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How to make my tracks louder?

A well-balanced arrangement and mix will determine your track's loudness potential. The "throw a limiter on it" type of advice will do your music more harm than good if you don't understand what affects that limiter. The mixes with the highest loudness potential are those with the cleanest arrangements, meaning those without multiple elements fighting each other for space in the frequency spectrum. And the most important area of the frequency spectrum, as far as limiters are concerned, is the low end. The cleaner and tighter your low end is, the better, as low end eats headroom for breakfast, and if you find your mix is pumping and/or distorting, a kick drum, bass, low synth, etc. (or a combination thereof) is probably your culprit. A lot of people layer three low drums with sub bass, cello, and miscellaneous low synths and then wonder why their mix is a pile of mud that distorts the second they bring down the threshold on their master limiter. Figure out what elements are essential to your arrangement and mute the rest. This is a necessary skill for any great producer, regardless of loudness concerns. One great way to hone in on your low end at the mix stage is to solo it with something like the free Isol8 plug-in. Check those lows and low mids. Turn the mud into something focused via EQ, transient design, dynamic EQ, compression, etc. Your headroom will thank you. Also, Google the Fletcher-Munson curves.

With that said, loudness is absolutely the last thing to worry about, and everyone's music would benefit from less focus on it.
 


Probably both given that I'm mostly self taught, but I do think it is mixing more than orchestration. But curious to see what you think based on this track.


I think the main issue here is EQ. Then, inconsistencies in volume between sections of the track which are at similar dynamic (most lower), some volume inconsistency between sections (brass needs a slight boost or to push the dynamic timbre a bit more, not sure if you have it at full dyn; possible solutions: a. layer [I did; trombones and a bit of horn], b. turn other sections slightly down, c. max dynamic if you aren't, d. do volume automation, if not in the project, then in the bounces [I did on the full track], e. use more close mic). You can make it a bit more brick-wally by limiting, though it's not necessary. Depends how much you want to push it and how you balance (for example, if your brass is clipping turn the rest down and re-balance instead of limiting the excess 1-2 dB or whatever, but that's up to you).

Anyway, here's my take on it, if you don't mind (not exactly as I imagined it, still wanted the brass [or all of it] a bit more present without limiting, but it's close enough and you can see the general direction):
https://mega.nz/#!kVBCCIrJ
(Withheld the link. Tell me if you want me to make it public or pm and I'll update the post accordingly.)
Preview: https://instaud.io/private/bf8b1cbc0221d2e1d0e0c8aea8c85a49798a80e2

Its very easy. Use the level meters in your daw. Have all your tracks at about -10dbfs when recording (the actual clip, not your faders). Mix as you please. Eq some of the bottom off of your mix, and use a limiter to bring up the level. Use a reference track to compare your levels to. Done.

I also find that's a good starting point. You might want to play with volumes a bit before limiting though.
 
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