Guide
Why is my DJ mix so quiet?
Usually because of its peaks, or because it was not pushed to the ceiling. You can turn a file up cleanly only as far as its highest peak allows, and that decides how loud everything else ends up. Here is how that works, the usual causes, and what helps with each. If you'd rather not fix it by hand, KRATEO Setmaster levels the drops and finds clicks in the browser (see the end of this guide).
The loudest peak decides how loud your mix can get
Two numbers describe your mix. Its loudness, in LUFS, is how loud it sounds to human ears, averaged over the whole mix. Its true peak, in dBTP, is the highest point the waveform reaches. Between the two is a gap, which loudness meters show as PLR, the peak-to-loudness ratio. Turning the mix up or down moves both numbers together, and the gap stays. So if the highest peak may go no further than -1 dBTP, the loudness ends at -1 minus the gap.
A mix with a 12 dB gap ends at -13 LUFS. A mix with a 16 dB gap ends at -17 LUFS: 4 dB quieter at the same peak, with nothing wrong with it.
Why a DJ mix comes out too quiet: three causes
1. One spot sets the ceiling for everything
The highest peak can be anywhere: one snare, one spiky drop, or a click from a vinyl record or a loose cable. Whatever it is, the whole mix stops there, and a single click well above the music can hold a whole mix down by several dB. Find it on the true peak graph of your meter. If it is a defect, turn just that moment down with volume automation, or cut it out. Then the next highest peak decides.
2. Some of your drops are quieter than the rest
Sometimes only a stretch of the mix is quiet: a few drops that sit several dB below the others. Leveling brings them up toward your loudest, so the quiet stretches are gone, even where the loudness number of the whole mix barely moves. How to master a recorded DJ mix has the steps.
3. Your recording was never turned up to the ceiling
Gain staging decides how much headroom a recording keeps. With a low record level or a low master output, the highest peak ends up well below full scale, and the whole mix is quieter than it could be. A recording peaking at -5 dBTP comes up 4 dB before its peak reaches -1 dBTP, with nothing else changed. Check the true peak: if it sits well below -1 dBTP, turn the whole file up until it reaches -1 dBTP, for example with Normalize.
How to make a DJ mix louder without crushing it
Fix what is wrong first: a click, uneven drops. Then set the true peak to -1 dBTP and listen.
If that is still too quiet for you, cut the highest peaks instead of squeezing the whole mix. A clipper takes off only the peaks above full scale; a limiter turns the music down around every peak it catches, for a moment after each one. Should you master your DJ mix? explains what a limiter does to finished tracks. Push in small steps and stop where your loudest drop starts to sound harder or rough.
Past -1 dBTP you give up the safety margin for the re-encode a streaming service applies, which can push peaks over full scale and clip them for good.
How loud should a DJ mix be for SoundCloud?
Put the highest true peak at -1 dBTP. That is safe for streaming: none of your music is clipped, and SoundCloud's re-encode of your upload has room to raise the peaks without pushing them over full scale. Going louder than that can still work if you do it carefully, in the small steps described above.
Making a mix louder with KRATEO Setmaster
KRATEO Setmaster takes care of all three causes. It levels the drops, lifting the quieter ones toward your loudest, and it finds short clicks that stand above your music: you listen to each, and one you mark as a click no longer sets how loud the set can get. Then you choose how loud the master gets: with the highest peaks at -1 dBTP you keep the safety margin, and up to 0 dBTP none of your music is cut. Above 0 dBTP, Setmaster clips the highest peaks. You hear each choice before the master is made. The first 60 minutes of a set are free, as MP3, without an account.