dB question

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six

six

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let's imagine I have a drum and a bass track. I set the drum track's fader to -4 db and the bass track's fader to -8db and so they sound fine together.

but how do I have to set the faders to keep the drums' and bass's relative level but still make them louder?
let's say I want to set the drums to +4 db... that wouldn't make 0db for the bass, right?

how do you calculate this?

ok, maybe "let your ears tell you" is the right answer - but my ears can't tell me much with these crappy 'monitors' ;-)... and playing my mixes over other systems I found out that -4db for my drums and -8db for my bass works quite fine.

so how do I raise those faders correctly to maintain the relative loudness of the both?
 
Well, you hit the nail on the head....

The answer is of course, "Use your ears...."

You *NEED* to be able to hear the difference so if your monitors aren't letting you hear what you need to hear - you NEED a better monitoring system............

Plain and simple...

Bruce
 
hmmm... now that sounds expensive ;-).

but if I knew (I still don't) how a decibel "works" I actually could calculate that, no?
 
Hi six, a wild guess: You have a technical jo or an education i computers or engineering or something?

Well, no you couldn't. Of course, theoretically you are right, and yes, adding 8db to both would help them have the same relative volume as before. But next time you record, the drums will be recorded 2db louder, and then they will be to loud...

Forget the numbers. You can't make music by numbers. Go for what SOUNDS good.
 
trim. Set the drums and bass at the same level with the fader, adjust the trim so that the levels are equal, therefore, you have 2 faders that are at the same settings.
 
P.S. If you are using V.U. meters then you are recording the drum level are a tiny bit high. Say if you record drums on 0 db on a VU meter the transients (sp?) will be about +10db or more depending on the precusion instrument in which you are recoding. VU meters are to slow to respond to transients (sp again)
 
Wallycleaver said:
trim. Set the drums and bass at the same level with the fader, adjust the trim so that the levels are equal, therefore, you have 2 faders that are at the same settings.
Click to expand...
This would work of course, but you're throwing more noise into the picture by not optimizing the trim settings...

Bruce
 
Bruce,
4db on a decent pre amp won't introduce very much noise at all.
 
It's more a question of the mixers internal noise, actually. And you would in theis case raise the noise with 4db. Of course, on a goos mixer, that isn't much noise, but it's still totally unessecary.
 
Wallycleaver said:
Bruce,
4db on a decent pre amp won't introduce very much noise at all.
Click to expand...
I disagree Wally... 4db of noise (which is defined as any undesirable component of a signal) is 3.999db more noise than I'd be willing to put up with, especially when it's completely unnecessary.

And 4db is actually quite a bit of noise!

;)

Bruce
 
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