When it's time to make an album out of multiple songs ...?

Hi - I’ve got several Cubase songs I’d like to put on one CD. I don’t have Wavelab or other mastering software. I’m then going to put them on soundcloud (from the CD, my DAW is not internet connected).

I couldn’t find a youtube or on the 1st 4 pages of a Cubase search, if anyone can help with the questions below, or can point me to a link, I’d be very grateful - thanks!

  1. What is the best way to have all the songs be similar “loudness”? I’m not trying to be extremely loud, but would like all the songs to be “listenable” in terms of not having to turn the volume knob up or down between songs. The only thing I can think of is to make adjustments in Cubase track by track and listening - there’s not another way, is there?

  2. Is there a way to batch export multiple songs at once so they wind up on the CD as multiple songs (rather than just one long song on the CD)?

Thanks :smiley:

If you can’t afford to have someone master your tracks for you then you should look into getting a software program that handles Red Book CD authoring and mastering.

WaveLab is available at two different price points to meet your budget.

Cheers,

Carey

You can get most of that done in Cubase with the right metering plugins, but it’s not what it’s designed to do. (if it was, Steinberg would be shooting themselves in the foot by killing wavelab sales :wink:)

Export all, from mtheir respective Projects, as songs.
Set up one of Cubase’s Mastering templates.
Import all your songs (to ONE track). They will (should) all go to where the cursor is positioned.
Check balances or use limiting etc or eq to achieve a coherent balance.
Set a marker for each track. (optional but can be useful)
Export one by one. To a folder named “The XXXX Album” etc.

Go to the XXXX album folder, highlight all tracks and select Play in Windows Media Player.
In WMP (bone up on how to burn an album) then burn the tracks to CD.

If you haven’t done it before I’d experiment with WMP on burning dummy albums and tracks first.

Thank you everybody for your advice!

Conman - I am going your route. When I initially export the songs in your first step, I have dithered down to 16 bits. Do I keep them there at 16 bit when I reimport all of them to one track in preparation for volume processing as needed? Or …?

Ah … I think I just needed to think a bit more … keep it at 32 bit (no dither) until the final mix down to CD. Makes sense anyway … please chime in if wrong … thanks!

That is correct, that should be the very last thing you do. (to the files that is :laughing: )

Thank you Conman for your advice, which I followed and which worked great! Thank you everyone else as well for recommendations. Just for the record, Split, I have done at least ONE thing after dithering, so that’s OK then!

As the whole point of dithering, with I take it the UV22hr, is to apply shaped noise for the bit depth reduction from Cubases 32fp to CD’s 16 bit then doing anything else to the file will probably result in another 32fp file, (even a volume change) then it’s probably not OK :laughing:

The main point would be if you can actually notice any difference whatsoever?

Dithering with the UV22hr should really be the last thing you do and only done once!

Sorry Split, I was just making a joke, a bad one apparently! Yes, I only dithered once, using the same algorithm, and it was the last thing I did before bringing it from 24 bit (or is it 32 bit?) down to 16 bit to put on the CD.

Thanks!

Oh… I see, a joke Hmm… :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :mrgreen:

Responding to your “…to the files, that is!” - of course! :laughing:

But seriously - thanks for your help, as always :smiley:

Ah… I get it now. :laughing:

Sometime I really need the simple things explained to me. :stuck_out_tongue:

My heads so far up my own arse I can see my tonsils :mrgreen:

Wavelab Elements seems to be perfectly designed for this. In the Global Audio Analysis window you can see your files’ average loudness. That could be handy for keeping your tracks at the same level. The CD burner and Soundcloud upload come in handy often too. Okay, not so much the uploader. :mrgreen:

it`s time to crack open this book.https://cambridge-mt.com/ms/main/