Raising the volume during a chorus.

[sentinel72]

I've seen this mentioned a few times here.

I've never done this, but it makes perfect sense to me.

Question for those of you that do this.

Are you raising the entire track volume? And if so, are you doing this to the entire mix? Or after mixdown?

Or is it just for certain instruments?

 

[TheDriller]

i use volume automation on the individual tracks,
some need to come up more than others.

 

[KillFrenzy]

Most of the times, the arrange itself makes the chorus bigger so I do nothing. When it's really necessary, a small boost on the guitars and/or vocals does the trick

 

[Plankis]

Or you could do like they did: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7978855

 

[kev]

All in the arrangement I think. Sometimes you can switch the panning of your guitars ofr instance, do anything you can to make it sound different.

 

[Metaltastic]

Most of the times, the arrange itself makes the chorus bigger so I do nothing. When it's really necessary, a small boost on the guitars and/or vocals does the trick

Yup

 

[Uladyne]

It seems to me in all my newbness like any automated boost of the whole mix before mastering might introduce some unwanted artifacts, like maybe the choruses just sounding a bit more squashed, perhaps. If the mastering engineer did it it might end up kinda cool, but at the mix stage I would agree with everyone else in that just the arrangement or boosting a few elements would probably be the way to go.

 

[sentinel72]

I'm assuming that its a very subtle raising of guitars and vocals?

I'd worry about losing the drums in the chorus if I raised everything but....

 

[joeymusicguy]

looking at the wave forms from the imogen heap record would probably change your mind about volume adjustments in songs

pretty sure just about every song goes "_/="

= being an overline (because i dont know how to type that on a mac)

 

[ahjteam]

I usually do a small boost (1-1.5dB) to the attack of the first note (usually on guitars) and then slowly bring i back down so it gives you the idea that the chorus comes out louder. it looks like this:

 

[kev]

Just do what metallica do and have it the same volume all the way through, its great that way :[

 

[joeymusicguy]

imogen heap master images





you can see that every song builds up in energy

 

[Jaymz]

I usually do a small boost (1-1.5dB) to the attack of the first note (usually on guitars) and then slowly bring i back down so it gives you the idea that the chorus comes out louder. it looks like this:

That just on the guitars alone?

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

If the song calls for it, I often do it. Hell, sometimes I even make a linear volume raise from the beginning to the end of the song if it feels right

 

[colonel kurtz]

you can always pull the andy wallace trick, and keep the OH tracks low during the verse, then push them up 6-8db when the chorus kicks in...

 

[jangoux]

I do whatever the song asks me to. Usually there is ton of automation on vox/guitars/drums, but besides that, if the song allows, recording a few voices to make it bigger sounding ends up doing the job.

Kinda off, but one thing i NEVER got right is to automate every crash cymball hit on the overheads. I do that for the odd sounding ones (too loud, too quiet..) but most of the time it ends up weird sounding.