no one on youtube has answered.
No. Because with plain normalizing you just set the peak level of the track to desired volume, in this video to 0dB. That isn't changing the audio quality at all and not affecting on dynamic range like when using compressors/limiters... So, when normalizing, the peak volume of a processed track matches the volume you set in normalize software. That's if using peak normalisation, there is also a RMS normalising method. That being said you have EBU R-128 broadcast standard normalise method too, *Cheers!*
Normalising peak signal will increase your noise floor. Peak level normalisation only ensures that the loudest part of every song would be the same level.
