Exactly. Its the one redeeming thing about streaming music services (I don’t think they pay the artists well enough from this - particularly YouTube). But the loudness normalisation is great as most of them are around -14 LUFS which is good for dynamics and means if you have a good mix it WILL sound better than a brickwall mix. Its strictly speaking not louder than a brickwalled mix (EDIT: when streaming) but as it means it’s not been crushed, the loud parts (dynamics) of any song will shine through so you get the feel and power much better! Good work on avoiding the Loudness war @FredProgGH although I always like a mastering engineer to work on my material; not for loudness/limiting but just that extra pair of ears that might hear any issues that I have become used to (depsite being a mastering engineer myself, I’d only master my own material if I leave it for a month or so).
All slightly off topic from this thread but worthy
In terms of meters for Gain within Cantabile, I actually use the HOFA 4U Meter which a) has an accurate fader for adding/attenuating gain and easy to map a controller to, b) has LUFS meters which I find much more useful for normalising/balancing sounds between each other and also a few other nice monnitoring tools (M/S, Mono etc) and c) is FREE and comes as a package with some other nice tools.
I prefer this to FreeG as I find it more stable and zipper free (maybe that’s my system) but its really the LUFS monitoring built-in I find really useful as I’m doing all my gain-staging and level balancing!
I’m still rethinking how to do this best, I can’t get the results from the compression or choose what best software to start from. @Hunter_Barr Seems that the Hofa4U is indeed a very intresting plugin, also that Project time can be intresting, maybe I can set it running at startup of cantabile and activate when the gig starts. Always intresting, because I mostly loose track of time and don’t know how long we’ve played
After 2 months of geeking, this is how I finally set my gain master rack. I have tested it many times at home, and now, after 6 gigs, it is working perfectly. It has made a huge difference in performance and I am not noticing any change in latency (by ear). I have it on all my amp sim racks, and most of my instrument racks. A big difference in boost without distortion. I use it as a separate rack on the output of my instrument and amp sim racks.
I get the approach of two-stage gain reduction - but what I don’t quite get is boosting the output of the comp by 13 dB only to reduce the input at the limiter by 11???
Also: it looks like you want to squeeze every little bit of loudness out of your setup, but then you set the ceiling at -2.4? Haven’t seen inter-sample overshoots of this size yet…
Overall, I’m not sure why you’t want to kill all dynamics like that, but to each his own…
I like the dmg plugs too for Cantabile use but must agree with Torsten that in this case the compressor output could be lowered to 0 and the input to the limiter could have the input at 0 db, it ends up mathematically the same. Also the last output of the limiter would need to be higher to take advantage of the leftover headroom so a setting of - 0.1 to - 0.5 would be more expected. Normally I would think that the ISP protection would catch all random peaks but I think Mr Gamble and company are still finishing development of their updated version of ISP protection. Hopefully it will be done soon, I hear it is in beta for several months now so I will report if there is any new news on it.
Thanks Torsten and Dave. This is why I started this thread. I became so frustrated with what I was getting with C3, especially in the one band with old school balls to the wall volume (The Who comes to mind). As I write this my tinnitus is reminding me to phase out of this band. Regardless, I totally see what you guys are saying. I didn’t see what I had done, and I deservingly have been spanked.
I absolutely appreciate the help everyone gives me, and mostly have an open mind to suggestions, and really love seeing what others do to make this crazy thing we are involved in work.
So…I am off to try your suggestions.
Hm, I still haven’t found a decent starting point for the compressor (or limiter?) Could you guys help me out be advising some settings for the compressor (I’m using ReaComp it’s so low on resources)
OK, this is a case for a limiter. What a limiter does is essentially: not let audio get louder than a pre-defined level; everything else below this level does not get affected at all (that is: for an idealized limiter…).
So for ReaComp, you set the ratio to the full right (inf), set attack and decay to very low values (experiment a bit) and then play with the threshold until the gain reduction meter reacts to your loudest peaks but leaves normal playing alone. Then set the “wet” slider until you have full output level again.
Beware: if you set the threshold too low, this will play havoc with your dynamics - everything will be squashed to the same volume, and - due to the short attack and decay - your sound envelopes will be completely out of whack.
So, a limiter may help you cut off the extreme peaks, but it will not really help you if your volume leveling is all over the place. Yes, your volume will be levelled, but your playing dynamics and your sound envelopes can be completely destroyed.
Ok let’s try this out, seems I have been doing it the wrong way allot I mostly get a clipped sound in limiters, when the input is to high of course, but seems there is no way to limit it that the sound stays the same even above some top level ?
Take a look at this article - I like Mo Volans’ explanations…
Gives a good basic understanding of the use of a limiter. What’s important to understand: a limiter will always reduce peaks and leave the rest alone, so it will not help you evening out the volume across your songs or patches.
For this task, you’d need a tool that analyzes the average loudness of your playing and applies cuts or boosts. Although there are some tools that attempt this, I don’t subscribe to that approach - sometimes you WANT a sound to be soft (e.g. a quiet background organ pad) and some you WANT to scream (lead patches). Let alone a nice and dynamic piano ballad with a quiet intro and an epic chorus.
Would you have any idea what prof synth designer like Roland or Nord use to beef up their sounds? I have a Nord and still it sound miles appart from any vst I’m using, even though it passes the same soundcard. They basses are really deep and defined. And the sound always cuts through a mix, compared to the vst’s most of the time sound a bit thin.
Should I add an EQ with lower bass cut and some boost in mid and that compression or saturation? What do you think?
Feel free to correct me if I am reading this wrong, but I think, from what I am reading, you are dealing with the same problem I had. I could not get enough volume to keep up with the rest of the band. I was using a Crate amp, which did a good job, till things changed. As the band got louder, so did I. I pushed C3 and my audio interface to the max. As you saw above, I was struggling to get everything I could out of my VSTs. I started using a 600W powered main as my “amp”, but soon it got too loud to keep up. Keep in mind, this is without FOH person.
My VSTs started sounding very “tinny” and I could touch a key for a loaded electric piano and it was loud and distorted, and just something I could not live with. So…I started over. I addressed this particular band about volume. I cannot compete with a Marshall Stack. I showed them the decibiles I registered during the gig. You don’t have to load the stage up with gear to sound great. Of course, the drummer and bassist understood, but, as usual, the guitarist started in with BS like “I have always played this way…this is the only way I can get my tone…blah blah blah”.
I really love this band, but I can’t endure much more of not hearing floor monitors, 10 minute guitar leads, or huge egos. The key to my sound now is to keep C3 and audio interface clean and with some headroom, and let whatever amp I use push the load…not with compression and limiting, etc. This is why I started migrating to bands with no physical amps. I can hear everything, my ears don’t ring as much, and the musicians become much “tighter”. I will still play through an amp with various other musicians. I played live in the sixties and seventies with many different musicians and genres. I enjoyed those days, but I don’t want to re-live the loud, heavy, distorted equipment of the time. Good luck on keeping up and save your ears.
Ouch, but very recognisable !
My previous guitarist, used 2 wall of amps and complained that the organs were to loud also
Tell me about it, I have a tinnitus since last year, very heavy.
It’s infection and stress related also. But still, loud sounds make it worse.
It does help with the in ears I’m using through my headphones output, I love this way if working, I control the volume, plus I guess it’s all beter leveled out to the FOH? Or maybe I could be wrong, 2dB on my pc level, might be immense on the other side, multiplied by the watts. But hey that’s what we have mixing guys for ! If they are not asleep hahahah
I mostly get a clipped sound in limiters, when the input is to high of course, but seems there is no way to limit it that the sound stays the same even above some top level ?
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