Proper Recording Levels

[JFreak]

Whatever volume (83db, 80dB, 77dB) you feel comfortable mixing for longer periods of time. You know your levels are little too low if some of your most loved CD's don't sound right. You know your levels are little too high if after 8 hours you're not satisfied with anything you hear.

Listening fatigue can though come a lot earlier. For example, you have a good vibe in the morning, but after lunch you begin to tweak everything and adding plugins here and there. That's the time to stop and let your ears rest, and to drop a dB.

The whole point in calibrating speakers is that you always use same volume to mix your stuff. It is very easy to be fooled by the "louder = better" phenomenon. Your monitors may some day be 77dB and some other day 85dB and usually all over in between. How do you make good decisions if you don't know where you are?

It really pays off in the long run.

[SpinningDisk]

Well said JFreak.

[bryced87]

Originally Posted by SpinningDisk

Well said JFreak.

Okay I'm still confused about one thing. Do both k20 and k14 have to be the same level of SPL? or do I need a different setting? For example does k20 need to be 79db SPL while k14 needs to be lower? Also if I may add where does the master volume need to be on my Mbox 2? Does it matter where I have it as long as I don't touch it again? Can I have it all the way up and calibrate that way?

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by bryced87

Okay I'm still confused about one thing. Do both k20 and k14 have to be the same level of SPL?

Yes, that is the point. Always calibrate your listening volume to same dB so you know what's going on. Your ears don't care about metering, they only care about SPL levels.

The different metering (K14 and K20, for example, only define dynamics that you are targeting. Say you use K14 metering, that means the meter says "0" when you're 14 dB below full scale. And if your material RMS is hitting zero on the K14 meter while peaks are hitting zero on full scale meter, then you have 14dB peak-to-RMS ratio, a.k.a. dynamics.

But you should listen to same volume whether you're mixing 20dB dynamics or 14dB dynamics or (God forbid) 8dB dynamics.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by kdarbyshirebryant

No, definitely not. One channel at a time (imagine a surround system!) Also beware of panning - you MUST hard pan to the required speaker within Pro Tools otherwise the level will be affected by the session pan depth.

Thank you sir Darby - no wonder it seemed too low for me - I thought i was deaf

Thanks I will do it again

[SpinningDisk]

I love this place.

🎄

📀

[YYR123]

Yeah me too - I have learned a lot about many things here - lots of people who earn their daily bread by audio (I don't but I wouldn't mind )

But I thanks them all for their help and patience

[bryced87]

Originally Posted by WombatStudio.Org

I don't know who Kenny is (or who killed him) but these are the videos I'm talking about by Paul Draper which cover everything you're talking about:

In The Box (part 1) 24:34
Gain staging, test tones & VUs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Qm6NFIY2E

In the Box (part 2) 25:15
Virtual consoles, v.tape and v.instrument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvhlKcd7VdY

In the Box (part 3) 24:43
Recording, bussing and mixing (pre-masters) on Pro Tools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKyATL4xGEw

In the Box (part 4) 17:43
Preparing for mastering, speaker calibration, and delivery formats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWSy6m5NCVQ

In the Box (part 5) 52:06
Pre-mastering and mastering in ProTools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4_GRkPVi-0

I am still confused as to why Paul always keeps trimming the audio back to -10? This makes no sense to me because the input level would be way to low when he would bounce the song. Aren't you supposed to move the faders when you mix?

[bryced87]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Well you can do that if you have recorded properly, and your plugins allow for such volume adjustments. It's not the easiest way, though.

What I said earlier is kind of hybrid between this idea and the do-it-all-with-faders approach.

If you first make a rough mix with the trim plugin having faders at unity (zero) then you have a perfect starting point for a "real" mix. Using faders is so much easier than adjusting plugins.

But as we're in the digital domain, it all comes down to math.

OKay, I called him Kenny I meant Paul. Even when he changes the volume with a plugin he then trims what he changed back to -10

[WombatStudio.Org]

Originally Posted by bryced87

I am still confused as to why Paul always keeps trimming the audio back to -10? This makes no sense to me because the input level would be way to low when he would bounce the song. Aren't you supposed to move the faders when you mix?

Did you watch all the videos? Where he mixes, bounces & then masters?

The -10 is pre-fader ... Doesn't matter where the fader is ...

You don't mix with TRIM plugins, you mix with faders.