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advice for compression/limiting needed


stalk

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OK, so I'm pre-mastering the old studio recordings of my band coz we want to re-release them on CD soon. I'm done but the end result sounds a little low in volume. I've tweaked the dynamics a bit and normalized everything so far. Everything I've tried with compression and limiting didn't sound too good. Anyone know what I can do? I've tried countless settings with Audition 1.5, Cubase SX and Audition 2.0 but the results weren't good because the waves were limited/cut off at their peaks. Is Wavelab any good? Cheers for any advice, y'all

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OK, so I'm pre-mastering the old studio recordings of my band coz we want to re-release them on CD soon. I'm done but the end result sounds a little low in volume. I've tweaked the dynamics a bit and normalized everything so far. Everything I've tried with compression and limiting didn't sound too good. Anyone know what I can do? I've tried countless settings with Audition 1.5, Cubase SX and Audition 2.0 but the results weren't good because the waves were limited/cut off at their peaks. Is Wavelab any good? Cheers for any advice, y'all

 

Wavelab with the Diamond Bundle is Superb supposedly. My housemate masters everything on there and he realeses his music on Valve recordings so as you can gess it's got to be sonicly amazing.

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catholic schoolgirls crotch eh? oh the memories..

 

ok..

 

compression, set the attack to between 20-30ms or so if you stil want to keep the punch. then set a moderate ratio on it, eq before compression but dont overcook the highs..

 

after compression use a multiband limiter but be very careful, as it might sound wicked on monitors then when you play it on a stereo its pure high mid and sub - best to tail off subs on the eq stage and lower the very high frequencies.

 

set limiting to minus 2 or so, but use your ears as this depends on the mix.

 

alternatively pay me to do it..

 

http://www.myspace.com/eclecticbreaksstudio ;)

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also paul that vintagewarmer is a killer, but again, it'll sound shit on a good system unless you have your low mids mixed right. also I suggest eqing the tail off the subs before warming, that way you get a solid low end without big wobbly kicks that don't get em in the chest

 

just my 10 pence worth.

 

lemme hear that caveman tune btw!

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word, I found that vintage warmer and it looks promising. I can't really EQ a whole lot coz I only have the mixed recordings and not the separate tracks. So far it looks good. volume was cranked up a good deal without cut off's in the peaks. I owe you guys a beer.

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Normalizing wasn't the best idea, this is way to make audio files sound louder, but that's about it. Take a step back and start from scratch. As mentioned above its literally all about multi-band compression for the most part, a tad bit of reverb on the master output and limiting for preference.

 

Izotope Ozone is great (grab it off emule) and you can download the whole user guide off their website to walk you through the whole process. The guide may seem long but you'll be through it in an hour or so.

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It's very easy to wreck stuff with compressing and limiting if you aren't careful. It doesn't HAVE to be 'loud' to sound good.....

You can run as many cracked £5000 plugins you want, but unless you have some decent monitors in a acoustically treated space you may struggle.

If it's important - pay someone to do it.

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yeah, I did start from zero, so to speak. tweaked the EQ a little then compressed, no need for normalizing any more after that. Of course I could have done a hell of a lot more but I just do it to get some experience since I never used my computer for editing non-electronic music.

I compared the waves with Slayer's "God Hates Us All" and damn, they compressed the shit out of it. I also wanted to make sure to just raise the volume without overleveling everything. I think it worked fine for my first attempt. Didn't use any limiters at all except for two live tracks but only because they still sounded to low after compression compared to the studio stuff.

the CD will be limited to 1,000 or maybe 1,500 copies and all we'll receive is 10% of the CDs pressed to sell, so it's a true underground release. All proceeds go to the band itself to spend for new studio recordings or print shirts whatever, so all I personally earn is experience. Btw, all these recordings weren't mastered at all when they came out back then, everything was pressed to vinyl directly from the DATs.

I listened on several stereos, on my monitors, on headphones and in the car and it sounds good. if we record another album we'll definitely have it mastered by a real mastering studio. We did it with the last album and it was definitely worth it.

If anyone wants to hear the result I can upload one song in the stages it went through. It's extreme Metal tho, so be warned :p

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You can run as many cracked £5000 plugins you want, but unless you have some decent monitors in a acoustically treated space you may struggle.

If it's important - pay someone to do it.

 

the bottom line!

 

someone said earlier here about the waves L3 and vintage warmer, they'l have presets that will help if youre new to this, but yeah, if its important get someone else to do it who has a treated space, nothing worse than spending hours mixing to get it out of the room n find it a complete mess again...

 

i find the L2 overcooks for my liking and prefer the c4 parametric compressor, but by the looks of it the warmer does that too - nice!

 

can anyone point me in the direction of the vintage warmer, have been told good things about it and want to jump on it - havent got the coffers since shelling out on acoustic treatment - studio nearly finished :8

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