DeadSignal wrote:Okay, can i ask you guys, what are you using for compression/final mixdown?
I'm using FlStudio multiband compressor + soundgoodizer and my tracks are nowhere near as loud as the tunes for the rest of this game.
And my levels are all at full, the bars rarely ever move below 100% but the tracks just aren't as loud....
I can only suggest to go with a more direct method of comparing levels. You may need to make an extra comp / limiter based adjustment after exporting, in software where you can better gauge the differences?
Difficult to give an example; there's a lot of stuff out there and you should see what works and sounds right - but that said, something like Adobe Audition allows you to instantly 'see' the loudness from the waveform, take readings of the average dB, has built-in compressor and mastering functions, VST plugin support, and also has a multitrack (so you could compare your track to a 'reference' from V5 and A/B between them to see if the loudness is same).
But, you raise a good point: is the average volume of V5's music just too loud? Possibly - not the loudness in itself, but how it meant a lot of the dynamic attack and punch of the drums got 'squashed out' because of the high compression / limiting levels.
The volume level had to be based on V4 - which was released before I got involved - as some tracks were being carried over from that. Some of the V4 stuff seemed to push the levels quite a bit (meaning the ones that originally weren't as compressed, like Entertainment Street, seemed quiet even though they technically weren't - possibly your same problem), so I had to avoid that issue and keep a similar loud volume for consistency, even though it sacrificed the dynamics.
