What do you guys use to bring volume up on a single track?

[stevehollx]

Not sure how to phrase the topic. Let me explain:

I've got some guitar tracks that were recorded a little quieter than they should have been, so they've got to come up in the mix. They're peaking around -18db right now with the fader at nominal, and I need to give them another 6 or 8 dB. I've got plenty of headroom here, so I don't need a compressor/limiter to get it loud. Just need that plain old volume knob turned up.

I may try just bringing everything down to meet the guitar levels, but them the master track is going to have to come up quite a bit, so I think it makes sense to apply the gain just to the guitar tracks instead of reducing everything else and then applying the gain to the master track.

I tried just throwing gain on the guitar tracks in Sonar via 'trim,' and things seem to get hairy. What do you guys use when you just need to add gain to make something louder (and not worry about the peaks clipping, since I have around 18 dB of hradroom to work with here)? Would normalization on the tracks be the best technique here?

Or is there a really clean VST plugin I can use just to provide a clean gain to the track without adding distortion?

 

[The-Zeronaut]

why dont you try Gclip?

http://www.gvst.co.uk/gclip.htm

 

[NickL]

use the makeup gain on a compressor or EQ to give it a boost. They'll usually give you like an extra 12 dB or so...

 

[AudioGeekZine]

faders go above 0 too.

 

[Morgan C]

I usually just stick the Sonitus EQ (comes with Sonar) on, allows for +-24dB without any EQ actually taking place.

Although I'm inferring that you're actually asking if using a plugin to raise volume is going to reduce the sound quality? I don't know the answer to that but I can't hear any audible distortion - and its too hard to make judgments with such big volume gaps. I can't imagine it would, perhaps on analogue, outboard instruments but I seriously doubt anything ITB would, as long as you're not engaging any of its features.

 

[Kadmium]

Sonalksis FreeG is a free VST / AU plugin that can add up to 18 dB of gain, do panning, and gives peak and RMS metering. I recommend it.

 

[brandy]

Yea - just use a Gain-Plugin, but make sure that the plugin is bit-transparent, I mean - some plugins do alter the sound when insertet, even when not doing any work.

If you use Cubase you better just raise the gain on the gain know on top of the channel in the mixer, here you may just type in 10 db or something and then you are done. That volume change is pre-everything, so you will have the new gain already on the first insert. I think that other apps do have something similar? At least when they are 32bit float, because here you are not able to clip anything inside the mixer itself (not talking about plugings)

Brandy

 

[Sickan]

I'm using the input gain from the mixer in Cubase, don't know how sonar works but you could try GGain - just a simple gain plugin.

 

[ahjteam]

if you still have headroom, why don't you just straight away add gain to the track (in Cubase its something like *right click* > process > gain or use the blue square in the middle of the waveform)?

 

[STINNETT]

Not sure how to phrase the topic. Let me explain:

I've got some guitar tracks that were recorded a little quieter than they should have been, so they've got to come up in the mix. They're peaking around -18db right now with the fader at nominal, and I need to give them another 6 or 8 dB. I've got plenty of headroom here, so I don't need a compressor/limiter to get it loud. Just need that plain old volume knob turned up.

I may try just bringing everything down to meet the guitar levels, but them the master track is going to have to come up quite a bit, so I think it makes sense to apply the gain just to the guitar tracks instead of reducing everything else and then applying the gain to the master track.

I tried just throwing gain on the guitar tracks in Sonar via 'trim,' and things seem to get hairy. What do you guys use when you just need to add gain to make something louder (and not worry about the peaks clipping, since I have around 18 dB of hradroom to work with here)? Would normalization on the tracks be the best technique here?

Or is there a really clean VST plugin I can use just to provide a clean gain to the track without adding distortion?

If you're in Sonar, select the tracks, go to Process > Audio > Gain

From there you can crank it up to 18 db.

 

[joeymusicguy]

yeah, you need to change the gain of the audio its self to do this correctly, aka the wave file. (making use of the 24 bit headroom).

in nuendo / cubase you can just click on the audio event and bring the info header down, and raise the volume there, or hover your mouse in the middle of the event and drag the blue box up.

just dont let it clip

 

[joeymusicguy]

if you still have headroom, why don't you just straight away add gain to the track (in Cubase its something like *right click* > process > gain or use the blue square in the middle of the waveform)?

what he said

 

[-Noodles-]

Gain, compressor makeup gain, and fader gain are all useful..

Sometimes the best solutions aren't always the most complicated!

 

[Jesse Z]

I may try just bringing everything down to meet the guitar levels, but them the master track is going to have to come up quite a bit, so I think it makes sense to apply the gain just to the guitar tracks instead of reducing everything else and then applying the gain to the master track.

It sounds better to leave plenty of headroom on the master bus, rather than push it. Bring the level up on the master bus post-fader.

 

[Joematthews]

If you're in Sonar, select the tracks, go to Process > Audio > Gain

From there you can crank it up to 18 db.

That.

Joe

 

[Morgan C]

It sounds better to leave plenty of headroom on the master bus, rather than push it. Bring the level up on the master bus post-fader.

Whys this? If you have say all your tracks peaking at -6db, so it clips at about 3dB over on the master bus, is it better to reduce each track individually, or just the master bus input?

To me this sounds like one of those things that was true for analogue, and no longer for digital, but people follow anyway.

 

[ahjteam]

if you still have headroom, why don't you just straight away add gain to the track (in Cubase its something like *right click* > process > gain or use the blue square in the middle of the waveform)?

a classmate of mine said that in sonar its something like click on the audioclip and choose something like "clip volume", which is the same as the thing I instructed for cubase

 

[Jesse Z]

Whys this? If you have say all your tracks peaking at -6db, so it clips at about 3dB over on the master bus, is it better to reduce each track individually, or just the master bus input?

To me this sounds like one of those things that was true for analogue, and no longer for digital, but people follow anyway.

Digital clipping offers no benefit. This has nothing to do with analog audio.

If your master bus is clipping before the fader/plugins you need to pull all tracks down. If you are clipping the master bus, then you are also clipping the input of the first plugin and plugins are not designed for that. You could also just pull down the master fader assuming that processing is post fader, but that is backwards logic to me.

Go to the source of the problem to find the solution. In PT it takes 3 seconds to group all tracks and pull down all the faders. I'm sure other DAWs have a similar function.