Volume Problem

gump0220 said:

My friends and I have a band, and have recorded a song on Garageband 2. When I play the song in Garageband, the volume is pretty good, and the levels of the master track are almost always maxing out (constantly in the red/yellow). The song plays fine when I export to itunes, but the volume in comparison to all of my other songs is relatively low. If i go to the song in itunes and put the volume up +100% and the eq on "Rock", the song sounds perfect. The only problem is when i burn the song on a CD, it doesn't retain the itunes settings. Is there any way I can increase the volume either in or out of itunes/garageband, and maybe also give it the rock eq setting, (which boosts treble and bass), to give the song a fuller sound?

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Do you mean compared to commercial recordings? If so, commercial recordings go through a post recording process called mastering which is an art beyond just recording and mixing. It involves very selective use of eq and multi band dynamic effects to create a consistent sound across an album ideally. Unfortunately market (read label) pressure has forced many talented mastering engineers to forget their formidable skills and focus more on making the tracks as loud as possible. The end result is music that is squashed to death with brickwall limiting to the point that it is devoid of dynamics and an analysis of the final waveform produces a solid square wave. If you really want to go that route, download Audacity, a free audio editor, and limit your tracks until you've taken all of the life out of them. It you just want to sweeten the mix a little, then download Audacity, tweak the overall track eq a bit and maybe limit it a couple of dB to increase the loudness gently, even musically. Pure normalized loudness does not make the music better - in fact it can destroy some otherwise wonderful music and over time listening to stuff that's been brickwall limited to death will fatigue your ears