Br900CD sound level

[banjaxed]

Been away for a while and just recorded an instrumental and burnt it to a CD along withe my first attempt. The problem is they are not the same volume. I have looked in the manual as I'm sure it's there somewhere but finding it is proving difficult. Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

[64Guitars]

A common mistake when bouncing or mastering is failing to realize that the Master fader controls your recording level. It must be set correctly according to the L R meters at the right of the display. I think some people just set the Master fader for a comfortable listening level on their headphones or monitors. Doing that without regard for the level meters will result in poor recording levels that vary from song to song.

Assuming that you've set your recording level correctly during bouncing and/or mastering, I would recommend normalizing the levels in Audacity or your favourite DAW before burning the song to a CD. See the following guide:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=15

Ultimately, though, the relative levels of the songs on your CD can be a subjective thing. Even after normalization, you may find that one song sounds too loud or too soft compared to the preceding song. So, before you burn your CD, you should listen to all of the songs from your hard drive and pay attention to the relative levels. If a song's level is too high or too low compared to other songs on the album, you can bring it into Audacity or your DAW and adjust the level accordingly. When you're satisfied that the relative levels of all of the songs are to your liking, then you can burn them to a CD.

[banjaxed]

Hi 64,
Thank you for your reply, I thought that the master fader was in the same position for each recording but obviously it couldn't have been. More importantly thank you for the very clear and helpful details on normalising it is very much appreciated.

[chip]

A common mistake when bouncing or mastering is failing to realize that the Master fader controls your recording level. It must be set correctly according to the L R meters at the right of the display. I think some people just set the Master fader for a comfortable listening level on their headphones or monitors. Doing that without regard for the level meters will result in poor recording levels that vary from song to song.

Assuming that you've set your recording level correctly during bouncing and/or mastering, I would recommend normalizing the levels in Audacity or your favourite DAW before burning the song to a CD. See the following guide:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=15

Ultimately, though, the relative levels of the songs on your CD can be a subjective thing. Even after normalization, you may find that one song sounds too loud or too soft compared to the preceding song. So, before you burn your CD, you should listen to all of the songs from your hard drive and pay attention to the relative levels. If a song's level is too high or too low compared to other songs on the album, you can bring it into Audacity or your DAW and adjust the level accordingly. When you're satisfied that the relative levels of all of the songs are to your liking, then you can burn them to a CD.

Good stuff. I need to clear yet another point up.
Lets say I have done the song and set levels accordingly, then I go to master ( BR80) There are two levels for the two stereo tracks. Where should they be set at? Just below peak, halfway or somewhere else? When turning the volume? up in mastering mode the levels don't seem to move much, but the volume goes up. My confusion lies with the meter levels and where the optimum level is. I thought wrongly? that using a preset, say live mix would compensate for the original recording and increase the sound for optimum results automatically. It seems this may not be the case?
Also I don't quite get what the three parameters in mastering mode are for or what they do. Is compression one of them under a different name?  Cheers.

[64Guitars]

Lets say I have done the song and set levels accordingly, then I go to master ( BR80) There are two levels for the two stereo tracks. Where should they be set at? Just below peak, halfway or somewhere else?

The general rule for setting recording levels applies in mastering and bouncing just the same as it does when setting input sensitivity or track recording levels. That is, the levels should be as high as possible without clipping. What may differ slightly is the way in which you determine if there will be clipping. Fortunately, it's easier in mastering because the level meters actually have a peak indicator.



When the peak indicator lights, the signal has exceeded 0dB and will be clipped. So set your mastering levels as high as you can get them without making the peak indicator light at all. Then, as a safety factor, you might want to reduce the levels ever so slightly from that setting. The reason is that you might get a few peaks while you're actually recording which weren't present when you were adjusting your levels because your playing/singing will be different. By allowing a small safety factor, you ensure that you won't get any clipping when you're actually recording.

Setting levels correctly is a hard thing to describe because it's not an absolute. The levels change constantly while you play or sing and you can only adjust for the peaks. The best way to learn how to set mastering levels correctly is to always check your finished song in Audacity with the "Show Clipping" feature enabled. If your mastering levels were set correctly, the song will look something like this in Audacity:



Ideally, we could do without the two red lines in the left channel. They indicate clipping. However, it's so brief that those two occurrences will probably be unnoticeable.

If you see lots of red as in the following image, then your mastering levels were much too high and you'll have excessive clipping. The only way to fix it is to remaster at a lower level.



Notice that some of those red areas are quite wide, which means the clipping distortion will be very noticeable.

On the other hand, if your song looks like the following image, then your mastering levels are much too low.



This reduces the signal-to-noise ratio and the dynamic range. You can boost the level in Audacity with Normalization, but that will also boost the noise and not improve the dynamic range. So it's best to remaster with the levels a bit higher.

If you always check in Audacity as I've described and remaster when necessary (paying attention to the BR's level meters), you'll soon get to know how the meters should behave when recording so that you can do a better job of setting your levels correctly and not have to remaster as often, if ever.

See the following topic for more info:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=6217.0

When turning the volume? up in mastering mode the levels don't seem to move much, but the volume goes up.

That's right. The Volume control on the side of the BR should not affect recording levels at all. It only affects the level that is sent to your headphones and output jacks for monitoring. You can set it anywhere you like.

I thought wrongly? that using a preset, say live mix would compensate for the original recording and increase the sound for optimum results automatically. It seems this may not be the case?

Mastering basically does two things; equalization and compression. It doesn't normalize the levels. That should be done in Audacity. Equalization is like tone controls. It lets you increase or decrease a certain narrow range of frequencies, such as the treble, the mids, or the bass. This will affect the overall level but it isn't its purpose. Compression is used to reduce the dynamic range. Why would you want to do that? Dynamic range is good. It makes everything sound more natural. It makes snare drums snap, kick drums thump, etc. Well, there are a couple of reasons you might want to use compression to reduce the dynamic range. Firstly, there's artistic considerations. For example, your bass playing may not be as smooth as you'd like and so it varies in intensity too much and you'd prefer a smoother, more consistent level. Compression can give you that to some degree. But the more common reason for using compression is the loudness war. Everybody wants their song to be louder than everybody else's. But the maximum recording level is determined by the peaks in your song. If you boost the level any higher, you'll get clipping. Compression reduces the level of the peaks, making the dynamic range (difference between quietest sounds and loudest peaks) smaller. Since the peaks are lower after compression, you can then raise the level so that the peaks reach 0dB (but don't exceed it). This has the effect of raising the overall or average level of the song, making it sound louder. I believe the compressors in the mastering effects will automatically adjust the level after compression, so using mastering effects can increase the levels that way.

Also I don't quite get what the three parameters in mastering mode are for or what they do. Is compression one of them under a different name?  Cheers.

The DYNAMICS parameter is compression. It affects the dynamic range.

The TONE parameter is equalization. It boosts or cuts the lows and highs.

The NATURAL parameter affects how the compressor works. If you set this parameter low, you will get more compression but it may be noticeable as an undesirable pumping sound. Raising this parameter will apply compression more gently so that the pumping won't be as noticeable, but the amount of compression won't be as high.

Personally, I rarely use mastering effects. For one thing, I like a big dynamic range and i don't care if other people's songs sound louder than mine. If I want it loud, I'll turn up the volume control on my stereo system or whatever playback device I'm listening on. Also, if I feel that my recording could use some compression or equalization, I'd much rather apply it just to the individual tracks that need it rather than to the whole mix. I don't want to squash the dynamics out of my song just because my bass playing is inconsistent, for example. In that case, it makes much more sense to apply compression just to the bass track. It solves the problem without sucking the snap out of the snare drum or the thump from the kick drum, as would be the case if I applied compression during mastering instead.

[chip]

Many thanks 64. As usual a very informative and educational reply and more importantly, relatively easy to understand. I reckon Roland Boss should get you on board.

[banjaxed]

I couldn't agree with you more Chip, 64 has been a great help to me since I joined this site.
It is great to know that someone with 64's knowledge is there to help explain thing in a way
we can understand. Thanks again 64.

[chip]

I couldn't agree with you more Chip, 64 has been a great help to me since I joined this site.
It is great to know that someone with 64's knowledge is there to help explain thing in a way
we can understand. Thanks again 64.

Yes I agree Banjaxed When I first came on the site and having recently purchased a MBR, 64 and others really helped me out. I was at a total loss with it and was contemplating throwing it out the window. But I asked questions and more questions and still do. I got to grips with it then got the BR 80 which I am still getting to grips with now. I have more time now for recording but it's a steep curve.

 However the folks on this site are very friendly and thankfully reply to some questions which may seem obvious to some other more geared up folk. Another thing this site has going for it is it's friendliness which is fantastic, never have I heard anyone diss anyone because of what they have said or recorded. This is very unique when dealing with all things music, on some of the other forums things sometimes get a little hairy. Cheers.

[banjaxed]

 However the folks on this site are very friendly and thankfully reply to some questions which may seem obvious to some other more geared up folk. Another thing this site has going for it is it's friendliness which is fantastic, never have I heard anyone diss anyone because of what they have said or recorded. This is very unique when dealing with all things music, on some of the other forums things sometimes get a little hairy. Cheers.
[/quote]
Once again Chip I agree entirely with your comments.