Which is the best way to have all my songs louder

[JohnVo]

hi

may i know which is the best way to have all my songs louder without clipping?

in the past i have used sometime the preset hard limit -0.1 dB

i have watched many tutorials on youtube and in these they use always hard limit

i have several songs and i want to create a compilation and i would like to work even on single audio (without creating a compilation)

i have learned the differences between hard limit and normalization

is there a better way to have all my songs play louder?

thanks

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Why do you want all your songs to be louder? In order to do this by any means, it involves reducing the dynamic range, and that's undesirable for several reasons. Why not just turn the volume up?

[Bob Howes]

Let's be clear.  Working in a digital domain, the loudest you can get is 0dB(FS).  That's the highest level that a digital system can handle and anything above that gets into clipping.  Ignoring Auditions's 32 bit Floating Point for a moment, if you're working at 24 bits, a 0dB(FS) sample will read 111111111111111111111111.  You have no more digits to add.

What you're doing when you apply hard limiting is changing the dynamic range, not the loudness (level) of your music.  Limiting the dynamic range  (i.e. making the "quiet bits" as loud (or nearly as loud) as the peaks gives the illusion of loudness.  Playing with the settings of your hard limiter will control just how much of this "fake volume" you have.

I'm with Steve and frankly prefer to allow some dynamic range rather than go for the loudest reproduction I can get.  Dynamic range gives your recording some air to breath.  However, I realise that some music genres use maximum levels and lack of dynamic range as part of the "style".

Now...to be truly controversial, some of these same styles actually use a small amount of clipping to increase the effect of loudness.  Just as guitar amps are often driven into clipping to create the image of a loud guitar, a few misguided mixers will use the effect on entire tracks. The particularly applies when you convert to MP3 where something which is at 0dB(FS) in wave will often have slight clipping once converted to MP3.

[JohnVo]

hi

thanks for the answer Bob!!

even hard limiter -6 db and normalize will limit my dynamic range right?

about old records (they have a really a low volume ) normalization doesn't affect the music quaility ,does it?

i guess i will increase the volume

[Bob Howes]

Well don't forget you have 2 controls on the Hard Limiter--the maximum level and the amount of gain to apply.  The more gain applied the less dynamic range you'll have--and the more apparent loudness.  Also, you don't gain anything by limiting to -6 then normalising.  You may as well just set max level to -0.1dB or similar then experimenting with the amount on the gain control.

[JohnVo]

hi Rob

Also, you don't gain anything by limiting to -6 then normalising.

why? the volume and the audio is very loud

outside audition , a compressor with these settings multipler -60db , threshod -6, attack 0 and release 0 and after normalize it , it does boost the volume

Well don't forget you have 2 controls on the Hard Limiter--the maximum level and the amount of gain to apply.  The more gain applied the less dynamic range you'll have--and the more apparent loudness.

but i guess about your   statement

Let's be clear.......

. everytime i use the hard limiter it reduce the dynamic range

so it's better avoid it

but when the hard limiter/ compresso is really necessary?

thanks

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Giovannivolontè  wrote

but when the hard limiter/ compresso is really necessary?

It has uses when it comes to deliberately compressing material for use on low bit depth systems, like telephone messages, etc. On these signals, you can avoid excessive noise by limiting the dynamic range, and making sure that all the useful information stays closer to 0dB. It has no use whatsoever in sensible music production. I've been using Audition and its prececessors for nearly 20 years, and found no use for it at all.

[JohnVo]

hi

Just because some are old records and sounds very week while other songs sounds loud, that's all

thanks

[stefan_gru]

Giovanni: Does this help? Matching loudness across multiple audio files

[JohnVo]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Stefan+Gruenwedel  ha scritto

Giovanni: Does this help? Matching loudness across multiple audio files

hi Stefan

no it doesn't

but dynamic processing can do it , but i don't know how set up the effect

i have tried another program editor and there is a preset for dynamic processing and i would like to reproduce in audition

thanks

[ryclark]

If we have any chance to telling you how to do it in Audition we will need you to tell us what the other program is and what effect you applied and what settings you used I'm afraid.

Have you tried some of the Dynamics and Compressor presets in Audition's effects apart from Normalisation/Hard Limiting. You would probably have to use Normalisation first to bring up the overall level of the audio before using a Compressor. But we might be able to help better if you could post a sample of the audio somewhere like Dropbox or Soundcloud so that we can take a listen to it and be able to better advise you as to what needs doing to it.

[JohnVo]

Hi Ryclack

have you used matching loudness?

i have watched this video

if there is a better video ,let me know

but i got really the worst results!!!

the songs doesn't even play the same loudness

i have used perceived loudness -13db ,using limit