Yes, no-one, on that thread, or elsewhere I’ve found seems to want to be specific about RMS or any other possible consistent loudness method or standard(s). Although, that thread, particularly about the third entry by “Massive Mastering” delved the deepest I’ve seen so far online on the subject. MM arbitrarily recommends -15 dB’s RMS as the benchmark for the best sound for loud music such as rock/pop/rap… but gives no recommendation for softer music such as acoustic, etcetera.
The problem: If your song (you created) is grouped in with others, anywhere. For instance on my own portable listening device. Unless you use an auto-volume leveling type program, which personally I don’t. All that matters is what the majority (of that particular group you’re in) is doing loudness-wise.
All music, if and when I listen on a portable device, such as my Sansa Clip, I upload as WAV. I don’t even mess with anything compressed. With the larger capacities of portable devices now, (the superior sound quality of) WAV is not a problem. Well except in regards to volume-leveling, it may not work on WAV’s, not sure though, because I don’t use it. It seems when I did, it did not work for WAV. Anyway, most of my CD’s (and ripped WAV’s from them) are of a similar RMS/volume. Although a notable few are obnoxiously not! As well as some being quite low. It is a problem.
Listening to a shuffle of popular Blues, Rock, and Metal yesterday on my Sansa Clip, with a few of my own songs, I created, ocassionally coming up in the mix–mine were way low in volume. * Maybe I shouldn’t be listening to White Zombie in a shuffle with my Country/Pre-war Style Blues that I created(?).
On a scale of 1 to 10 my level of expertise is probably a 1 but trying to follow as best I can… As far as your post, I’m guessing I would need the guitar on a seperate track than the vocals for some of the recommendations, to which, currently I’m recording only live and mono (one track/no over dubbing). I do try to bring the vocals closer than the guitar as much as possible though when recording -on my iPod …LOL (just a hobby/study really at this point), thanks for the input though.
Attempting to produce a good iPod recording (if possible), should by default advance me to a higher level of expertise if and when I do get better equipment.
I didn’t set out to be a producer though!! But hey, somebody’s got to. Even if I was in a band proper, when it came to recording if it didn’t come out spectacular I’d probably be, “What’s the deal? Does this producer know what they’re doing?” Production is as important or more important than anything else, the producer should be like a member of the band!/maybe working the soundboard (another extremely important part) when the band is performing live. A producer and sound person are sometimes good and sometimes bad and imo make or break a band/or any sound related venture [just ramblin’].