In terms of freeware I'd have a look at the following: If your going down the paying route check out plug-ins such as Izotope Ozone or something like T-racks - which has pretty much everything you'll need. Alternatively if your doing, for example, a full 48 channel mixdown of individual instruments, drums and vocals then you'll need the tools to get those kinds of levels. The process of mastering really depends on the material - if your doing a 'DJ mix' then really all your after is gentle limiting at the outs to keep things steady, and avoid the dreaded clip, as the tracks have already been mastered. Can be a good thing in moderation but can completely destroy a track when done badly. You need specific tools to do this : the main one being a 'limiter' which, essentially, forces the average volume of a track upwards whilst stopping the peaks from going over into the red.

Is this a result of compression or something? Does anyone know any tricks in Live or another application to increase the volume and do some diy mastering? It sounds to my untrained ears that the stuff I render is about 2-3 db lower than professional music. I know that mastering is a complicated process, but all I want to know is how to increase the volume to a level nearing that of professionally produced music.

The_planet wrote:When I render audio from Live 5, the volume of the rendered track is considerably lower than professionally produced material.

Increase volume of wav file