Hmmm...why is my music so much quieter?

[GECPeepers]

For some reason, when I am testing my tracks, they are far quieter than the normal songs in Rock Band. You would think, oh well, that simply means the source material is quieter, but it isn't! When I package I leave the Attenuation at 0.0, but my tracks still sound to quiet in comparison to the songs in the game normally. This is really noticeable on the instrument tracks, rather than the vocal tracks. The vocal tracks sound almost up to the level they should be, while the instruments are far too soft. Any suggestions?

[AskariNari]

In REAPER you need to raise the volume of the stems by exiting all the MIDI editors so that it shows all the tracks in the bottom half of the screen, then find the tracks that have the audio files for the instruments, and use the vertical sliders to adjust the volume.

When you have them at a volume you'd like to test, select all of the tracks (left click on one so it turns a lighter color, then hold CTRL + click on the others) choose File... then Render. Make sure the box for rendering stems is checked, then render the files somewhere and in MAGMA use those files when you build the file. Audition the track, and if the mixing is still of, go back into REAPER and adjust until it's right.

[FairwoodStudios]

Yea, mixing is a very important (and rather difficult) part of authoring. You'll want to use compressors on all your stems, with a .5 ceiling, so that you get the maximum boost on your audio, but there's plenty of EQ to do as well. Of course, you won't want to be too wanton and brutal with your mixing, otherwise you get something absurdly muddy.

[TubaDude49]

Speaking of, if you have mono L/R audio files for each stem, pan each out completely in the respective direction before rendering the stereo file

[GECPeepers]

Wow, thanks for the responses. I am so terrible at this lol.

[wesjett08]

Wow, thanks for the responses. I am so terrible at this lol.

RBN 2.0 Mix Template

Here, Try this ... It's a REAPER template. Load all of your stems in there and adjust to taste. The "MGA Limiter" is tricky to use but it will provide you with the volume you need if you treat it right. Leave the celing where it is and adjust the threshold so that you are hitting -6db of reduction or if you want to play it safe ... Just keep it at -5.0 or so.

After that just render your stems out one by one and throw them back into MAGMA. This will get you half way there ... You still have to have a good ear for EQ and that kind of thing when mixing for RB. It's a entirely different beast than most other mixing projects. What sounds good in REAPER can sound like total crap in game or vice versa. It''s usually a long annoying process but it's totally worth it when you nail it.

If you need any assistance just shoot me a message.

[GECPeepers]

Thanks for the template and advice, hope I can nail it!

[JCirri]

If you want a more visual guide, our lead audio engineer at Rhythm Authors put together an RBN Audio Workshop and recorded over 90 minutes of video detailing how to mix a track for Rock Band. It's broken into 5 parts with timestamps shown for different topics so you can skip around as you please.

http://www.rhythmauthors.com/audio_workshop.php

Keep in mind this was compiled at RBN's inception and some things have changed, but it should cover the basics fairly well. Best of luck!