Ensure your finished tracks compete with others in the loudness wars on streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music
Logic Pro
Developer Apple Inc
Difficulty
Time needed
20
Logic’s built-in Adaptive Limiter can help create the correct impression of perceived loudness for your mixes so they can hold their own against other tracks. Although we wouldn’t recommend this as an alternative to having your track professionally mastered, in the absence of expensive mastering plugins from third-party developers, this trick works great for ensuring that quick rough mixes sound loud enough. Our example track mimics a rough mix peaking at around -3dB. Left like this, the track would sound too quiet against other material on streaming services, so here’s how to fix that.
Take it to the limit
Get your loudness levels licked with Adaptive Limiter
Step-by-step Working with Logic’s Adaptive Limiter
1 Import audio
Drag the audio file ‘Adaptive.wav’ onto a new audio track in an empty Logic project. Import the tempo information so that the project sets itself to a tempo of 108bpm.
2 EQ buster
In the Channel inspector pane, the rightmost channel is the main Stereo Out channel. Click on its first Audio FX slot and select EQ>Single Band EQ from the menu.
3 Cut subs
To remove any unwanted subharmonic frequencies from the mix, set the EQ Mode to ‘Low Cut’ and dial the Frequency control down to around 30Hz.
4 Add compression
In the
