loudness boosting?

[tech_smack]

i have a very old technics amplifier and it has a button on it marked loudness.

the effect makes the bottom end sound a lot fuller and it pretty much makes anything sound a bit better.

is there a vst or technique you can use to do the same sort of thing, like a universal tweek u can apply to tracks to make them sound fuller? more as when trying to recreate the effect i have not yet been able to give that added beef quite like this old vintage bit of kit does.

have actually considered resampling productions after running them through the amp before.

[morbid]

http://www.geekologie.com/2008/05/09/emergency-party.jpg

you need one of these mate - £99 from studiospares

[morbid]

Try some of the Bootsy plugins

If you want a fuller rounder lower end try the nasty LF which can thicken up (and muddy if your not careful) the bottom of the spectrum.

Downloads Variety Of Sound (http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/)

A basic EQ set right should achieve what youre after - As far as I know "Loudness" on Hifi's simply boosts Bass and Treble in relation to the Mid frequencies for a fuller sound at low volume levels. It does on my old silver Pioneer anyway

Assume youre on PC?

[tech_smack]

cool i'll try out those plugins.

and yeah i am on a pc, the issue i have is when i play my tracks through this amp and press the loudness on i always think hmmm they would have sounded better if they had been mastered more like that

[don_flintoni]

run finished tracks (.wav) through the t-racks plugin

got plenty of pre-sets to fanny about with if you are not au-fait with EQing and mastering...

[Jay Pace]

Don't do this at production stage!

Think of all the music you run through that amp - professionally produced stuff, made in staggeringly expensive studios, mastered by the best ears in the business. How is it that even their stuff sounds better with loudness?

Loudness is a function on your amp that makes things sound better on hifi speakers by boosting the bass and the high end. On hifi speakers, this can sound quite nice. Same goes for low to mid range headphones. But what you want for production is flat flat flat. If you bought expensive speakers, you wouldn't need loudness - you'd be able to hear your mix clearly and appreciate the relationship between all the parts - how cleanly the bass sits, how heavy the kick thumps, how sparkly the hihats are etc. If you just whack more bass and more treble on everythign, when it comes to playing it through your amp, if you put the loudness on it just degrades into noise.

When you're producing, you need to produce music that sounds good everywhere - on a rig, in a club, on a stereo, on your ipod etc. You can add bass to taste on each of these devices, but if you but extra bass in at the production stage, you'll drown people in bass they can't remove when they listen to it on different devices.

Another note, adding extra bass gobbles up all your headroom. Adding extra bass prevents you from making the track louder at mixdown and mastering stage. A good mastering engineer will usually trim off bass from your mix, rather than add it on. As you turn up the volume on a well balanced, mastered piece of music you'll increasingly feel the bass. If its got too much bass it just turns to mush the louder it goes.

ramble ramble. Anyway - long and short - DONT DO IT!
Go for flat, balanced stuff that sounds good on all sorts of systems. The loudness button might make things sound nicer, but it wouldn't do your productions any favours

[tech_smack]

noted!