Commercial records clip at 0dB or 6dB? (Maximizing Song Volume)

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illapino

New member
As you may know I come on here complaining about my mixes being alot quieter than commercial records. And as you may know, I always tried to avoid letting the master volume meter enter the Red Zone in my mixing software (which begins at 0dB). So all of my mixes have been peaking at 0dB all this time, and nothing above. Is this why my mixes are so quiet? Are commercial records louder simply because they peak up to the 6dB level? The Red Zone in my software mixer is from 0dB to 6dB

Is the 0dB to 6dB range not prone to clipping? I'm starting to assume that it is only past 6dB that tracks start clipping ... This would really explain why my tracks are so quiet ...
 
no, your tracks are so quite because you are not a pro. The master engineers know what they are doing, you and I and almost everybody on here do not. Wanting to make your mixes be as loud as a commercial record from your home, on your own is an unrealistic goal. this is widely excepted in the home/project recording community. Who cares if you gotta turn the spealers up more? What matters is that it sounds good.
 
yeah thats kinda true man...big studios have really good engineers that can mix really well...i can try to mix it for ya if ya send me the tracks...i have a pretty good ear and pretty decent equiptment to make it sound good...if u want me to give it a try send me a message and ill do it...
 
I think you can get really really close if you know what you're doing. I did some beats that are at the exact level as anything on the radio, loudness-wise I mean.

If you do a song/beat that's really hot, noone will give a **** about a little bit less loudness.
 
Yeah, i have mixed a couple tracks that are on par loudness wise as well.

Besides, you should mix to like -8 to -6db, that way when the master engineer works his magic, he has some room to work with. Besides, here is a surprise for some of you, in almost all situations, the mastering engineer is only working on stereo track, not your 50 track mix.
 
For the sake of the discussion can you all stop simply using the term "db". It means nothing on it's own.

Are you guys talking about dBFS? dBVU? Are you talking about simple Peaks? or are you guys considering the RMS power?

Please be more specific.

And Illapino, What software meter are you using? Do you know if it's a peak meter, or an average meter (RMS or VU).
 
The software volume meter I'm referring to is found in FL Studio 7's Mixer ... It has something called a "Decibel Meter" and is notched from 0db down to -10dB and beyond, and upwards is the redzone which reaches to 6dB ...........

And I still feel my question hasn't been answered:
Are commercial records peaking at 6dB or 0dB?

oh boy. now dB is a confused term ................
 
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The decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit of measurement that expresses the magnitude of a physical quantity (usually power or intensity) relative to a specified or implied reference level. Its logarithmic nature allows very large or very small ratios to be represented by a convenient number, in a similar manner to scientific notation. Since it expresses a ratio of two (same unit) quantities, it is a dimensionless unit.
 
so 0dB, -14db, and +3dB are completely meaningless or inaccurate measurements on all the SSLs in major recording studios because the decibel is a dimensionless unit beyond the intellectual scope of non-mathematically trained individuals huh?

okay.
 
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illapino said:
The software volume meter I'm referring to is found in FL Studio 7's Mixer ... It has something called a "Decibel Meter" and is notched from 0db down to -10dB and beyond, and upwards is the redzone which reaches to 6dB ...........

And I still feel my question hasn't been answered:
Are commercial records peaking at 6dB or 0dB?

oh boy. now dB is a confused term ................
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0dBFS is the highest digital can go, so to answer your question, 0dbFS


When your mixing, just mix till it sounds right. If every single track you have is peaking at 0 dBFS then who cares as long as it sounds good....but once your going to export the song make sure that the master fader is not going peaking over 0dBFS, i would say aim for -3dbFS.

Also, for your songs being so quiet, its most likely due to a crappy mix. Do you have a RMS meter? See what its hitting on there.

illapino said:
so 0dB, -14db, and +3dB are completely meaningless or inaccurate measurements on all the SSLs in major recording studios because the decibel is a dimensionless unit beyond the intellectual scope of non-mathematically trained individuals huh?

okay.
Click to expand...

yes, 0dB means nothing....untill you put a prefix behind it, VU - volume unit, used in the analog world. FS - Full Scale, used in the digital world. SPL - sound pressure level, used when measuring how loud something is. RMS - Root Mean Square, used when measuring the average signal level....and the list goes on and on. The SSL Consoles are probably using digital meters now days....

-18dbFS = 0dBVU = 89dBSPL etc. (That not exact numbers)
 
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illapino said:
so 0dB, -14db, and +3dB are completely meaningless or inaccurate measurements on all the SSLs in major recording studios because the decibel is a dimensionless unit beyond the intellectual scope of non-mathematically trained individuals huh?

okay.
Click to expand...

No it's not meaningless. However the way you write it makes a big diffrence so You need to include a suffix of sorts to specify what you are talking (or asking about).

For example take "0dB":

0dBFS (Full Scale) is the highest digital level that can be reproduced. In theory with floating point you can express numbers much higher than that but since you don't want to learn about the "math" don't worry about that.

0dBSPL (Sound Pressure Level) is the threashold of "typical" human hearing (often would be refered to as silence).




You see how "0dB" could be two completely diffent and somewhat opposing things?


Now in regards to the meter in FL studio. From what I know it's a peak meter. However thier website doesn't seem to mention what it's calibration is. I would assume that "+6dB" is actually 0dBFS and that would mean that "0dB" is -6dBFS. However I may be mistaken and "0dB" in FL studio may infact be 0dBFS because FL does use 32bit floating point and +0dBFS is in theory possible (mathematically).


But now to answer your question about loudness, which I've seen you ask time and time again. And you time and time again ignore the good advice you're given and continue to focus on something that does not matter, especially at the point you are in your understanding of audio and since LOUDNESS IS NOT ACHEIVED DURRING THE MIXING STAGE.

On "hot" overly loud commercial releases the song is typically put through a limiter set to PEAK at or just below 0dBFS (quite often around -0.3dBFS to avoid registering as clipping at the pressing plant). If you want to really do this to your music for some stupid reason, you can.

To do so get any "brickwall" type limiter and set it's out put to around -0.3dBFS and then adjust the input threashold until your music is as "loud" as you want it to be (in theory the lower the threshold the "louder" the output). Just keep in mind that you're more than likely going to make your music sound like complete SH!T and add all kinds of distortion and make playback on most systems "risky".

Please for the sake of your future in music pick up Bob Katz Mastering Audio and in the mean time read all of his articles @ www.digido.com

You might after doing some reading start to understand what myself and others here (like Sleepy and Moses) have been trying to get you to understand.
 
73* said:
And you time and time again ignore the good advice you're given and continue to focus on something that does not matter, especially at the point you are in your understanding of audio and since LOUDNESS IS NOT ACHEIVED DURRING THE MIXING STAGE.
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I cant say i agree 100% with this statment(Even though it is true), due to fact that a crappy mix cant be fixed be a ME. Mixing has a major part in how loud a track will be. For example, say his mix is peaking at -3dbFS and a RMS reading of -20dBFS, and then lets say someone else mixed it and peaking at -3dbFS and a RMS level of -15dBFS. The ME is going to have to do a lot more compression on that one track if they want to achieve the same loudness and will most likely not sound as good. (Im not saying this will apply for every track, and maybe you want that 20db of dynamics in your mix, its really up to you, just make sure your happy with you mix before you send it off to ME cause he only can do so much)


**keep in mind that different frequencies appear louder to the human ear then others even though they read the same level on the meter.**
 
Disasster said:
I cant say i agree 100% with this statment(Even though it is true), due to fact that a crappy mix cant be fixed be a ME. Mixing has a major part in how loud a track will be.
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I agree and my point was that loudness as a goal durring mixing is most often a mistake. If you spend your time getting the mix just right, the music will dictate if the mix ends up with a higher or lower RMS level. Loudness should never be the goal, I don't care if you make Folk, Dance, Hiphop, or Metal, worry about making a mix thats perfect and ballanced and suited to the music at hand.
 
Ima newb and this digital headroom thing is still somewhat confusing, and Ive been trying different things to help myself understand. Aside from alot of reading, one thing ive found that has helped some what using FLstudio is opening up the demo projects under "cool stuff" and seeing how the demos are mixed, where their levels are peaking @ on the mixer(since there always seems to be some confusion on the types of meters everyone is looking at as well as what measurement of the db's context), seeing how they applied compression etc. Granted alot of the demos are electronic or techno (all great songs btw), they all seem to be nicely balanced with the sounds all relative to one another. There is even one hiphop demo track with vocals. Knowing all the engineering behind these techniques would be great but as a templete to start from this is good for me. Please note I am not saying "COPY ALL THE FX THEY USED AND PRESTO"..Im saying study how they were used and tinker around w/ it. I know for me just reading alone doesnt help me learn it, but actually application after the fact goes along way.

edit
so i was experimenting in FL Studio. I added a new audio clip channel and inserted various songs on my computer to see the meter readings (fruity dB meter as well as the big meter on the mixer).
These songs were all from well known artists (bonnie raitt, atlanta rhythm section, cam'ron, d12). Now all of these were professionally done, so what is the correlation to the meter output if any? For example the D12 song hit the TOP of the meter past 0dB while the Atlanta Rhythm section and Bonnie Raitt stayed below 2db or more. Is there not really any relationship I can find since these are in mp3 format? Thanks in advance,

Brandon
 
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73* said:
I agree and my point was that loudness as a goal durring mixing is most often a mistake. If you spend your time getting the mix just right, the music will dictate if the mix ends up with a higher or lower RMS level. Loudness should never be the goal, I don't care if you make Folk, Dance, Hiphop, or Metal, worry about making a mix thats perfect and ballanced and suited to the music at hand.
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Exactly, well said :cheers:
 
Doesn't have to be the overall loudness that makes your master track clip. Could possibly have some sound in you track that has a wild dynamic range, like claps, and some snare sounds so your mix could be quite and those wild sounds are clipping the meter. Mastering engineers use multiband compressors/EQ's and limiters to control the wild waves/frequencies, then they make-up gain on the back end to give it it's "loudness." They also mix on monitors that you can't buy in a common store, and in rooms engineered really well. Maybe try getting some mastering plug-ins to help, although I doubt it will sound like it was truely mastered.
 
illapino said:
The software volume meter I'm referring to is found in FL Studio 7's Mixer ... It has something called a "Decibel Meter" and is notched from 0db down to -10dB and beyond, and upwards is the redzone which reaches to 6dB ...........

And I still feel my question hasn't been answered:
Are commercial records peaking at 6dB or 0dB?

oh boy. now dB is a confused term ................
Click to expand...

pay attention what they tell you

audio CD's dynamic range is 96 db, the top of it's is 0 dB, so it's phisically impossiple to peak at +6dB
 
b-muzik said:
yeah thats kinda true man...big studios have really good engineers that can mix really well...i can try to mix it for ya if ya send me the tracks...i have a pretty good ear and pretty decent equiptment to make it sound good...if u want me to give it a try send me a message and ill do it...
Click to expand...

if i wanted you to help me mix my track? how would i go aboput it? like what would you need etc?
 
I have Reason 3.0 and went to reasonstation.com and read a thread on how to raise the level of your songs using the mastering suite giving your song volume without raising the master peak level. past 0db's, and it works. Now my tracks are much louder. but I've been tweeking with this for a couple of yrs. now and I'm not a professional, but I have a good ear and believe I've found a formula that works..........good studio monitors help too.
 
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