I am new to all of this and open to any advice given! I am currently finished with my mix and I am in the process of mastering an album using ProTools 6.9. My first question is:

When you bounce a song down through ProTools, do you lose any quality of the sound ?

Also, do I need to set some sort of limiter on the master track in order for the overall level to be comparable to a commercial cd?

The final product will sound amazing in my studio (through several headphones and monitors), but when I bounce it down, burn the wav files using iTunes and then play it in my car, some of the levels are off and the overall level is extremely low. If a limiter will do the trick for the overall level, then what type would be good to use?

Thanks for the help!

Do you lose sound quality?
No. Not as long as you bounce using the same sample rate/bit depth you recorded in. However, you will need to use 44.1KHz/16-bit to burn to an audio cd.

Limiter?
Definitely for those kind of levels. Trick is using it without making it sound obvious.

Type of limiter?
Lots of opinions there. Lots of options

As Uncle Jerr said, you won't be losing quality during a bounce if it's at the same sample rate and bit depth.

I would consider mastering much more than slapping a limiter on the mix and calling it a day, but of the intent is to just get the mixes a bit hotter for demos that's fine.

You will also need to convert to 44.1K/16 bit as has already been said. Given the above, I would try an L2 and dither with the L2 to 16 bit (or Pow-R plug)then perform tweakhead sample rate conversion in PT if needed.
_________________
Tom Volpicelli
The Mastering House Inc.
http://www.masteringhouse.com
CD Mastering and Media Production Services

I’m sort off having the same low level problem with my PT002. when bouncing to disk to form a stereo track, the mix and balance is still there. However while listening to them on my ipod. I would have to turn my song all the way up for it to be loud, while on other pro commercial songs, I just need to turn it a tad more then half way. I recently purchased the L1 and hoping that would do the trick. Is there a big difference between the L1 and the L2? Or L3?

TheVulture wrote:

I’m sort off having the same low level problem with my PT002. when bouncing to disk to form a stereo track, the mix and balance is still there. However while listening to them on my ipod. I would have to turn my song all the way up for it to be loud, while on other pro commercial songs, I just need to turn it a tad more then half way. I recently purchased the L1 and hoping that would do the trick. Is there a big difference between the L1 and the L2? Or L3?

It's been quite a while since I've used an L1, but as far as I can recall I found the L2 to have a bit less distortion. The L3 is entirely different, more of a multi-band limiter.

Level in mastering is achieved by more than just throwing a limiter at a mix though. Usually a small amount of compression comes first to hold the mix together. It may be accomplished with one or more compressors performing different tasks. Also some engineers clip high grade converters, outboard devices, or a fixed bus to achieve brickwall limiting.

Using an L1 will get you closer to a commercial level, but it's not the entire answer.
_________________
Tom Volpicelli
The Mastering House Inc.
http://www.masteringhouse.com
CD Mastering and Media Production Services

thanks masteringhouse,

I'm not really planning on mastering my own songs. I'm just trying to get a basic good level just like everybody else. I compress going in my system, i compress in my system and limit going out, and the levels are still low. while my amatuer friend recorded his band on a portable roland vs840 multitrack recorder/mixer thingie in the most un-professional way with the pans and eqs all over the place with no outboard gear, yet his levels were pretty good, while i have to turn it up all the way. just makes an intermediate engineer wonder if its a internal problem or a user one. I wont be in my studio for another month but cant WAIT to try out my knew L1 arsenal, I'll come back then and report.

Something that might help out is importing a song from a major label release into your mastering session ("control track"). That will help you know how close your levels are using that as a guage.

I'll usually, on each song, insert a parametric eq, multiband compressor, and a limiter. I'll sweep the frequencies and subtract the nasty ones by a few dB with a narrow bandwidth using the parametric eq....take care of any eq'ing problems with the multi band compressor and use that to eq the track similar to my "control track," then place the limiter to get it slammin.

On the master fader I'll put a peak limiter just to keep it from clipping, along with dither!!! Don't forget dither!!!! This seems to work well for me. I usually use the Q10, C4, and L1...sometimes an aural exciter to pop out the vox.

Interesting stuff crusher,

I never really experimented with dither before, I guess my question would
be, when you apply dither, is there any configurations that you apply such
as threshold settings? Or do you just put a dither plug-in with the proper
bit depth, and that’s it?... is there such a thing as a good or bad dither
plug in?..all I have is the standard PT dither plug-in

Another question I’ve been pondering about mastering is signal flow related.

When I import my bounced to disk stereo track into a new session for basic
mastering levels and apply my limiter, do I turn up my master fader and
brick wall limit it from there, or do I just leave my fader on the pro
tools default setting (forgot what db that is) and brick wall it there?

Also just to be clear, brick walling is when the limiter shows an audio
signal that is constantly peaking (but not flashing red) unless there is a
breather of some kind, correct?

Thanx in advance

Dithering should be used whenever you are reducing the wordlength of the audio, e.g. 24 bit to 16 bit. There are no threshold settings, just types of noise shaping and dither. The type of dither that you use depends on the material (and your particular tastes). POW-R is very popular.

As far as the limiter, I would leave the master fader at zero and adjust the threshold of the limiter to reduce maybe 2-3 dB. If you need more than that, try a conbination of compression and limiting to avoid having the audio get too harsh sounding.
_________________
Tom Volpicelli
The Mastering House Inc.
http://www.masteringhouse.com
CD Mastering and Media Production Services