how loud are your tracks now?

[giraffe]

just curious, i find i have to put my stuff out at -9db rms (or better) or people complain.
(some people get it mastered outside, which i suggest. some do not)

i find that a bit excessive (esp considering what i am forced to do it with), but what can you do?

 

[therage!]

Mine are too loud, so I cant' get my stuff mastered.

ME's want/need quite a bit of headrooom.

 

[giraffe]

Mine are too loud, so I cant' get my stuff mastered.

ME's want/need quite a bit of headrooom.

why don't you just not use a limiter on the buss?

 

[LeeRosario]

just curious, i find i have to put my stuff out at -9db rms (or better) or people complain.

then let them complain. I peak generally at -13 rms if I'm mixing on homebased gear and I never get problems. The problem comes when you have to compete against other industry material. Which in that case, is not going to happen with consumer gear.


On studio gear, it's something different.


But despite all that, I prefer to beleive that impact comes with the mix, not with loudness.

 

[therage!]

why don't you just not use a limiter on the buss?

Actually I have been going back in and looking at peaks and making changes in the mix. I would think it would be best to look at those peaks and see if they can be fixed in the mix and leave any limiting for the mastering phase.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

just curious, i find i have to put my stuff out at -9db rms (or better) or people complain.
(some people get it mastered outside, which i suggest. some do not)

i find that a bit excessive (esp considering what i am forced to do it with), but what can you do?

What "people"? Are you talking clients, or listeners?

And are you talking about at mixdown or the final product?

Either way, there is no magic number. It ultimately and (alomost) entirely depends upon the content of the recording; the genre, style and arrangement of the music, as well as the mood of the production, whether it's a live or a studio recording etc.

Most of the stuff I do (rock/alt/jazz/blues) comes out of the mix somewhere in the -17 to -19dBRMS range and makes it to disc in the -14 to -16dBRMS range.

But if I get a client who's content is all Gibson power chords through doubled and tripled miked stacks that are distorted and sustained for longer than the song itself, then yeah, the mix RMS can easily be -15dBRMS or greater, with the master approaching (but still rarely going into) single digit RMSs after mastering.

OTOH, if I get an all synth concept piece, it's not unusual for the mix to come out of the box at -22 to -25dBRMS and for the master to come to rest around -16 to -18dBRMS.

And that's all assuming studio work. Live recordings, by their nature, tend to run a little more compressed and therefore tend to squeeze an extra dB or two of RMS out of the air.

G.

 

[gtrman_66]

Question about RMS levels. In CEP, when I scan for RMS levels, I get 2 options:

0db=FS Sine Wave

and

0db=FS Square Wave

There is generally about 3db or so difference between the 2 selections. When I see these figures talked about, I don't know which one is being referenced?
I don't really pay that much attention to the numbers other than comparison sometimes, but it would be nice to know which one to use.

thanks

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

RMS is typically measured using the sine wave reference as a standard, that's the one you should probably be using.

According to Benny Chico in this thread it appears that Pro Tools may be using the square wave version. Why? I don't know.

G.

 

[NYMorningstar]

I'm a long distance runner and I borrowed my wife's mp3 player the other day and uploaded a bunch of mp3s onto it. I turned it on and found out that her volume was stuck on 50, the max.

What was that? I'm sorry I can't hear you. Screw all you engineers that max out your volumes I say! I'm sorry, what was that? Huh?

 

[flatfinger]

this looks about right ;

 

[Markus V]

I usually recommend my clients to give a listen to my master that isn't totally squashed and has good headroom... something in the -10 to -12db RMS range (usually -10.5db RMS or something like that). I've always gotten positive comments, and clients have been happy with my masters (they haven't asked me to make a louder one). I know that it'd be easier to give them the squashed master they ask first, but I think I'm doing a good job putting some effort in letting them know of the benefits of my mastering approach (e.g. leave some headroom for dynamics).

Just my 2 cents (I wouldn't go over -10db RMS - so -9db is too much in my view)

 

[ecktronic]

why don't you just not use a limiter on the buss?

I would say thats the problem, why hes getting his mixes too loud.

I dont limit at mixing and usually have around -21Db RMS (at the choruses).
I find this is perfectly fine at 24bit. but not at 16bit.

Mastering engineers dont need headroom, but it does make things easier if there is a good bit of headroom. Saves having to decrease the input volume of each unit/plug-in.

Eck

 

[ecktronic]

I usually msater to between -9 and -11dB RMS.
ANy more than -9 can kill a mix and to be honest I dont see any point in going above -9, unless you want to make a radio master, so it stands out compared to other songs on the radio. But the songs on the radio are probably limited to like -6dB RMS using great gear. So might be hard for homerecorders/masterers to acheive this.
Also remember that radio uses heavy compression on songs also, so your master might end up sounding like shit if its vut o -6 then played on radio.

Eck

 

[giraffe]

ANy more than -9 can kill a mix and to be honest I dont see any point in going above -9,
Eck

i agree, and i see that some people are crushing this loud, but many are not.
i am doing this by request, and wanted to see how pervasive this kind of volume is.
i've had people complain at -12, but maybe that was just a few freaks and i'll slack off of the -9 a little.
i'd like to.

mostly i do local rock bands, sometimes i get lucky and do jazz, but this is in reference to the rock.

 

[giraffe]

Most of the stuff I do (rock/alt/jazz/blues) comes out of the mix somewhere in the -17 to -19dBRMS range and makes it to disc in the -14 to -16dBRMS range.
G.

man, i'd love to see thoes numbers.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

man, i'd love to see thoes numbers.

Ok, here ya go:

-14
-16
-17
-19



I'm not sure just what you mean by that, but it really all comes down to gain staging, music type and client sensibilites.

I keep my DAW faders at unity when coming in from the outside world, or if I receive WAVs that were tracked by someone else (most often the case with me) I'll trim back the levels on tracks that come in too hot (though that rarely happens because most of my guys don't push their levels either.) Also importantly, is I'll mix like I EQ; cutting is often better than boosting. By that I mean I'll set up relative levels between tracks more by cutting the recessive track rather than boosting the dominant one.

I also don't get much high-density musc in my orbit. Not a whole lot of headbangin' going on. Meaning not a lot of drum-kits-as-penis-extensions that have to have 154 tracks devoted to them. I rarely exceed 5 or 6 tracks total for the whole rhythm section. This tends to make for quieter summing. It also means not a lot of heavy sustain or doubling going on with the guitars. I have one guy that regularly feeds me songs with 4 electric guitar tracks (2 rhythm and 2 lead) where the RMS of all 4 tracks combined might not equal the RMS of one single track of a metal "wall of Gibson". I'm not saying either is good or bad or right or wrong, I'm just saying that differet styles naturally yield different RMSs.

And finally, most of the guys I work with by pure age alone have been around for a lot longer than the current wave of volume wars has been around. They have not been brought up under the mistaken general attitude that "louder sounds better". So if I give them something that peaks at -0.1 and RMSs at -16, that sounds just fine to them. In fact, on the one or two occasions where I did try pushing the mixes harder, just as a test without telling them, just to see if they would like the higher RMS stuff better, they complained that he mixes didn't sound as good. I'm just plain lucky by happenstance to be associated with a grop of musicians who also happen to have good ears and a proper mentality when it comes to music mixes.

G.

 

[gtrman_66]

RMS is typically measured using the sine wave reference as a standard, that's the one you should probably be using.

According to Benny Chico in this thread it appears that Pro Tools may be using the square wave version. Why? I don't know.

G.

Thanks Glen

 

[Change of POETS]

I'm just plain lucky by happenstance to be associated with a grop of musicians who also happen to have good ears and a proper mentality when it comes to music mixes.

G.

I can't even say how much I envy you for this.

I work 99% Hip-Hop and R&B, destined for competition in the commercial market. So I get the common request of "the low end needs more punch, the bassline isn't rattling the breath from my lungs"

It's quite annoying, to be honest. I too, typically master to a -10 to -12 RMS value, with peaks up around -.1db and to me, it's plenty loud. Sure, it's a few db lower than the latest 50 cent release, but I don't have a million dollar studio.

I'm a home studio owner, who is also an engineer. I used to work in professional studios, but I've moved to my home studio for convenience and less overhead.

Some clients think that my $1500 plug in set should be able to compete with a Million dollar studio. The pathetic part is, they complain about paying me $35 an hour. When I tell them they can take it to a professional studio, and pay $75 an hour or more, they usually shut up.

I need to switch genre's or something.

 

[cello_pudding]

I need to switch genre's or something.

nah, everyone's cheap across the board.

 

[cello_pudding]

oh yeah...i get around -10 to -12

master not mix...