Ugh, I can't get the loudness I want! How skewed is my gain staging?

[Ice Man]

Okay, so I'm trying to hop onto the boat where I don't crush my mixes with limiting and use gain staging for volume, but as with anything it's a work in progress. Right now, I tend to individually compress and limit vocals, bass, and drum elements. Occasionally, I'll exchange limiting with clipping on sources I don't want to change as noticably. Now, by doing this, when I get a mix I like, it's still a struggle to get it loud. As to not harsh my mix, I tend to stack SSL Comps and Gclips on the 2bus in very small increments to edge up the volume, with a limiter at the end pushing -1.5db, but I'm consistently stuck at -8db overall. Am I needing more compression at the mixing stage? I tend to run out of processing power at the tail end of mixing, but I'm thinking about just using R-Channel or SSL-Channel to replace multiple plugins on tracks in case I need more subgroups and compression. How easy is it for you guys to get your volume closer to -6db and how many stages of compression to your tracks and group go to before mastering?

Thanks for an insight,
Daniel

 

[smy1]

-8db?

6db??

What are you talking about? RMS levels?

 

[lepersmeesa]

I have similar problems. I've been able to get it a bit louder, by cutting out unnecessary frequencies like low cutting everything to at least 40hz, as the frequencies below this are eating up headroom, and similar things to try to help out limiter and compressors.

A lot of the mastering suites ive seen generally have a multi band compressor. So i suppose you could try multi band everything before hand, then again on the master buss? But Im guessing it would take out way too many dynamics. I've always been interested how people get things super loud, without distorting. I always seem to be hitting red in Pro Tools.

 

[AStacy2]

-8db rms seems loud enough to me.

 

[everybody's x]

-8?

dude

stop

seriously

 

[discordless]

i they reffer to maximum or smth which doesnt really matter
medium -10 top :-s

 

[Ice Man]

Sorry for any confusion...I mean/meant -8 rms. My peaks are getting into the -6 range, but on average I'm always stuck around -8.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

This is already too loud, why would you want to go any louder?

 

[discordless]

i think that loud would work on a mix like a trance or house song or smth
but a song with more complex freq work, like metal hmmm artefacts all over

 

[Torniojaws]

It also depends at which frequencies you have -8 dB RMS. You can have a song that is -4 dB RMS and still not be even close to as loud as any random recent CD. What matters is the frequency where the average sound is. Human ear is the most sensitive at 2 - 5 kHz, so if those are quieter (say, -15 dB RMS), you won't be even near as loud as commercial CDs, even if your RMS (usually in the lower register) is technically 5 dB louder.

 

[MetalWorks]

It also depends at which frequencies you have -8 dB RMS. You can have a song that is -4 dB RMS and still not be even close to as loud as any random recent CD. What matters is the frequency where the average sound is. Human ear is the most sensitive at 2 - 5 kHz, so if those are quieter (say, -15 dB RMS), you won't be even near as loud as commercial CDs, even if your RMS (usually in the lower register) is technically 5 dB louder.

Strong Point.

 

[smy1]

i think that loud would work on a mix like a trance or house song or smth
but a song with more complex freq work, like metal hmmm artefacts all over

Actually it's the other way around for me most of the time. The big amount of bass frequencies in electronic/dance music makes it harder to get it as loud.