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Eazy guys hope someone can help with this. I use FL (I know..the DAW underdog everyone loves to hate! ) and normally do an alright mix of most my tunes imo. I save and export most my wavs usually with the FL volume between 60-75% which seems high enough, but I recently got a few masters done and put on vinyl to hear the final results and the tracks sound kind of low compared to tracks of similar style. Started on FL3 a couple years back,got lazy and recently back on it again. I'm mainly producing uk funky/house/garage kind of stuff atm.

Does the overall volume of the premastered wavs make a difference when mastering/cutting process takes place or does'nt it make a difference i.e I could even save a track at say 20% volume and the ME would do his magic to increase it to a suitable volume?

what volume do some of you (FL users) save/export your tracks at before getting them mastered?

Hope some of you can offer few wise tips and share your knowledge.

bobby j wrote:(I know..the DAW underdog everyone loves to hate! )

Edit: Sorry, I'm not useful enough to actually know any useful information applicable to help you out. Just wanted to

You should mix your tracks down to a reasonable headroom, not adjust the master fader.

I dunno how correct i am since i'm no ME but i usually always do my mixdown to where i leave a few DBs of headroom and then i export the track as a wav at 100 percent volume.
I figure that the DBs dont change so i must have the same amount of headroom, but the percieved volume is as high as i wanna take it without possibly distorting it by pushing it passed 100 percent.

If anyone has any knowledge contrary to this please step forward but this is what i do.

AfterEmpire wrote:I dunno how correct i am since i'm no ME but i usually always do my mixdown to where i leave a few DBs of headroom and then i export the track as a wav at 100 percent volume.
I figure that the DBs dont change so i must have the same amount of headroom, but the percieved volume is as high as i wanna take it without possibly distorting it by pushing it passed 100 percent.

If anyone has any knowledge contrary to this please step forward but this is what i do.

Mixdown to as low a meter as possible, with as much clarity as possible, turning your speakers up as far as need be to compensate. Save as wav Normalize and mild limit that for the dj's.

bobby j wrote: I save and export most my wavs usually with the FL volume between 60-75% which seems high enough

What volume? The master gain on the mixer, or the volume slider up top near the play/stop buttons? Don't touch that one, they even tell you in the manual it's only for adjusting volume when listening back to your final mix. It's not for mixing.
I wouldn't use the master gain to compensate either, just use proper gain staging on the instrument and sample channels themselves. For example if it's clipping, don't turn down the master to compensate, fix the clipping signal in the chain before it goes to the master channel.

wormcode wrote:

bobby j wrote: I save and export most my wavs usually with the FL volume between 60-75% which seems high enough

What volume? The master gain on the mixer, or the volume slider up top near the play/stop buttons? Don't touch that one, they even tell you in the manual it's only for adjusting volume when listening back to your final mix. It's not for mixing.
I wouldn't use the master gain to compensate either, just use proper gain staging on the instrument and sample channels themselves. For example if it's clipping, don't turn down the master to compensate, fix the clipping signal in the chain before it goes to the master channel.

isnt that one at the top just controlling the mixer master?

Basic A wrote:

wormcode wrote:

bobby j wrote: I save and export most my wavs usually with the FL volume between 60-75% which seems high enough

What volume? The master gain on the mixer, or the volume slider up top near the play/stop buttons? Don't touch that one, they even tell you in the manual it's only for adjusting volume when listening back to your final mix. It's not for mixing.
I wouldn't use the master gain to compensate either, just use proper gain staging on the instrument and sample channels themselves. For example if it's clipping, don't turn down the master to compensate, fix the clipping signal in the chain before it goes to the master channel.

isnt that one at the top just controlling the mixer master?

Main Volume - Sets the main volume in FL Studio; the last level passed by the audio before it leaves the program. The main volume control provides quick level adjustments while listening to projects. However, when rendering projects, the main volume should be set at the default level (right-click and select 'reset' to restore to the default value). See the help section on Levels and Mixing to learn how to set mixing levels in FL Studio.

There are two places where the overall output level (volume) of FL Studio can be adjusted -
Main volume fader.
Master Mixer track fader.
The Main volume fader should be left at the default position (right-click and select 'Reset') and the Master mixer track fader used for overall level adjustments.

god wants you to read the mixing & mastering thead.

this thread has 8 posts (9 now). the op has 1 post, ever. something tells me he isn't listening.

Thanks for the tips folks, think I've sorted the problem out now.

bobby j wrote:Thanks for the tips folks, think I've sorted the problem out now.

yeh? how?

Talking down all your levels and not just the master volume is time consuming and it's bound to mess up in the process.
If you need to take the mix down, do so through the master then reexport it into Fruity and do all your limiting/boosting to make it fit with the other stuff in your itunes library. It should be the same sort of volume.

ALL HAIL FL! :'}

DannyDubstep wrote:Talking down all your levels and not just the master volume is time consuming and it's bound to mess up in the process.
If you need to take the mix down, do so through the master then reexport it into Fruity and do all your limiting/boosting to make it fit with the other stuff in your itunes library. It should be the same sort of volume.

ALL HAIL FL! :'}

If you dont know what your saying, say nothing.

DannyDubstep wrote:Talking down all your levels and not just the master volume is time consuming and it's bound to mess up in the process.
If you need to take the mix down, do so through the master then reexport it into Fruity and do all your limiting/boosting to make it fit with the other stuff in your itunes library. It should be the same sort of volume.

ALL HAIL FL! :'}

Gotta disagree. The process is already messed up, that's why someone would resort to taking down the master. It might be time consuming to mix properly, but isn't that a small price to pay for a nicer mixdown? It gets easier the more you do it, and after a while you will have to spend less time mixing because you will have a better understanding of where the levels should be at the very beginning. It will also sound a lot better if you do decide to apply a limiter offline.