r/TechnoProduction • u/Art3mos • 5d ago
Volume Levels
Hey all. Throughout my music production journey, i ran into the same problem a lot of times now.
Basically i produce my track and everything sounds fine to me. After the mix is finished i realize that the buildups are louder than the drops, because there are alot of elements playing at the same time. Therefore i want to get the buildups quieter than the drops to master the track properly. I try to decrease the loudness of the elements etc., but then the buildup looses its power and doesnt sound like its a part of the rest of the song anymore. I also tried it with a volume automation for everything, but the range which is used for that (i learned decreasing the volume around something from 0 to 3 db, to make the drop hit harder) is too small to balance everything out.
I would be happy if someone got advices or a solucion to this :)
Greetings Art3mos
https://reddit.com/link/1vzpza5/video/7d413j69o2mh1/player
Here is the mix :)
2
u/Present-Policy-7120 5d ago
You can try to set an anchor point of maximum volume, typically the kick, and gainstage everything in relation to that. The gainstaging should ideally happen throughout the process- you can keep referring back to this anchor track and adjusting volume accordingly.
It's obviously easier to set this anchor point initially and then proceed but you can certainly go back and drop levels as required which it sounds like you will need to do.
Personally, and this is an arbitrary figure but easiest for me, I set the kick to peak at 0db and everything else cascades downwards from that. Set the anchor at any level but maintain this level. Don't change it, change everything else around it as needed.
3
u/Turmanized 5d ago
yep this, but 0db is too loud lol. use like -12 for your raw kick, subs and low end slightly lower than that. Learn more about gain staging. or if you're not much of a theory person just drag tracks of your favourite producers who you think have great mixes into a spectrum analyser. Pro Q 3/4 is great for this as the UI is clean and modern. look at the shape of the track in busier and calmer parts of it. Try and replicate it. done. Ofc mastered track is louder but u can just lower it down to your levels.
LUFS of a busier part will of course be higher, but that's the point.
2
u/Present-Policy-7120 5d ago
0db isn't "too loud", it's just a relative measurment and is largely arbitrary as I said. I do find it visually and mentally much easier to have a maximum peak than you 'can't' exceed without your channel fader indicating clipping on the channel but the number itself doesnt matter. Use -12 or -4.6 or anything. Choose whatever level you want tbh, but stick to it and cascade supporting sounds downward based on that one value. This just stops you making arbitrary spot decisions about levels- you already have the framework in place to make an informed choice and you won't get this sort of uncontrolled level creep, and if you do, you know what's happening and how to fix it.
I would also suggest you dont touch the anchor level unless you add processing and need to go up or down to get back to this hypothetical unity value.
(I should add that i set the master fader at -5 so I'm not clipping but I am not fussed about that either way)
1
u/Sanaraba 5d ago
dont try to make the buildup quieter imo, make the drop hit harder instead. Leave some headroom by removing/automating certain elements in the buildup, especially low end. Then bring the full low end back in the drop. That usually creates way more impact than just turning the whole buildup down.
1
u/Art3mos 5d ago
Thank you for the answer. Sounds logical, but if i master a track, where the buildup is louder in db as the drop, then i run into the problem of having the buildup clipping at a point, where the drop doesnt i basically want to achieve the opposite
1
u/Sanaraba 5d ago
this might sound overly simple. but then turn the entire build down until its at the same db level. its more important that the actual loudness is higher of the drop then the db level though
1
1
u/Krapapapa 5d ago
I ran into this problem before, but it was mainly an arrangement issue. As in orthodox techno no real 'buildup' will be used. This is something I probably coped from club/EDM arrangements. If you are still pursuing this, then have a look at EDM production subreddits or Youtube.
For the other part, like one user said, it might be compression (maybe on your mix bus). As it literally levels out the quiet parts to the somewhat louder parts.
1
u/Art3mos 5d ago
yes i maybe check out another forum. the track is a hypertechno track, a more newer genre kind of a "pop" techno i would say
1
u/Krapapapa 5d ago
Ahh make sense, I think if you change your arrangement around the buildup a bit with more silence towards the drop + some compression debugging that it will work out. Goodluck
0
u/ContributionPlane295 5d ago
You could try creating a return channel w/ reverb, send your buildup elements to that return (automated increase). Might make the elements fit better together?
5
u/ikramshinwari 5d ago
Do you use any type of compression on your master?
I used to have a similar problem because of wrongly using compression.