How to achieve desired RMS level ?

dominic94

dominic94

New member
Hey guys, I am trying to achieve my wanted RMS level on my mixed songs and I noticed that I am unable to do that. I would like to have like -5 RMS or so, but when I limiting and reach -10 RMS limiter starts to catch more and more peaks, so when I reach -5 RMS my track is too much limited.


So what are your suggestions to achieve louder sound ? I am trying to cut uneccesery freqs, especially lows and reduce a litle bit dynamic range on individual tracks. But I still cannot achieve commercial loudness level. How can I achieve more headroom and be able to get wanted RMS level ?


Thanks.
 
I'm left thinking you do not understand what RMS means, as the numbers you are quoting seem to be dBfs
 
You want average RMS levels of... -5? That's more than just a little bit of a reduction in dynamic range.

If you really want that level of loudness, you're gonna have to do some serious compression. Chances are you are going to introduce some distortion in to your track, so keep that in mind.

You also shouldn't even be thinking about particular values when working. It should be moreover what sounds good to your ears. Any values will just so happen to be what they are.
 
dominic94 said:
Hey guys, I am trying to achieve my wanted RMS level on my mixed songs and I noticed that I am unable to do that. I would like to have like -5 RMS or so, but when I limiting and reach -10 RMS limiter starts to catch more and more peaks, so when I reach -5 RMS my track is too much limited.


So what are your suggestions to achieve louder sound ? I am trying to cut uneccesery freqs, especially lows and reduce a litle bit dynamic range on individual tracks. But I still cannot achieve commercial loudness level. How can I achieve more headroom and be able to get wanted RMS level ?


Thanks.
Click to expand...

If I understand correctly you want to achieve more loudness without killing the dynamics of your song?

Some people just slam a limiter/maximizer during mastering without caring what's happening in the mix.

When they do that they realize that the maximizer is starting to work so hard and destroy the mix and then they are forced to either:

1) Squash the dynamics of the song to get to that commercial level
2) Ease off the limiter , keep the dynamics but the song would be quieter.

The problem lies in the mix though.

When you've got tracks that've got peaks "jumping" here and there it's pretty logical for the maximizer to "meet" these peaks
and work against them.

So make sure that if you want to get the loudness (I assume the genre is asking for loudness) then compress/shave peak right during mixing
and the final maximizer would not have to meet all these transients that'd got nothing musical to offer to the listener.

Go back , re-mix , fix stuff and you're on the right path to loudness without destroying the dynamics of your mix.

Hope this helps
 
Last edited:
When you go back to your mix, remember that sustained sounds will have a higher RMS reading than sounds that are short and percussive. Also, try looking into LUFS meters.
 
Sub bass affects RMS meters the most, so perhaps your bass is way too loud. It's also probably causing the limiter to act harder as well. Reference your track to other popular tracks with a spectrum analyzer and try to match the bass level, then you should be able to push the limiter harder without obvious compression artifacts.
 
-5 dB RMS is a lot of energy for a musical track. A pure sine wave peaking at 0 dBFS is only 2 dB higher about RMS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top