HELP! How do the pro get their music to sound so presence.

neilwight

Let me clarify something here regarding levels:

+4 dBu and -10 dBV "standards" (They are not true standards, but are, instead, conventions.) refer to systems' "nominal levels". A system's nominal level is chosen as a compromise between its noise floor and highest possible levels so as to operate the systems' for "best" performance. The gear's metering (if any) is typically calibrated to indicate 0 dB when measuring the nominal level. We use these conventions to ease interconnecting various system elements.


Different nominal levels exist to accomodate different markets. The -10 dBV level exists largely because it is cheaper to build gear that performs at that level than at +4 dBu.

This in not a difference of 14 dB if you do the math:

-10 dBV = 0.316 V
+4 dBu = 1.23 V

And the ratio expressed as dB is 20 log 1.23/ .316 = 11.8 dB (simply explaining that you are right that the difference is closer to 10 dB than 14, which at first seems counter-intuitive to most people).

anyway- there is a difference (basically a +4 system puts out more voltage and expects more in return than does a -10 system)-

Now all of this relates ultimately to the connections and "transmission" between traditional hardware. I won't bore you with any more math- but digital audio math IS very different once all this "analog math" is converted to bits.

Digital audio lacks a nominal level. There is, instead, an absolute maximum level that cannot be exceeded, and one chooses a desired amount of headroom.

Since the original post was referencing audio plugins on a DAW, we are past the point that voltage mattered.

I'm not trying to offend you, but it appeared that you were jumping on this nominal level issue every opportunity you could without considering its relevence to the posting at hand. I also found your remark regarding computer-generated music (albeit vague) to be judgemental and out of touch with today's technology.
 
well that proves that you understand the whole level issue, i didnt feel that posting a load of formulas was to constructive (also through laziness). atleast people who wanted to understand more will be able to without having to do so externally.
i appreciate that this problem may be somewhat reduced by using computers (and also that i am not too clued up on this whole area, basically through not needing to be) but i still find that i get sent loads of demos, obviously done on computers which have this problem. of all the things i come across this is by far the most common. a minidisc player cannot record at a volume level of +4dBu, instead only -10dBv so it perhaps something that computer cd burners have this problem too. no need to give them the extra headroom maybe? if you play a track recorded at maximum on a minidisc then play it back at full volume through a mixer, it reads an out of -10dBu thus making it useless for final recordings (apart from listening to on the train). i felt that raising this issue on the forums WAS relevant. a lot of times the only thing missing from a track is this but it makes a huge difference. this is just as important as eq and all the other work. what is the poitn is working your balls off to set up everyhting right only for it to be destroyed by having to ramp up the amp to hear it etc.
obviously when using hardware this problem must be addressed at various stages throughout writing and so is pressing on the mind at all times.
as for my views on computers. i think that computers are a wonderful invention, the fact that anyone can have an entire studio in what amounts to no space and little outlay of cash is great. however i am not about to lie and say that i find the stuff created on them mindblowing. all to often it sounds like it has been made on one, (just clean if that makes any sense) and the fact that so many times, the majority use it like painting with numbers (using programs and just putting together a few loops they found or tweaked slightly) and then think they should have some record deal.
i you look around, you will see that the weight is actually against hardware so much that i have seen people in here be discouraged from getting some. it seems that most think its a dying trade and dont seem to realise the bigger picture. just look around any mag a see what the pros are using. just thought i should stick up for my corner.
anyway, take it easy.
neil
 
Neil- I think you've completely missed the point-

A minidisc's output IS at -4 because it IS consumer audio. We are talking about the OUTPUT of the device, nothing else here- so it is essentially a "problem" of YOUR hardware- not the media or recording process. It's not about "recording at a volume level of +4dBu"- a minidisc is digital. A consumer CD player also has an output of -10. It hardly matters since CD's are derived directly from the digital data bypassing the output stages of the hardware if it is a direct digital copy. It is not the media that is the issue here- it is the input/output of the equipment. Therefore a CD burner or mini disc is not the problem.

It has nothing to do with headroom either. There is no such thing as conventional headroom with digital audio. If you run out of bits, you clip- therefore a mastering engineer generally decides what the peak will be (often -0.3 dB) and what the RMS will be, and go from there (more often than not this is done by ear- but nonetheless it can be specifically controlled)..

I can't imagine anyone using a minidisc as a master (since it is a lossy compression algorythm) or to use the analog outs on a CD or any digital device to transfer a master. BUT- if you WERE to do such a thing, you would use a digital output- which has nothing to do with this +4/ -10 issue and make a direct digital copy using the optical outputs. I'm sure somone like Marantz or Sony makes a pro CD or pro Minidisc that has +4 outputs.

Stick up for your corner?

Again about PCs- I think you are missing the point- I use a PC as my DIGITAL RECORDER. I have virtually UNLIMITED tracks of 24 bit audio recorded in 32 bit float mode, and mixdown to 32 bit float before mastering and dithering down to 16 bits. It is a DAW- a way to record that is not that unlike using an ADAT. The TYPE of music someone decides to make is a separate issue. I have a ton of hardware connected to the PC.... a PC does not REQUIRE that one make cut and paste music.

Weight against hardware? Let's see, it would probably take over $100,000 to "replace" what I have if I wanted the same number of audio tracks with a digital mixer with decent EQs and compressor inserts on every track. It is simple economics. I have nothing against hardware, I just could not afford what I'd need to make high quality recordings.
 
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filtersweep,
i think that maybe we both are now missing the point. you seem to be argueing with me about something i wasnt actually saying, and i seem to perhaps be doing the same. i am sure no one in here wants to read all this. guess it all comes down to and no one is ever going to win when that is the case. you believe what you believe, i believe what i believe. end of story.
still not convinced about what you are saying however, experience has taught me different and actually i wasnt complaing about my minidisc or my cd writer.as for minidisc as a mastering tool, i was just trying to illustrate a point with an example of where this difference is readily noticable although obviously it wasnt done too clearly.as for my my cd recorder, (not in a computer) it actually records at a volume level equivelant of +4dBu, nothing to do with bit rate, sampling rates, headroom or anything else you care to bring in, just simple plain old volume. you take a track i have made onto cd, take a track from a purchased cd, play them through the same amp at the same volume, they sound NO different. no need to turn up the volume or anything else and that IS the reason.
anyway, i dont know your level of experience with sound engineering or dealing with releasing tracks etc and i have no desire to get into a war of opinions with you about the whole thing or about using computer as a recording studio either.my experiences in my area of the industry atleast have tought me certain things. each to their own i suppose.
how many tracks are you running at one time though? i have always found the actual recording part to be about the easiest. i just play live to a cd recorder through my mixing desk with an fx unit and compressors in a loop, everything linked by midi and driven from a sequencer.others i know (and i dont want to be pretentious and rattle of a name list ) just do the same or to a 4 track multi-track. hardly a huge budget.
i had a look at your tracks on mp3 today too. anyway, all the best with your music.
neil
 
That's cool with me. I'm not really trying to argue either- and I understand how this type of communication makes it easy to misunderstand where people are coming from. The whole level area is very confusing in general- then we add to the problem that some digital apps use metering that resembles hardware metering and it can be really messy.

I agree with "to each their own"- but I bristle when anyone posts broad sweeping generalizations regarding a particular way of working that fundamentally are value judgements. I have a friend who just blows me away with what he does with an MPC2000- but he's amazed at what I can do with Cubase. The bottom line is that we have both put thousands of hours into our respective ways of working.... and I don't want to be him and he doesn't want to be me, and we are mutually ignorant of how each other works.

How many tracks can I get at a time?

That is a good question: but I'll say this- I've never "run out of tracks"- there are only so many tracks that can be playing at any one moment anyway without cluttering the mix. Some songs end up with 40-50 tracks- but there are obviously a lot of one-shot effect type sounds, or a bunch of different parts to a song. The real issue I run into is running out of CPU for insert compressors and EQs- but even if I have to do a destructive edit, I can save the original recording. My underlying philosophy is that once something is digital, it stays digital. Some might argue that this is a fascist belief, since I'm not recording audiophile violins or accoustic guitar, etc... it's electronic stuff without a tremendous dynamic range, and it's generally played back on equipment that butchers the recording anyway (like a PA).... but the technology is there for me to work this way.

I could also go on and on about how working with PCs sucks, that most DAWs are in a constant state of beta status, that windows in not designed to do what is required of a DAW, that there are odd compatibility issues between audio card DSPs and some motherboards, that copy protection of software is a real pain, that it often lacks a "hands on" feel to slide virtual faders, etc... that PCs crash and are not all that reliable for stage use, that I'll NEVER be able to use my midi interface with a win 2000 box, that latency can be an issue, that the learning curve is steep, that it is not gratifying spending hundreds of dollars for a plug-in bundle (compared to adding to my rack of hardware), that software synthesis/samplers are still in their infancy, etc.... things are definitely NOT perfect, but these are all things that I've learned to live with and work around.

I don't really think it is about equipment anyway, it is about the final output. People can criticize virtual analog synths... well I use a few of them (but I do run them through an actual analog filter). People criticize Cubase (compared to Pro Tools)... well I'm not ready to spend ten grand. My "experience with sound engineering or dealing with releasing tracks "?- I'm just a nobody who's had several licensing agreements- been on network TV soundtracks and a few label compilations, and will be on an upcoming movie soundtrack.... not that it means anything- but I'm not a 12 yr. old with a $20 copy of mixmam....
 
glad that ended amicably :)
i had originally been trying to get over, albeit not too eloquently, that no matter what you use equipment wise, be it hardware, software or both that when you record something onto a format for listening to as general AUDIO, be it cd, tape , md, dat. at the end of the day it ALWAYS comes down to the level (volume)that it is recorded onto that format as. record something with level at minimum , it will play back quiet. record it at full then play back will be loud or even distorted.
there is no getting away from this fact.

pro stuff is ALWAYS recorded(onto the final format) at a volume level of +4dBu, put it away to get mastered, they will check it is recorded at a volume of +4dBu.
almost always you get stuff from people at home and it is really quiet when you play it back resulting in lack of presence and it losing its dynamics when you have to boost it through an amp.
since most packages dont have a simulated vu meter for the output volume then i guess this means that many comp users dont have an idea (and maybe no control perhaps?) of what level its going onto their cd at. the cd burner will always just record at the level its given. this is prob why most stuff ends up at around the -10 dBv level instead. just thought people needed to maybe be made aware of this and thought it may solve a few peoples problems.
guess i didnt do too good a job of explaining and then it just got all crossed wires.
sounds like you have got some stuff developing with your material, hope it works out for you. as for you being a nobody, hope you were just pontificating, after all, who is anybody.
good luck with your tracks.
 
it ALWAYS comes down to the level (volume)that it is recorded onto that format as. record something with level at minimum , it will play back quiet. record it at full then play back will be loud or even distorted.
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This is one issue where digital audio becomes counterintuitive.


There is no headroom in digital audio- if you look at the PEAK of one of those "quiet" recordings you are talking about, I'll bet you anything it is within 1 dB of zero- meaning that one transient spike set the level of the entire mix- hence the original question. Essentially a 'loud' recording and a 'quiet' recording share the same peak- which is why normalizing does nothing to increase the 'volume.' The REAL issue of perceived "volume" of a mix centers around the "average" level- not the peak- and that is where the peak limiting comes in- squash those peaks and raise the RMS level. The fact that many people new to digital audio don't understand this principle leads to the quieter mixes. Analog is much more forgiving in that tape can be overdriven, and a lot of analog gear inherently limits peaks through subtle distortion. I'm not saying that analog can be overdriven infinitely, but digital audio is very finite, and is absolute- unforgiving. If a track peaks at 0, but it's RMS is -20dB, it will be a quiet recording.
 
yeah this can be a whole area of confusion. going by my experiences from djing and producing though where i always play everything whether vinyl, cds for demos or my own material through a hardware mixing desk in the studio. these always have vu meteres on them for level with a PFL (pre fader level) which measures the output from the source (or input to the desk) in dBu before it goes to eq etc. this is essentially so that when mixing you can gain up sources so that they are exactly the same level (to compensate as you correctly stated for slight differences in floor level caused by having stronger peaks which result in a lower rms) so that when you mix it doesnt go all quiet. but anyway thats another story lol.
when you do this, all vinyl, manufactured cds, masters from others on the label and my own stuff has peaks of +4 and sits around 0 to +2.(floor)
material sent in as demos, and i may add, my own tracks in a time gone by, has peaks of -10 with floor being around -12. this is with nothing done to them , just playing them back from a cd player to a hardware mixing desk. although cds obviously record as digital there must be some way in which it stores recorded volume level in this information. if it didnt then a whisper would sound as loud as a bang or drum if recorded individually as they would just be put on at 0. (note completely overly simplified just to make an example).
as i dont use a computer i have no way of knowing how to overcome this, i suspect that probably the more expensive packages offer some form of virtual output meter where you can see what the output would be/ is going to the recorder or amp.
you are definately correct in what you say about floor levels and rms too though and that is an issue that has to be addressed too and results in amateur sounding productions. alot of the tracks i get in though only have the normal 2 to 4dB difference between peaks and floor which means that the artists have this in hand but it is still around 12 dB quieter than my stuff.
does this make any sense? hope so lol
how did you get your tracks onto sound tracks. that is an intersting area.
 
CDs or digital audio really doesn't store info about the volume separately- it is stored in the amplitude of the waveform data- which is why 16 bit (CD audio) has a different dynamic range than 24 bit audio- there are simply more bits to store the additional data.

Of course with vinyl you can actually make the tracks louder by using bigger grooves (seriously) although you won't fit as much time on the platter.

as i dont use a computer i have no way of knowing how to overcome this, i suspect that probably the more expensive packages offer some form of virtual output meter where you can see what the output would be/ is going to the recorder or amp
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Most audio software meters with dB below zero, since you can't exceed 0 ever. It's not like tape. The reason (I'm guessing) that many of your demos sound quiet is that they simply weren't mastered- the raw stereo mixdown wasn't run through an EQ, multiband compressor and limiter (among other things). Many people assume someone else will just do the mastering for them at some point... which is seldom the case for electronic music. Or they simply post a question here (for the millionth time) why their mixdown isn't as loud as a commercial CD.

Even metering becomes a can of worms- is the meter a peak meter or a RMS meter? How sensitive is the meter? How long will it hold a peak? Blah, blah, blah....

The soundtrack came from a music director who heard me on a compilation CD- turned out (despite what you may think from my posts) that he thought I was an easy guy to work with ;)
 
arrrghhhh, we have lost our way again.
just to clear up first. i dont have a problem with any of my material anymore.i was just illustrating a point, i am not looking for a solution to some problem i have but thanks anyway :)
i own a label and have been releasing techno for a few years on various labels before i started my own to have more control over what i could do along with breaking others who i knew who had good material but couldnt get a release.(and maybe make more money haha)
this whole industry is not open at all despite what poele think. its cool you seem to be getting some breaks.i make everything for my label, and to license to other labels incl remixes, in my studio at home along with mastering the material i get in from others who contribute to it. i have a whole load of hardware and rack equipment and use hardware sequencing almost exclusively. i have an atari running cubase that i use sometimes for really complicated arrangements but normally there is nothing that i cant do with my hardware sequencer so dont bother.
a few years back when i was getting offered releases from labels, i went into a studio with one to work over an EP with an engineer. he explained, and it was something i had already noticed but didnt know why, that my cds were only recorded with a volume level of about -10 where as they needed them with a volume output of +4. this was just raw volume that was put onto the recorded material. with careful mastering you can, as you correctly said, make it appear to be louder (by raising rms).However, if this volume is still not around +4dBu for peaks on an external vu meter then it is still going to sound quieter when compared to other stuff when played back on your home stereo
it is strange however that we are discussing this when it actually prob doesnt really effect us :) it certainly doesnt effect me, my material is always at the correct level now and yours prob is the same since you appear to have it in hand.
it doesnt however mean that it isnt a problem for some people. maybe the lower budget software doesnt offer a proper control over the output volume (essentially meaning that you cannot record at anything louder than the default volume which may not necessarily be equivelant to actual 0(+4)) just because it says it or maybe some people just dont understand the importance of setting volume levels correctly or how to do it.
i know on hardware that the maximum output from most synths , drum machines etc is only equivelant to -10dBv. that is, when you turn the volume right up full its not actually loud enough. thats why i have a load of rack mount line amps.
obviously for some people the whole area of mastering confuses the hell out of them too. you are correct in what you say about compression being able to again make the recording sound even louder by reducing the difference between peaks and floor but if your instrument or computer program cannot give you a level loud enough in the first place then no amount of compression will be able to rectify it. it cant actually add to the maximum volume unless you have a gain setting but then you are not only compressing but line amping the signal
just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, alot of the time i dont use any compression. when you use analogue equipment, the whole point is to get that feel from it. no two notes are the same, no two drum hits are identical even when played exactly the same. it seems defeatist to the compress them to hell and make then sound uniform and programmed.
as an experiment, if you have access to a hardware mixer either from a studio or for djing, play your tracks through them with gain at 0 and volume at 0 and look and see what it reads on the vU meter. my tracks read +4 peaks. play a record or a cd back and see what it reads. obviously you will be close with your material as you seem to have everything in hand but you will see that there are still discrepancies between different cds and records etc. other people who are finding they have a problem should do this and see what their ACTUAL volume is before then compressing etc to make it sound even better
as for vinyl, you are right in what you say that a louder recorded volume produces bigger grooves but it is actually a whole big story about what they do there, how it works when you put your material away to get your metal masters made up for the pressing plant etc. if you want me tell you about it from the times i get it done than ask and i will put up a post or mail it to you but it is kinda dull and prob of no interest unless you are going to get material pressed up yourself.
anyway, i hope this explains where i am coming from a little more clearly. fingers crossed anyway lol
 
i know on hardware that the maximum output from most synths , drum machines etc is only equivelant to -10dBv. that is, when you turn the volume right up full its not actually loud enough. thats why i have a load of rack mount line amps.
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I give up!
 
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