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My tunes are all really quiet even though i put the volume up full in FL studio. Im told that i need to get something like sound forge or cool edit, but which ones better? And more importantly, what do they actually do?!

What you probably need is a good mastering compressor, that way you can pump up the volume. There are also some programs for mastering like Izotope Ozone, which is great, and you can use it in FL. What I also like to use is PSP Vintage Warmer, which works more as a (brickwall) limiter.

Here's a great free compressor: Endorphin

Nice one mate thats sorted me out, and it looks easy to use too.
I could kiss you. but i wont.

Hehe, good luck producing

Cool Edit Pro is now known as Adobe Audition..

Cool Edit and Soundforge are audio editing programs. Basicly this means you can destructively cut up wave forms, ie a sample, and effet them using effects plugins. One would use a audio editor for mastering to eq and compress the mix before distributing your work...

In terms of what you can do with each program, there is very little difference.. Personally I prefer Adobe Audition to Soundforge. I find the interface very simple, the tools very powerful and the workflow very quick.

Free audio editing software like Audacity or Goldwave have very similar capabilites as Audition and Soundforge, certainly for basic editing and effects tools.

If you mix each element of the song well to begin with (eqing your bass under 30hz so it doesn't eat up headroom), you could simply take your final exported wav and drop it into an audio editor, remove DC offset and then normalise it to -0.3db or something... that will make it louder!

I use T-racks.

I hate mastering...

I use T-racks.

I hate mastering...

I got endorphin and fucked around with it and "mastered" my tracks. They sound a lot better quality than before. I put them on my myspace if youre interested...

www.myspace.com/optimusgrimeuk

Id like to know what you think cos its my first time using something like that

with FL come Multiband compressor and limiter. if you dont have anything else, use these

cracktactics wrote:I got endorphin and fucked around with it and "mastered" my tracks. They sound a lot better quality than before. I put them on my myspace if youre interested...

www.myspace.com/optimusgrimeuk

Id like to know what you think cos its my first time using something like that

Sounds Phat Big UP

i use peak pro-xt to master my stuff and other peoples stuff with.....i love the 5band multicompressor, the 10band s-eq and the spectral analyzer...peaks plugins are all but transparent, so thats perfect imo

futures_untold wrote:If you mix each element of the song well to begin with...

Important, this.

As I understand it, in an ideal world mastering should be taking a good mix (which itself is made up of well crafted sounds) and sprinkling a bit of fairy dust over it (and checking that it'll sound good on a variety of soundsystems and not blow up the cutting heads when you record it and so on). If the mix sounds a bit weak pre-mastering, it'd probably come out better overall if you went back and worked on the individual sounds independently - either by using EQ'ing and compression on them, or ideally by tweaking the actual sound design.

If you try to fix everything once its mixed, there's a risk that whatever you try to do to make the bass hit harder will make the drums sound cack and vice versa...

If you spend the time during the production then you shouldn't have to master your tunes much. There is no point taking your final .wav and then running it through T-Racks because it's not going to sound much better. That's not mastering that's fucking bollocks straight up SIMPLEBIMPLE.

I treat each element in my tracks as different and i master them individually to sit nicely in the track. I never do any sort of blanket compression/eq on the output.

futures_untold wrote:Cool Edit Pro is now known as Adobe Audition..

Wow I've been using peak on MAC so long I had no idea

We use WAVES. Most of the time.

http://www.waves.com/Content.aspx?id=255

waves L1 (limiter) at the end of the mastering chain is a good bet for pumping up the loudness.

decklyn wrote:waves L1 (limiter) at the end of the mastering chain is a good bet for pumping up the loudness.

Why use L-1 if you can control all of the freqs with L-3? Use L-3, it's a big step up! Cheers. Z

i put an EQ then a compressor then a EQ again then a Multibandcompressor and then a limiter again on my master

Roqqert wrote:i put an EQ then a compressor then a EQ again then a Multibandcompressor and then a limiter again on my master

We usually use a graphic EQ to roll the lows out then add a Waves limiter with a graphic bar so we can boost the freqs that need help. Cheers. Z

Myrkur wrote:What you probably need is a good mastering compressor, that way you can pump up the volume. There are also some programs for mastering like Izotope Ozone, which is great, and you can use it in FL. What I also like to use is PSP Vintage Warmer, which works more as a (brickwall) limiter.

Here's a great free compressor: Endorphin

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