Right i am having problems with my levels, I am getting MP3’s from a few places different websites and a rip some from cd’s and some from vinyl. So my levels can be all over the place and when i am mixing some times the next track comes in and i am playing with the levels for 30 seconds so the tunes drops with no power.So what am i to do?
just get tunes from one place, seems a bit stupid cuz i will not get half the tunes i want
I have seen that itunes has some sort of sound check on it with this save it to the MP3 so the levels are about the same. Could this distort some of the tracks that have less volume to make them up to the level of some of my other tracks and then make the loud ones less punchy?
Find some 3rd party software to do some sort of normalization on my whole library
Or ask you guys to do all the work for me and tell me what to do!
yeah but when i am monitoring it sounds ok and then when it goes out live in a club its missing the punch and i have to put the gain up after the drop has gone out to the master.
do you have visual meters anywhere where you can compare the strength of the incoming track and the one that’s playing. that’s usually you’re best bet to compare. or as you’re bringing the track in carefully listen to the difference in “loudness” and adjust accordingly as you bring it in.
This is the only operation you should need to use to find proper loudness on the incoming track. You should be able to switch between cue signals and quickly get the gain into similar shape. The cue signal that is playing in the mains will sound louder of course … but thats something that you generally grow accustomed to.
I am running tarkot pro vci and all that but the gain for some track just will not go loud enough and they just sound weak compared to the track before hand. My mate has a studio so i might have to go and master my whole collection there its just going to take months
if the track is weak ass 128k mp3. editing it will just make it worse. I only work with tracks that have good dynamics and good production. any track like this will be possible to increase gain during the mix.. And extra loud tracks I always turn down to begin with. practice with different kinds of gain structure in your setup .. give your self extra headroom before main output. Anytime you edit digital signals.. even just adjustment of gain … it decreases quality and dynamics.
I dont know if you are on a pc or a mac, but if you are on a pc, Media Monkey does a decent job of normalizing tracks and that feature is turned on in the free version.
i’ve found metering to be one of my pet peeves with Traktor Pro. I mix externally so this may not apply.
I set auto gain on, so when I load a track, the gain is estimated. Then I can make a minor adjustment to the gain on my controller. I have 2 faders set to control the gain (direct, soft takeover) so I can nudge the gain a lil up or down when I need. The gain can go -/+ 12db, but I never need to nudge more than -/+3.
I have the master output set to -1 to give me a lil room. I usually just watch the master area and if it stays below the redline for the majority of kicks, Im good.
I personally turned of auto gain, being an ex Vinyl DJ from years gone by i do it all in the headphones and listening to the monitors, plus my transitions are slow as i like to keep beats running along in loops, but for me personally listening and adjusting via cueing and in the mix is the best way i found over the years of vinyl djing and it applies just the same for digital mixing which for me has only been a few months
yeah, just to sum up and add to what everyone has said, you basically have 3 options.
Adjust as you go. If you are mixing internally or have meters on your analogue console you can use this and adjust the gain to see that the incoming track looks roughly the same as the outgoing one. Then as you do the actual mix listen and ensure things stay about the same. What you’ll probably notice getting loudest is the bass, as this has the most energy, and in particuluar the bass drum so what is common is as you mix to roll off a little of the bass from the outgoing track to even it out.
Edit the track. If the track is especially quiet like you mention you can try editing it, using either a program like media monkey to go through the songs and try to raise the gain automatically (‘normalizing’ the track) or to use a wave editing program like the free (and actually fairly good) Audacity or a paid one like Wavelab or Soundforge to go through them yourself and do this. However as has been said this should really only be with ones that are good quality and the problem is that the fact that they are so quiet in itself is probably a sign that they aren’t all that good, which means your best bet may be…
