Dynamic range problem

A

airbag76

New member
Hi

I am working on a drone - ambient piece quite soft on the begining with a slow boost in the end. I test it
in my car and I had to put the volume on 25-30 before I could listen a think and us expected during the boost
the system exploeded... Is there a way to keep the dynamic feel without compromise the sound with exteme compression
and make the begining of the piece listenable in norma hi-fi volume level?

thanks in advance
 
If you want your quiet sections "not that quiet," and your louder sections "not that loud," you'll need to apply compression or limiting of some kind. That doesn't mean you have to squash the dynamics down to nothing; just experiment with a few different mixes until you get the settings that give you what you are looking for. Even classical recordings are applying some limiting nowadays (which I found surprising, but that's what I'm told). It's the only way to really avoid that volume up/down/up thing...

GJ
 
Compression will level out any peaks you have going on in your track. This will give the listener a sense that the sound is more balanced across the entire track and make stuff seem "louder" I would also try a simple mix balance in levels and even use some volume automation first (or after compression) to see if this helps you out with your level consistency issue. Use the limiter at the end of your mix chain to bring up the overall level of your track.
 
a limiter is not used to raise levels (unless you are using makeup gain to compensate for other issues). A limiter is designed to assert a maximum level that our channel(s) can achieve by folding any signal that moves above that level back to that level

Been thinking about this overnight.

My first response was heavy on mathematics and other theoretical considerations, so did not post it; this one has much less mathematics in it, though some may disagree.

Effectively, your issues surround the difference between perception of sound levels and the recording/creation of sound levels in a daw.

I.E. normal background sound is perceived as being at 60db, quiet sound is 20db (middle of the night in the country), loud sound is 105db (full orchestral tutti at fff or louder), threshold of pain is 130db, 0db is the threshold of hearing, orchestral ppp is 40db

Descriptionnominal db leveldifference from Normaldifference as a ratio
threshold of hearing0db-60db1:1 000 000
orchestral ppp40db-20db1:10 000
quiet sound20db-40db1:100
normal60db0db1:1
orchestral fff105db45db31 623:1
threshold of pain130db70db10 million:1

From the table we can see that the range of a full crescendo from ppp to fff covers 65db (a ratio of 3.16 million:1) - this is much less than the dynamic range of typical cd audio 16 bit 44.1kHz (96db). Our daws, on the other hand, can handle at least 124db dynamic range (ca. 20.6 bits - ratio of 2.5 trillion:1 - this is actually the limitation of most dacs rather than the mathematics in the audio engine), almost the full range of 24 bit audio - 144db (ratio of 251 trillion:1).

If you try to create a crescendo (increasing the level of the signal continuously over time) that exceeds 65db, you are probably going to run into issues of representation, volume levels and other psycho-acoustic issues
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top