raise volume w/o clipping; help wanted

[jboney]

title. i just got a hold of these orchestral sounds, and made them into a soundfont. i haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet, but my biggest problem is that is doesn't get very loud before the audio starts clipping. i already figure that there are mid-low frequencies that are much too prominent for balance, but i'm figuring those out for the equalization. what i need is for some more advanced mixers to give me some pointers and options. note that i only have access to free programs.

youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGS3N9gTRO8

download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hkmdkyl4ac3ouca/MijinionBit.mp3

[Damashii!!]

Since I've never gotten the hang of limiting yet I usually try to boost as much as possible and then EQ afterwards to bring sounds back down to acceptable levels, regardless of genre (soft intimate orchestral stuff, or hard hitting complextro things).

So take this with a grain of salt (and I'm sure the pros who know this kind of stuff inside and out will give you better answers really soon), but I've found the combination of BLOCKFISH and case-by-case eq adjustments (pulling back a good chunk of the mids and lows) to get me through just about everything concerning volume, while still preserving musicality:

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=5

EDIT: and honestly, the volume of that demo sounds great and acceptable to me. So unless you're one of those folks who prefer to have really loud mixes, I think whatever you're already doing is fine.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Damashii!!

[jboney]

thanks. i have a problem eqing in general, because audacity is very slow about applying effects which makes the learning curves very steep. i don't have a spectrum analyzer either. i think i can try out your recommended program...but is it only a vst plugin? some plugins like guitar rig can function on their own, but some can't...

as for the volume, it really is a concern because what you're hearing there is as loud as it will get. if i put it any louder at all, the whole thing starts tearing itself apart with the clipping. i've already panned the instrument sections as much as i can, too. slightly beside the point, but i also intend to add distorted guitar chords over this.

[Damashii!!]

I'm the kind of person that usually applauds working with what you have, but have you considered moving to something like Reaper, or even a trial version of FL Studio, Cubase, Sonar, etc. ?

That's really amazing that you'd make something quite large like that with Audacity (I could only do extremely basic and cheesy hip hop beats when I first messed with it a long while ago), but I think you could really benefit your workflow by trying a slightly heavier DAW.

yeah the Fish Fillet stuff are plugins, and I'm not sure they're standalone. But on the subject of Guitar Rig, and Native Instruments in general, most if not all of their stuff are standalone. I wouldn't really recommend Guitar Rig for orchestral/symphonic stuff since I feel like it works best with more brash instruments like horns, rock vocals, guitars (duhhh); but GRig has good stuff for volume as well. Since I don't have a lot of pre-amp post-recording hardware I have to really on Guitar Rig to boost and bring the best sound out of my guitar playing, and it does a fine job with giving me the volume I desire without clicking and popping. The dynamics tools in GR5 are usually what I use for most of my guitar and horns stuff.

(and of course, the same applies to other Amp simulator suite stuff like Th2 overloud, LePou, etc. )

yeeeah, I'm not very familiar with Audacity so I can't give you too much advice outside of general umbrella stuff, but seriously think about at least playing around with a DAW like Reaper.

And I assume with the soundfonts you're running through something like sfz+ or sfzorzando, etc. ?

[jboney]

oh i didn't use audacity to make this, i just used anvil studio to write a midi and ran the midi through a soundfont player. not the best of methods, but it's fast, free, and it works for now. it's good enough for the few people who've heard my work to actually enjoy them somewhat ^^;

i haven't really used audacity for much because my focus right now is growing as a composer(not so much a mixer atm), but this volume issue is pretty terrible ._.

[SnappleMan]

The volume in that clip is fine. Your problem there is the overall timbre and mixing of the sounds. Everything seems to be focused around the mid/mid-high range, and it's causing the mix to sound harsh and cluttered.

You definitely need to consider studying up on EQ and how to make sounds fit together more cohesively. With EQ you can locate and fix the problems in your sounds, so that they're not unbalanced to the point of clipping.

To help you understand what I mean, take a trumpet sample. Let's say the sample has too much going on in the 1khz range. If that's the case then the more you boost the volume, the more you'll be boosting that 1khz bias, and the sample will start to clip at 1khz way before the rest of the sound is loud enough. So your job is to use EQ to cut that 1khz down to a nice even level, so the sample can be louder without clipping as easily.

This effect is amplified by layering too many instruments in the same register. So if your trumpet, violins, flute etc are all playing between c4-c5, those notes all reside within a relatively similar EQ range. Now we have the samples that have too much going on in that range, and your composition also has too much going on in that range, and the result is a very harsh sounding mix because everything is focused around the same area.

Keep in mind that this is just an example, the EQ range and values in your song are for you to discover. And that's the problem that most people seem to have with understanding EQ. Make sure you remember that it's a tool to help identify and repair problems first and foremost. EQ as an effect to accentuate things is secondary.

You really need to google and youtube some tutorials about EQing, search for finding the "sweet spot" using EQ, and frequency/EQ slotting. Those terms should provide you with a lot of information that is necessary to getting decent mixes going.

[lazygecko]

Mixing is really about arrangement/orchestration in orchestral music moreso than any other genre. So if you want that professional orchestral sound, that's what you'll want to read up on rather than EQ and compression.

[jboney]

issue resolved, but thanks for the information, contributors

mods, you may now lock this topic at your leisure.