making ur demo cd that bit more professional

[Mr_Happy]

am i right in thinking that if i wanted to get the sound that little bit louder w/o making it 'clip' i would have to do the following processes:

 

* running it though a compression filter to remove the unnecessary spikes

* then normalising it to 0 dbz

 

[Mr Moo]

Yep, u are correct.

[Magicman]

What's a compression filter? Where can I get one?

[Chris Hawkes]

i dont think demo's should be normalised of eq'd - they should be a true interpretation of what comes out the back of the mixer!!

[Mr_Happy]

chrishawkes said:

i dont think demo's should be normalised of eq'd - they should be a true interpretation of what comes out the back of the mixer!!

 

normalisation wont effect the sound. it will only effect the volume of the sound. all normalisation does is increases teh volume to a point where the peak level of the sample reaches a set point (ie 0 dbz)

[Mr_Happy]

majikman said:

What's a compression filter? Where can I get one?

 

not sure if ur being genuin there or not, but i'll explain just incase u are.

 

bascially when u run a compression filter through a sample all it does is make the loudest bits of the clip a little bit quieter, and the quietest bits a little bit loulder.

 

this technique is used alot on the radio so that when ur driving along in ur loud car u can still hear all of the music despite it being a quiet or loud bit.

 

the reason i was wondering if it would be useful on this occation (cd demos) is because when u mix a cd ur always gonna get the odd spike in the sound. this meens that if u increase teh overall volume the rare spikes WILL 'clip' the sound and make it sound [censored]. so this will hopefully reduce the spiking so the volume on the CD can be increaded further more

[Blink]

Altho, technically, if your mixing is [censored], and your levels between the different tracks are [censored], normalising will reduce this affect. It depends whether you are trying to represent your mixing talents, or just produce a good CD

[Mr_Happy]

Blink said:

Altho, technically, if your mixing is [censored], and your levels between the different tracks are [censored], normalising will reduce this affect. It depends whether you are trying to represent your mixing talents, or just produce a good CD

 

normalisation or compression?

 

am i wrong in thinking normalisation just increases the volume?

[Blink]

Actually, you are right there Mr_Happy, but my basic point is, if you compress/normalise, then you will smooth out any volume-level errors made in the mixing. If it is a demo CD, then anything other than applying a volume increase is altering the sound. (In something like Soundforge, you can add a dB increase to the entire mix, until the biggest peak isn't quite clipping, so, in effect you are just turning up the volume). Normalisation is a bit different, as it depends on whether it is based on "peak" or "average" levels, but this area of sound manipulation isn't my strong point

[Kaine]

Compression is simply a process used to raise the quiet bit's in the recording upto a slightly better level. It can make the mix sound a little smoother should you have acidently mixed in a little low or whatever. I like recording to my minidisc rather than harddrive as it stops accidental clipping should i get carried away. Normalization takes a average level of the whole sound file and trys to raise the whole file to whatever headroom you give it. try to normilze to about -5 db and not 0 db to stop it overloading systems when it's played back. Oh and if your gonna normlize, deffo compress first to iron out any dodgy levels in the mix.

[Blink]

Kaine said:

Compression is simply a process used to raise the quiet bit's in the recording upto a slightly better level.

 

Yup, technically if you reduce the level of any bits, that is done using a limiter.

 

Kaine said:

Oh and if your gonna normlize, deffo compress first to iron out any dodgy levels in the mix.

 

Which brings us back to the question of "Are you trying to show your mixing skills, or get a good sounding CD?", cos if you are trying to show your mixing skills, surely you can't apply compression to the resultant mix.

[Mr_Happy]

thanx guys! this has made a great read