Another stupid levels question!! Sorry

  • Thread starter Thread starter affleckp
  • Start date Start date
A

affleckp

New member
I hope you can take a few min to help clarify this for me. I am new to recording and am trying my best to learn. I am recording into a digi002r/ada8000 using Protools in my DAW. I have the snare, BD, sm tom, Med Tom, Fl tom, lt overhead, rt overhead miced. I have recorded the drums separately from the guitars bass and vocal tracks which were recorded through a GT Brick pre. All my compression\eq\effects are done in the DAW. When recording the drums should I shoot for as high a peak as possible to 0db or should I look for -3 to -6db peak? What should the peak relationship be from each level? When I recorded the Bass drum and snare peaked close to -1 but the other levels were closer to -4 or -5db. Should I try to match peaks for each level? Even though you normally want the Bass drum and snare louder? The reason I ask is after final bounce the mix is not as loud as I would like. The master level is not clipping and I am peaking at about -1db and the level seems to stay at -3 to -2 almost all the time. Would lower initial peaks for the Bass drum\snare been better? Would that have allowed me more room to increase the final mix level? I know I can compress\limit the hell out of the track to get higher levels but I'm just wondering if my initial recording is hampering the final mix. If you get a chance and have nothing better to do please listen to http://www.myspace.com/downfromnothing the final song Breathe. Please don't be too hard on me this is only my 4th or 5th try at this! Thanks in advance for any help!!
 
Someone smarter will be along soon, but my advice is to record most things at around -3, -6db. I think that is the go. That's what I try for anyway.
 
With 24-bit digital, if you get your levels averaging (not peaks) around -12dBFS, you're fine... with hi-res digital, there's NO need to be recording hot at all....

As Jason (at Farview) so rightly says:
"There is no prize for getting everything as close to 0dBFS as possible. You won't get paid more, girls will not flock to you offering sex, just turn it down."
 
I'm a little confused here. If my average is up at say -3db with peaks at -1 on the master, why is the bounced mix volume not loud enough? If I was averaging -12 would it not be less loud? Is the final volume attained some other way than getting the average mix as high as possible using compression and limiting without clipping? What am I missing?
 
Depends on what your comparing it to. Most of the volume on commercial CDs is achieved during the Mastering process, not the mixing process.

As soon as you start squashing things with compression to bring up the gain, you're going to decrease sound quality. Better to have less volume and better quality then higher volume and crappy quality.
 
affleckp said:
Is the final volume attained some other way than getting the average mix as high as possible using compression and limiting without clipping? What am I missing?
Click to expand...
I gotta ask: Just where is it that all you rookies are getting the whacked idea that the RMS level has to be as high as possible and that the way to do that is by squashing the life out of tracks with compression? Where is it you guys go for your information before you come here?

G.
 
The misunderstanding in at lest my case is that the mastering process has such a significant effect on the overall volume. I was under the impression that the mastering process being the last was for final fine touches and small changes in volume to match other tracks being put on the same CD. I realize that compression especially significant compression is in general bad and will suck the life from the track. Problem was I was expecting the volume to be much closer to a commercial CD directly out of the DAW bounce. Is the Ozone plug-in a good choice to master with or do you have some other suggestions?
 
Nothing wrong with Ozone. The hard part with mastering is using it correctly. That comes with practice, and with practice only :). I've been at this for years and I'm still only a mixing engineer trying to refine my mastering technique to anything above average, and am still learning new things all the time. :o

I know this is not an answer you want to hear, but to get a mastered recording that is as hot level-wise as many of today's extremely-compressed CDs and still sounds good, as often as not takes pro-level tracking to start with; the best mic technique recorded though the best preamps and desks and driven by tracking engineers and producers who know their s__t. Average quality recordings just don't have the stamina to make it through the "Xtreme mastering" that today's fads call for. These top-shelf recordings are then mastered in pro mastering rooms with experience well above and beyond what you or I have.

Many of today's commercial CDs are released with RMS levels in the -9 to-10 dBRMS range. I'm extremely happy if I can get one of my CDs to hit -16dBRMS consistantly from track to track. In reality they often range from -16 to -18, depending on the content type of the song. It's not that I couldn't squash them harder (I could easily if I wanted to), it's just that the recordings I get delivered to me can't take it; when I try pushing them much hotter than that they usually start falling apart and sounding like crap.

Go ahead and push in the mastering process, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with wanting your recordings to be hot. But it's good to understand going in that there will most likely be an upper limit to how hot you're recordings will go before they start sounding worse instead of better, and that upper limit will probably more often than not be below what you hear on your favorite top 40 commercial release CD.

It's even better to understand that if you're not going up against those CDs on large market radio stations, it doesn't matter if your disc averages a few dBs lower than the latest Outkast release. What matters is that people want to listen to it. And even the most jaded thrash-head would rather listen a second time to a good-sounding CD at -16dBRMS than a harsh, crappy sounding CD at -13.

G.
 
Last edited:
Quality post, Glen, thanks. It is very frustrating to have one's music judged by how loud it is on someone's CD player.
 
noisedude said:
Quality post, Glen, thanks. It is very frustrating to have one's music judged by how loud it is on someone's CD player.
Click to expand...
Yeah, It's hard to get R-E-V-E...oops, I mean R-E-S-P-E-C-T that way, isn't it? :D

G.
 
LMAO!!! :D:D

Hello to Satchmo as well, btw. Don't see you here on the dark side too often!
 
Thanks very much guy's for the info! You have been very helpfull.
 
Please clarify for me, are dBFS and dB and dBRMS all the same units of measure?
 
amra said:
Please clarify for me, are dBFS and dB and dBRMS all the same units of measure?
Click to expand...
The decibel (dB) is alway expressed as a value as related to some reference point. There usually is no such thing as a "dB" all by itself when discussed in these forums; that term is really just being used as shorthand for a fuller definition like dBFS, dBu, dBV, etc.

With that in mind, dBFS stands for dB "Full Signal" or dB "Full Scale" and refers to the measuring of a digital signal where 0dBFS is maximum possible digital signal level; or a digital word of all ones and no zeros. As such, dBFS are always expressed as negative numbers (except for a maximum reading of zero, of course), with every drop of 6 dB representing a halving of the perceived volume. So -6dBFS is half as loud as 0dBFS, -12dBFS is half as loud as -6dBFS, etc.

dBRMS is really the same unit of measure as dBFS, it's just referring to the "average" volume level of a total overall signal instead of the single value of a particular sample point in the signal.

Taken to gether it's possible to say that a song has a peak value of, say, -0.1dBFS and an average level of -18dBRMS. Translated this would mean that the loudest peak in the waveform is one tenth of a dB below digital saturation (maximum possible signal level) but the average volume as measured across the whole song is 18dB below digital saturation (or approximately one-eighth the volume of the highest peak.)

Hope this helps clear it up a bit,

G.
 
noisedude said:
LMAO!!! :D:D

Hello to Satchmo as well, btw. Don't see you here on the dark side too often!
Click to expand...

Guess I just needed more excitement in my life. :)
 
affleckp said:
If my average is up at say -3db with peaks at -1 on the master, why is the bounced mix volume not loud enough?
Click to expand...
I would have to say that your average is nowhere near -3dbfs. The track would have to be a sine wave to have that little dynamic range. When we say average, we are not talking about the point where most of the peaks are. The peaks are (for most instruments) just the transients. The transients don't have much to do with the perceived volume of an instrument. For example, if you play a not on a piano and look at it in your editor, you will see a large spike (the transient) followed by the decaying note. The level of the decaying note is the 'volume' that we hear. The average level that we are talking about is the average of the sustained sounds, not the peaks. Drums are very confusing because they consist of mostly transients. The best you can do is set the level so it peaks somewhere around -6dbfs and just don't let it go over. If all the drums don't peak at the same level, it doesn't matter.
 
Southside Glen, thanks for the clarification on the dBFS, etc.


amra
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I know this is not an answer you want to hear, but to get a mastered recording that is as hot level-wise as many of today's extremely-compressed CDs and still sounds good, as often as not takes pro-level tracking to start with; the best mic technique recorded though the best preamps and desks and driven by tracking engineers and producers who know their s__t. Average quality recordings just don't have the stamina to make it through the "Xtreme mastering" that today's fads call for. These top-shelf recordings are then mastered in pro mastering rooms with experience well above and beyond what you or I have.
Click to expand...

No offense to Glen here, we usually agree on stuff, but I am freaking tired of hearing this line. you CAN get your tracks up at -12 RMS recording at home without it "falling apart". anybody who tells you otherwise is full of it. I do *not* mean to say, however, that if you master at home it will sound good. I'm just saying that the line "it can't be done" just isn't true.

satchmo said:
Depends on what your comparing it to. Most of the volume on commercial CDs is achieved during the Mastering process, not the mixing process.
Click to expand...

THIS is the answer to your question. most mixes average between -18 and -22 RMS. the reason your mixes aren't as loud as commercial CDs is because they have to be "mastered" first.

satchmo said:
As soon as you start squashing things with compression to bring up the gain, you're going to decrease sound quality. Better to have less volume and better quality then higher volume and crappy quality.
Click to expand...

where the hell do you people get this?
 
FALKEN said:
No offense to Glen here, we usually agree on stuff, but I am freaking tired of hearing this line. you CAN get your tracks up at -12 RMS recording at home without it "falling apart". anybody who tells you otherwise is full of it. I do *not* mean to say, however, that if you master at home it will sound good. I'm just saying that the line "it can't be done" just isn't true
Click to expand...
Well, I guess it all depends on one's definition of "sounding good". Maybe my use of the phrase "falling apart" sounded a bit strong, but I guess that again has a subjestive definition.

Yes, a home recordist can get their stuff up to -12dBRMS in the mastering stage. There is nothing hard about that. But in my experience, as to whether that is going to sound anything even close to what a commercial CD will sound like at -12 is a whole 'nother story; a story based upon the quality of the tracking. And in most amateur or prosumer situations, the tracking is going to be of a quality where it sounds much more like a commercial CD - in actual sonic quality, not in sheer volume - at lower RMSs.

I am of the school that once the engineer hits that trade-off point where they start sacrificing sonic quality for volume, that's where they should stop "pushing" it. I also believe that if there is only a 10 or 12dB dynamic range between the peak and the RMS volume, unless you are working with all synth, MIDI, or headbanger sounds, that more often than not there are too many important dynamics being lost - unless the squashing has been done with utmost care with the right gear.

Others are of the school that it's OK to push a little past that trade-off point because if you don't have the volume, you don't have a commerical-quality recording.

Or it may be that the artist and engineer are just not as picky as I. I have handed mixes back to clients that I thought sounded pretty sh_tty and was rather apologetic for them...until they listened to them and creamed in their jeans over the quality of the mix I handed them. It has also gone the other way, too, of course ;).

But for my ears and tastes, it's extremely rare that I have come across recordings made anywhere other than a decent commerical studio room by a tracker who actually knew how to use his gear and didn't just throw a dozen cheap plugins at every track they laid, that was able to stand up to much more than -15 before they just start rapidly decreasing in quality. I'm not saying it has to the the Sony facilities or Paisley Park, but it's got to be at least a project studio where more care has gone into the tracking phase than most home recordists can.

Anyway, I just feel that it's both setting unrealistic expectations and incorret priorities to tell a rookie that they can expect to get -10 or even -12dBRMS consistantly and still sound good unless or until they concentrate on the quality aspect of it first. There is WAAAY too much of an emphasis in the minds of most rookies coming into this board on volume, and they need to understand that volume in final masters is earned in the tracking stage.

G.
 
FALKEN said:
=

where the hell do you people get this?
Click to expand...

My comment on compression comes from the homerecorder's perspective. I'd rather have a final product that might not be at commercial volume that has a decent sound, then squash it with a cheap compressor to get it to that volume. Unless you've got some pretty good (and expensive) compressors lying around, squashing a mix to get commercial volume will sound horrible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top