How do I normalize final volume when rendering?

[lpdeluxe]

I have been recording with Reaper using a Roland Octa-Capture. The tracks are what I want musically, but appear a little low level. In years past I used Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition to set the level of the stereo mix so that no peaks went over 0dB in the final CD mix.

There are two related issues here: I don't want the final result to be too low in level nor do I want it to distort from too high a volume.

How can I do this in Reaper? I can't depend on getting the right level based on the expected eight tracks of simultaneous recording -- who knows what the final output level would be?

I appreciate any help.

[martifingers]

Hi lpdeluxe. I hope the people who are really expert will soon weigh in but if all the tracks are lowish in level then maybe you need to address that in future.
In the meantime have you tried a compressor on the master track?

[Sigilus]

You can do two things right off the bat:

1. Turn up your master track until you've got the level you want.
2. Throw a limiter or compressor on the master track to crush transient peaks, if you want to push it further at the expense of some dynamics.

#1 first, then #2 if desired.

[DVDdoug]

I think the answer is here. Since REAPER doesn't "look ahead" or use 2-pass rendering, I think you have to do it in two steps.

As you may know, the peaks correlate poorly with "loudness" so without compression and/or limiting you normalized/maximized recordings won't be nearly as loud as commercial releases.

[ponk]

Simple answer - slap a copy of ReaEQ and LoudMax on the master, eq to taste, set LoudMax output to -0.5 db, play with volume and threshold until you like the way it sounds.

Longer answer - read Yep's excellent post, cause there's more to it than that

[lpdeluxe]

Thanks to all. Right at tshe moment I'm attacking some rhythm tracks, and I want to burn a CD at a decent level for our guitarist to practice with, and in the future we'll record with the full ensemble. Off to work!

[edit] Yep's thread is great, I wish I had read it years ago when I was starting out! Lots of good knowledge in there.

[lpdeluxe]

I've been playing with Reaper...is there NO WAY to increase the level of a track once it has been recorded? I've tried everything I could think of, and the level is still too low. What's the secret?

[ashcat_lt]

Originally Posted by lpdeluxe

I've been playing with Reaper...is there NO WAY to increase the level of a track once it has been recorded? I've tried everything I could think of, and the level is still too low. What's the secret?

Faders, plugins, "normalize", volume envelopes...

[lpdeluxe]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

Faders, plugins, "normalize", volume envelopes...

Note that I am quite new to Reaper. "Faders": the meters peak red when I try to turn them up. "Plugins": how do I access them? "'normalize'": the word does not appear in the index of 'Up and Running A Reaper User Guide'. "Volume envelopes": I went to Track/Envelope and ticked "Toggle Volume Active" and "Toggle Volume Visible" -- a little volume control showed up under each channel control with a tiny legend that says "+10dB." As far as I can tell, that's a fixed amount.

So: let me start from scratch: how do I increase the volume of the track? If you think you are answering me by providing lists of words, I'm afraid that won't do it.

I appreciate help, but please be aware that this old fart needs help, not patronization.

[ashcat_lt]

If the meters are peaking and it's not loud enough at your ears, then turn up whatever you're listening through - your speakers or headphones or whatever.

If, OTOH, you're talking about one track in a mix, and you turn it up to hitting the red and it's not loud enough compared to the other tracks in the mix, then turn all the other tracks down. (It is at least possible, though, that the track itself has too much of some frequencies which are unnecessary in the mix, EQ can help with that, but...) Then if the whole thing isn't loud enough at your ears, see the first paragraph.

If you've got the mix you want, and the peaks of the full mix are just short of 0dbfs, and the overall perceived volume is lower than commercial recordings on the same system, then you've jumped into the realm of Loudness Wars, and have to decide how much you want to compromise your mix in favor of overall loudness. The best way to get closer is to go back to individual tracks in the mix and control their dynamics better. Then you'll still probably need some compression/limiting on the overall mix.

[lpdeluxe]

Let me ask just one more time, and please understand that I comprehend compression, and loudness, and dynamics. Why don't you pretend I'm a five-year-old, and tell me step-by-step HOW to increase volume, or to compress, because while those are beautiful words, the Reaper software is the next best thing to opaque for me. What menu do I go to? Which selection do I make?

Fourteen years ago, I had a garage apartment I converted into a recording studio, and I spent many a happy and carefree (if sunless) day recording, mixing, doing my own imitation of mastering and then burning to CD...but that was in a galaxy long ago and far away, and I was using Adobe Audition on a Windows XP computer. I got away from recording after a divorce (she got the house) and the strong desire to return to performing music rather than watching from my mixing board while someone else had the fun.

Now, on this planet, I have an iMac and a MacBook Pro, and, while I love the improvement from Windows, I am still pretty much a beginner both with the OS and the specific software.

I have a 5-piece combo, and I know how to record (kept all my good mics etc) and how to process and how to mix and how to evaluate the final product.

What I don't know is how to make Reaper do all the things that were so easy with Audition. I am a graphic artist, and am considered something of a dab hand with PhotoShop, so I am confident that once I enter the temple of the anointed I'll get the results I want.

As Jimmy Reed remarked to a friend of mine while relieving himself in the men's room in an LA club where he was performing,"Why does everything got to be so HARD?"

[DVDdoug]

In years past I used Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition to set the level of the stereo mix so that no peaks went over 0dB in the final CD mix...

...I've been playing with Reaper...is there NO WAY to increase the level of a track once it has been recorded?

Let's try this - Audacity is a FREE audio editor. It's not Adobe Audition, but normalizing your peaks to 0dB is a piece of cake!

1. Open your stereo WAV file in Audacity.
2. Click Effects -> Amplify. The Amplify effect will scan your file and automatically default to the amount of gain needed for 0dB peaks.*
3. Click OK.
4. Click File -> Exportto save the modified WAV file under a new name.

If it's not loud enough, there is a compressor effect and if you don't like the sound of it, you can search for and download optional compressor effects. (The default limiter in Audacity is is a simple hard-limiter, and that's probably not what you want. But again, you can install optional plug-ins.)

It's probably a good idea to re-normalize (with the Amplify effect) after compression to make sure the peaks still hit 0dB.

What I don't know is how to make Reaper do all the things that were so easy with Audition.

It's going to take some time... A DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) like REAPER is more complex than an audio editor like Audition.

Many REAPER users use an audio editor along with REAPER. Wavosaur is another free audio editor and it seems to be popular among REAPER users.





* If you load a floating-point file that goes over 0dB, or if you have applied an effect that pushes the peaks over 0dB, Amplify will default to whatever negative gain is needed to bring the peaks down to 0dB.

[lpdeluxe]

Many thanks. While you were typing I found the "FX" button, and discovered a bunch of useful stuff in the rendering to CD-friendly form my 13 rudimentary mixes.

I'm really liking it now...it's just quite a bit different from Audition.

[zdub]

I also use Audacity to amplify after rendering with Reaper. And I find it more convenient to use Audacity for truncating or adding silence at beginning & end.

[lpdeluxe]

I am listening to my new CD as I type. Audacity turned out to be what I was looking for in Reaper. In fact, it is a lot like Audition. Now I can give my guitarist his rhythm tracks and he can play along at home.

Next we'll record the ensemble and do proper mixing and so on.

Thanks to everyone. I am now confident I can use this regularly. Thanks especially to DVDdoug, I am no longer baffled.

[martifingers]

Originally Posted by DVDdoug

It's going to take some time... A DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) like REAPER is more complex than an audio editor like Audition.

M

A couple of points:
1. Audition is way more than an editor - it is in effect a brilliant DAW if you don't need MIDI and do a lot of editing.
2. It can of course be assigned as the default editor in REAPER - perhaps ipdeluxe might prefer that to Audacity as he is already familiar with it?

[ashcat_lt]

I guess I wasn't aware of how remedial this particular thread really was. I don't really mean that as an insult. Honestly, the question itself was vague to begin. Glad you found a way to accomplish your task.

There are ways to do exactly all of what you did in Reaper itself, but it is a noticeably different workflow.

To be completely honest, I'm still in the process of weening from using SoundForge for the "mastering" side of things myself. It's mostly because I can't find a brickwall limiter that sounds as clean to me as whatever compression they do in their Normalizer, but also because it's somehow just more "right there" and hands on. Just "do this" and then it's done and you save and go home.

Reaper is a lot more flexible both for mixing and mastering, but like I said, different workflow. You should think of it more like a tape machine (the TCP) patched to a mixer (the MCP) which is patched to a mixdown deck (the Master fader). Just like if you were using the hardware, the only way to make sure that it's as loud as it can get without distorting is to watch the meters on the mixdown deck and adjust the volume going there.

When you asked

How can I do this in Reaper? I can't depend on getting the right level based on the expected eight tracks of simultaneous recording -- who knows what the final output level would be?

it made me wonder if you have even found the MCP (Mix Control Panel, where you'll find the Master Fader and it's meter). That really might have answered the whole thing.

Once the Master meter is hitting where you want it and overall level is reasonable, you go File|Render to actually commit that to the final file. I know you can even burn from Reaper, too, but I don't go to physical media all that often. All of this stuff is in the guide. There's a bunch of good stuff on the wiki, tutorial vids all over YouTube, and, of course, this forum which is generally more helpful than my answers may have sounded.

[zdub]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

(snip)

it made me wonder if you have even found the MCP (Mix Control Panel, where you'll find the Master Fader and it's meter). That really might have answered the whole thing.

Once the Master meter is hitting where you want it and overall level is reasonable, you go File|Render to actually commit that to the final file. I know you can even burn from Reaper, too, but I don't go to physical media all that often. All of this stuff is in the guide. There's a bunch of good stuff on the wiki, tutorial vids all over YouTube, and, of course, this forum which is generally more helpful than my answers may have sounded.

But isn't this pretty much trial & error? You have to listen to the whole mix, see what your peak is, adjust master volume, and listen again? Isn't there any way to find out what the peak would be for a particular master volume before rendering? (Sort of like what SWS Ctrl-Shift-P does - analyze & display peak & RMS.)

[ashcat_lt]

Originally Posted by zdub

But isn't this pretty much trial & error? You have to listen to the whole mix, see what your peak is, adjust master volume, and listen again? Isn't there any way to find out what the peak would be for a particular master volume before rendering? (Sort of like what SWS Ctrl-Shift-P does - analyze & display peak & RMS.)

Not that I know of, and that is one of the frustrations. Rendering is usually a little faster than listening all the way through, and shows the levels as it goes.

[zdub]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

Not that I know of, and that is one of the frustrations. Rendering is usually a little faster than listening all the way through, and shows the levels as it goes.

Thanks. It's not really a big deal for me since, as I mentioned, I use audacity to adjust final levels after rendering. Just didn't know if I was missing something.

[ashcat_lt]

It could be argued that you probably should listen to it all the way through at least once before you sign off on the final file no matter what you use to generate it.

OTOH - If you import the rendered track, run that script, and then use the normalize function, it does about the same thing. You have to render it again, of course.

[Fergler]

Another thing I miss from Logic, in their render window:



There is a normalize dropdown which simply sets the highest peak to 0.0db if it's not already there. It also brings the level of the entire track down if it was peaking above that, something that (in Logic) was easy to miss because it doesn't clip like Reaper does on the master track. (to clarify: I like that reaper clips the audio, it's more instant-feedback). Reaper could do the same, to safeguard against exporting clipped audio. One should be on top of that before render, but if you aren't, there's at least a backup feature to help you.

A normalize feature would be great for those of us not necessarily working on 'commercial mixes'. I use Reaper to do a lot of jam-recording on the spot, or to record scratch tracks from band practice. It would be nice not to have to render, then open a new project to import, normalize, and re-render, but to just have a tickbox to ensure loud-as-possible without damaging the audio integrity.

[lpdeluxe]

I found Audacity to be easy to use, and I ran the 13 songs through its normalize function quickly. I burned a CD and played it back in company with the guitarist. The recording didn't have any other processing, and I ended up with a usable recording. Note that only a RODE NT1000 was open in the room, so a lot of issues with live multi-tracking were absent.

I did have a frustration trying to use the FX button in Reaper: the menu came up when I clicked on it, then another window that had an "OK" button on it. I clicked "OK" and nothing happened. Did I skip a step? The FX I was shooting for was the ReaComp.

[ashcat_lt]

Originally Posted by Fergler

...because it doesn't clip like Reaper does on the master track.

Reaper itself doesn't clip. The meter alerts you if you go over 0dbfs, but it will actually pass much higher levels. Your converters will clip, and if you render to a fixed point format (16 or 24 bit .wav...) then it will clip there, but I'm pretty sure that if you render to one of the floating point formats, it'll just go ahead and do it.

[Fergler]

Originally Posted by ashcat_lt

Reaper itself doesn't clip. The meter alerts you if you go over 0dbfs, but it will actually pass much higher levels. Your converters will clip, and if you render to a fixed point format (16 or 24 bit .wav...) then it will clip there, but I'm pretty sure that if you render to one of the floating point formats, it'll just go ahead and do it.

Reaper distorts on the master track if you go above 0.0dbfs, does this on my laptop output too (so controlling master volume from computer i.e. no 'real' clipping). The individual tracks don't, however, if for e.g. you push all the tracks hard but then pull the master way down, they still sum normally. Personally I love this and I think it's better than Logic's way of hiding your errors from you - Reaper lets you know what's up.

[lpdeluxe]

I have found the rendering to be fast. On several songs I got overs, but it was a simple matter to lower the track volume and render it again -- since the rendering screen retains its settings, it's an efficient way to check your levels. You render it, check for overs, and then either go on to another song or drop the volume and redo it.

I'm getting the hang of this software. I like the workflow. One of the issues I had with Abode Audition is that at one point they changed the workflow to better accommodate video integration and it made the program -- for me -- clumsy and inefficient.

I got Reaper on the advice of a local studio operator who uses it and loves it, and another studio manager who runs Pro Tools. I was told it was the biggest bang for the buck.