19-05-2015, 11:47 AM
(This post was last modified: 19-05-2015, 11:58 AM by londonmatt.)
*Edited cos I realised I was looking at a peak rather than RMS meter!*
So this is certainly quieter - I've got the RMS at -15.1dB, but the LU range is still somewhere between 0 and 1 i.e. very small. I think the problem is not how loud it is relative to 0dBFS, it's how squashed it is. It's like you had a really squashed audio file, and you've just dropped the master fader a dB or two on output - it's quieter in terms of peak level, but it's still super squashed.
You put in the file name that it was "mastered tape" - presumably you've run it through a tape emulation plugin? If so I reckon that's probably where the massive compression is coming from and why it still sounds relatively musical even though it's still so compressed. You need to drop the input into your tape plugin (which one are you using?) by at least 5dB I'd say and let the music breathe a bit more. Overall though as I said it does sound great! Just still quite hard to listen to the whole song because it is so squashed.
So this is certainly quieter - I've got the RMS at -15.1dB, but the LU range is still somewhere between 0 and 1 i.e. very small. I think the problem is not how loud it is relative to 0dBFS, it's how squashed it is. It's like you had a really squashed audio file, and you've just dropped the master fader a dB or two on output - it's quieter in terms of peak level, but it's still super squashed.
You put in the file name that it was "mastered tape" - presumably you've run it through a tape emulation plugin? If so I reckon that's probably where the massive compression is coming from and why it still sounds relatively musical even though it's still so compressed. You need to drop the input into your tape plugin (which one are you using?) by at least 5dB I'd say and let the music breathe a bit more. Overall though as I said it does sound great! Just still quite hard to listen to the whole song because it is so squashed.