Anyone really know their way around DP?

[the Jazz]

In Digital Performer 4.12, my stuff is always exporting with the volume to low. The track is just too quiet, I've compressed and added gain as much as possible while not clipping, but I can't figure it out. I've resorted to sequencing/editing in DP, and then shooting it over to Audacity to up the gain, and that kinda sucks. I'm hoping someone's familiar with DP and has an idea of what's wrong (or if anything's wrong at all).

Lacking that, anyone have any educated guesses? Or know of a free app that can just boost the levels on AIFF/wav/mp3 so it plays at the same general volume level as most of the stuff I rip/download?

Probably I should just RTFM... :?

[Sober]

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[bz£]

You, also, stay away from my cat!

[jb]

In Digital Performer 4.12, my stuff is always exporting with the volume to low. The track is just too quiet, I've compressed and added gain as much as possible while not clipping, but I can't figure it out. I've resorted to sequencing/editing in DP, and then shooting it over to Audacity to up the gain, and that kinda sucks. I'm hoping someone's familiar with DP and has an idea of what's wrong (or if anything's wrong at all).

I'm sorry I don't use DP to give you some specific instructions, but what I normally do in my software is this:

1. get the mix sounding right. even if it's not as "loud" yet as I want it to be, all i want to do to start is get the relative levels for each track correct, set the panning, and do some eq-- all with the goal of making sure that each part in my mix can be heard, and is contributing appropriately to my mix.

2. export a mixdown of all my tracks, so I wind up with a stereo wav file.

3. open the wav file by itself in an audio editor-- since i'm using cubase, i open a new project in cubase just for this "mastering" phase.

4. i run the "normalize" function on the wav. i'm sure DP has this function somewhere. if not, i guess you can continue to use Audacity for this part of your projects.

5. i apply a plugin like Izotope Ozone, which allows me to "maximize" the loudness of the wav. i try to be careful not to maximize so much that it smooshes the sound, which can happen. if you have the "Waves" plugin set, i think "Ultramaximizer" is the one to use for this. in Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition, you can apply the built-in "hard limit" function. hopefully you can find a similar function in DP or Audactiy.

[jack]

In Digital Performer 4.12, my stuff is always exporting with the volume to low. The track is just too quiet, I've compressed and added gain as much as possible while not clipping, but I can't figure it out. I've resorted to sequencing/editing in DP, and then shooting it over to Audacity to up the gain, and that kinda sucks. I'm hoping someone's familiar with DP and has an idea of what's wrong (or if anything's wrong at all).

JB's informative process.........

it's funny as i never knew JB's process but ours are almost identical, aside from the different editing programs we use (Pro Tools vs. Audition). i get all my levels right, making sure i have an adequate signal for each track, and bounce to a stereo mix that i master seperately. i'd say if your whole mix lags but the mix levels within the track are ok, this is the point to boost your gain by normalizing (i usually do 95%). i also tend to use some of the presets in t-racks during this phase.

also, how do you mix, monitors or headphones? if headphones, check the volume level you are mixing at on your monitor/preamp/soundcard. this has happened to me where i turned the headphone volume level way down and forgot about it and it took me a day or so to figure out why.

[Leaf]

DP = double penetration where I'm from.

Ask me what a2m means.

Ok.

What does ass to mouth mean anyway? I mean culturally... ya know?

[the Jazz]

Hokay guys, thanks for the tips - I'll do some experimenting with the normalizer plugin (I know there's at least one in DP) and see how it turns out. Audacity is free and crappy. So I'd rather stay out of it.

I don't use headphones, but I will when I get some nice ones. Not this "earbud" crap that came with my MD player. For now I'm using some Altec Lansing 5.1 computer speakers, they have pretty nice sound. Good enough for my needs.