How loud do you mix?

[fenderrocker]

I've been having trouble deciding how loud my tracks should be. I know a lot of you will just say, "If it sounds right, then leave it." The problem is, I don't have a reliable set of monitors, nor do I have a good room to mix in. I basically start with my headphones recording each track to a click, then try out the mix on my home theater system. I want to get a good set of monitors, but like I said, I do not have a good room to mix in.

My issue is that I feel like the more tracks I add, the more I have to turn down the overall mix volume. I feel like I'm wrong in assuming that the mix should be as loud as possible. How do you guys feel about this? Is this in any way related to "The Loudness War"?

Thanks all,

[O.G. Killa]

the biggest problem is that perceived "loudness" has nothing to do with the actual volume (sound pressure level) of the audio. The closer the speakers are to you, the louder something might feel, even if it is at the exact same SPL as speakers farther away from you.

Listening on headphones is very deceiving since the speakers are right up against your ears.

But one thing you touched on that is a very good observation... everytime you add an instrument to your song/mix, it can/will get louder. Any time you add two signals that are not "correlated" (mean, they are two totally different sounds) and are both the exact same level, the resulting level of the two summed together will be 3dB louder. If you add sum two signals that are identical in level, the resulting level will increase by 6 dB. So if you have a guitar track and a piano track that are pretty much the same level on the track, when you combine them (mix them together) the resulting audio will be 3 dB louder than either one on their own... this is, of course, if you don't put the volume fader down for one of them.

Using a "reference" level to set your average listening level is a good thing to do, and it is done in all professional studio environments. This allows you to set the listening volume to a specific level and never touch the knob again... all "volume/level" decisions are then made while tracking and or mixing using the mic preamp gain or the fader level.

The level most people use is usually -18dBfs inside Pro Tools. But this can vary depending on the interface you are using and the type of music you are doing. Orchestra music and film soundtracks usually use -20dBfs and change their audio interfaces to match. The 192IO for PTHD has little "set screws" that allow you to adjust the calibration level. Unfortunately, none of the LE interfaces do, so you are preset at whatever your interface is set to and cannot change it if you are using LE.

One way to try adn find out what setting you sound use is by trying to look at the "headroom" or input sensitivity of the line inputs and outputs of the device. For example, the 003R has a line output sensitivity of +18dBu. +4dBu is the "industry standard ref level" for professional gear. So, from analog clipping (+18dBu) down to the ref level (+4dBu) is 14dB. This means the 003R has 14dB of headroom above the industry standard ref level before it starts clipping. Because of this, you might want to use -14dBfs as your ref level inside protools seeing that it is most likely the same level as +4dBu. Anything that goes more than 14dB over your ref level will clip digitally AND in the analog section. This lets you see where the "level of no return" is on the PT meters when using the 003R without needing a separate analog meter and digital meter.

Anyway... so create a mono Aux track and assign it to output 1. This should make it come out your left speaker only. Turn your monitor volume all the way down. Insert a Signal Generator plugin on it. Set the sig gen plugin to "pink" noise, -14dB. now, while holding an SPL meter (any will do, you can use a $30 radio shack one) at about head level right in front of your face, turn up the monitor volume.

Set the SPL meter to "slow" response and "C" weighting. When that meter gets to somewhere between 76dB~85dB, that is your target listening level. The closer you are to the speaker, the softer you want the level. If your speakers are literally 2ft (24 inches) away from you, you might want to choose 76dB or 78dB as your ref level. If the speakers are 4 ft away, you might want to choose 79dB or 81dB. Once you get to a speaker distance of 13' 4" or more, you want to try and keep the ref level at 85dB. If you have two sets of speakers that are different distances, you might notice that the one 10 ft away feels quieter than the speakers 2 ft away, even though they both read the same SPL on the meter. That is why you choose a quieter level for speakers that are closer. There is no real "set in stone" standard what level you use. Just so long as you pick one and stick with it. For me, 85dB SPL on speakers that are at least 14 ft away is loud enough to where I feel the need to raise my voice a little to be heard over the pink noise. When calibrating speakers that are really close to me, I kind of use that as my own "unofficial" gauge as to if the ref level I'm using is "loud enough". This is just something I've come across through experience working in lots and lots of different studios. It is by no means a definitive way to check "loudness"! LOL

Mark the volume knob with tape or something you so know that exact spot on the volume knob once you find it.

Now do the same thing but assign the aux to output 2, making the sound come out of the right speaker. Technically speaking, the right speaker should display the exact same level as the right. If it doesn't (within a dB or so) then there might be something wrong with your speaker position (one speaker might be farther away than the other) or maybe a cable is defective/shorting out. Anyway, you want the left and right speakers to read the same SPL at your listening position. Once you get that, you are ready to record.

Without moving the monitor knob, start playing around with recording an instrument. If you are recording in the same room as the speakers, mute them, record something, then unmute and listen back. Does the instrument you just recorded sound too loud? If so then turn down the mic preamp and do another test recording... and so on and so forth. Once you kind of figure out where a good level is so it doesn't sound too loud or soft... THEN put on your headphones and adjust the volume so the "correct level" track you just recorded feels good in your phones. Then continue recording...

Over time you'll get an idea where things should be on the meters in protools from following this method.

The point is to NOT turn down your monitor volume knob. Instead turn down the mic preamp when tracking and the fader when mixing. All too often we turn down the monitor volume knob one day when listening to a mastered commercial CD. then the next day we start recording and instinctively try to turn UP the mic preamp without ever thinking of turning the monitor volume back up. Putting tape and setting a mark as to where your "ref level" for monitoring is gives you a "go to" baseline level for your speakers that you set everytime before you start tracking and/or mixing.

[dobro]

Thanks so much for the time and efford, realy usefull info

[maxcarola]

Yes, very good explanation.
I agree to the use of -14 as a ref for mixing.
Anyway today many records are mastered awfully high loosing a lot of dynamic in exchange to loudness. So you'll end up with cds sounding like the ref level is +11 to -8 depending on the genre and the mastering engineers involved. But the strange thing is that a good mix at -14 reference level will sound really loud even before mastering AND will sound incredibly well on the radio! Apart from dance music I will not push level more then -12. incidentall many succesful records have a rms to peak ratio of 12dB.
I think that the real thing missing is a good old VU meter. peak meters are almost useful to me. But a real VU meter will give you so much information about the sound thet will be impossible to live without it.
Just another point of reference: get your hands on some "unmastered" mixes of good quality and try to study that. If you can't get one hire the best mixer you can afford and observe his work learning from him/her.

[waltz mastering]

In the mixing stage, I wouldn't be to concerned with trying to get a hot final level to much.

Conceivably keeping your individual track and master fader levels peaking between -6 and -16 dB fs is a pretty safe bet when mixing 24 bit audio. (they can go a bit higher or lower) RMS is what it is.

Then moving to the process of mastering, whether it's diy or sent out to a mastering facility, is really were the mixes can be fine tuned for continuity, translation, tonal balance, and level, between and within themselves.

How loud should you go?
I think generally mixes have a loudness potential that can be reached before the sound starts to go south.

Knowing where to stop and how to get the "cleanest loud" is what makes a good engineer.

Some people think that just cranking a brick wall limiter on a mix is the way to go, but often this gets abused by the undiscerning ear.

Many bw limiters steal the transient information in exchange for loudness. There are some bwl's that are a bit more transparent than others, but one thing to listen for is the attack of your kick and snare. When bwl's are pushed to hard these transients start to disappear.

My 2 cents if your doing the mastering yourself is first get the eq settled so the song translates on many/all systems. When your going for loudness, you can push it the best you can and once you start to hear it go south, back off a dB and print. YMMV.

The loudness war has been going on since the days of Motown and before. It's nothing new. It's just that when pushed, digital distortion can tend to be a bit more harsh than analog distortion.

Although mastering engineer get and share a lot of the blame for some of the negative sides effects of the loudness thing, this is also client driven, but hopefully we've seen the worse.

Personally I never look at rms levels when mastering because they don't really mean much. One song reading an average rms of -14 dB fs can sound perceivably different in level than any other song with that same reading. The ears are the way to go...

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by maxcarola

I agree to the use of -14 as a ref for mixing.

Just to clarify. I wasn't trying to infer that -14 is what people should use. It really depends on your interface and the style of music you are mixing. for example, I remember hearing that Aurora (or maybe it was Apogee?) interfaces should be calibrated with -16dBfs because of their factory default they are set to.

I am normally using -18dBfs for music because that is what my 192s were set to by the factory and i haven't gotten around to changing them! Doh! But, a lot of the film dub stages I work on are calibrated using -20dBfs (actually, as far as I know, all of them are!).

So... like I said, it really depends on the hardware you use and the type of material you are mixing.

But so long as you set some sort of reference level to some sort of static SPL level, you'll know by using your ears what is "too loud" and what is "too soft" instead of always having to try and guess by looking at the meters.

[waltz mastering]

Here is an analog to digital scale:
Good for understanding converter calibration and analog operating levels and how they relate to the digital scale.
http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/xcq6ms

[barismanco123]

Here is an analog to digital scale:
Good for understanding converter calibration and analog operating levels and how they relate to the digital

Thank you

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by waltz mastering

Here is an analog to digital scale:
Good for understanding converter calibration and analog operating levels and how they relate to the digital scale.
http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/xcq6ms

It's good but I wonder why -16dBfs was chosen? My only gripe is that it doesn't show how it is really a sliding scale depending on how the manufacturer designs and calibrates the converters you are using.

For example, on the 003R, +4dBu is -14dBfs, not -16. On the 192IO +4dBu is -18dBfs. On most film stages the 192IO calibration is manually changed so that +4dBu is -20dBfs.

But nonetheless the scale you posted is good in that you can see how dBu and dBfs are parallel units of measure since they are both in decibels.

It would be cool to have something like that scale, but using voltage alongside the dBu and dBfs. When explaining this to people, it seems most people don't get it until you start converting to voltage and show the RMS voltages.

[barismanco123]

O.G. Killa

I'd like to see what you said.

Also I thought -18dbfs was 0.0db on an analogue meter yet on the diagram it shows -2db?

Intrigued.