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[mild7]

Thank you for the excellent advice about software! Now, I am really going to ask a dumb question. As I said in a previous post, I got the free Pro Tools and I ended up buying a copy of T-Racks (very cool program, btw). I cleaned up all the tracks in Pro Tools and adjusted some of the tracks in T-Racks (just using the 'output' knob. No compression or anything). Most of the songs I have were already compressed etc. by the bands. Now, I mostly have all the songs SOUNDING like they are the same loudness, but in T-Racks they vary in where they peak, from -4 db to 0 db. I don't want to mess too much with the actual tracks (I tried it with one that really varies a lot in volume and it ended up sounding awful after all the compression an eq I used) but is it okay if the songs sound about the same volume-wise but don't look the same in T-Racks in terms of peak? Am I looking at this the wrong way? I guess what I'm asking for is some basic explanation of mastering in this situation (since they are all from different sources) and whether it is 'okay' as long as the songs sound like a group volum-wise.

Thank you!!!!

[Synthetic]

The way I look at it is... peak is the loudest point in music which usually (not always) is the drum track thanks to the attacks and such. Most of the volume usually comes from guitars, synths, keyboards etc. and they will sometimes sound louder than a drum attack that peaks higher simply because it is a sustained tone or sound. You can tell visually how loud a track might be by looking at the waveform and at certain zoom levels. You can see the peaks of the drum or percussion and the rest in middle makes the bulk of sound which determines the sustained volume of a track. So, to sum it up... just use your ears and don't let the meter control you too much. A track with a loud snare may seem quite overall due to snare's high peaks but another track with dull snare and low volume may sound louder when maxed to same level... that is when you have to spend lots of time with limiters and compressors to get tracks to sound closer in volume level. Hope this helps.