Sound level

[movement23]

How can I up the overall sound on the track without it clipping and or sounding poorly?

[pk1]

Get Medway to master it!

[sven hauck]

His masters are bangin'. Can't go wrong.

[CainArcher]

First of all you have to watch levels or each and every track so nothing goes over 0db anywhere, basically, it's an idea to start mixing with all levels slightly decreased, say to -5db.
To increase overall volume you could try a maximizer on a master bus, carefully compressing the sound and increasing it's gain can also do the trick, but these things are better left to people like Jess really

[admin]

Well it depends on how much you are trying to boost the track. Every track has a loudness 'potential' depending on the sounds used and the arrangement. Not every track will be able to be cranked really loud. You should find something similar in construction to your own track first and use that as a guide. From there generally your kick and bassline will determine how loud you can go. If there are problems getting a track to limit to a decently loud level then this normally means there is an issue in the mix somewhere. Anytime I see the limiters choking on a mix I start looking at the kick and bass to optimize those until I can cleanly raise the overall level.

[movement23]

I was listening to some other tracks and then I decided to listen to mine, when it was playing I could barely hear the track at all and it was at the same volume as the other tracks...

[sven hauck]

Half the battle is also mixing as you go (Jesse may have alluded to this in another thread), where you pay close attention to the volume levels of each part and the balance of each in the mix. So as you add each successive part, you should not have to raise the levels of the other parts, as you will the bring the balance out of wack.

The best pre-master is one that you don't have to process too much in the mastering phase.

Watch out for too much compression as well. A lot of industry articles write up gear and plugin reviews regarding compression, so that creates a knee-jerk reaction that makes you want to compress. You really don't need that much, specially not on synths.

[admin]

Maybe you just needed to limit it?