Optimal level for producing?
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victorgonzales
- mnml maxi
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- Location: Arizona USA
oops, i ment 82-85DB SPL (sound pressure level), so youll need a DB SPL meter.Stomper wrote:at loud level you hurt your ears and the overall mix might sound different for someone listening at low volume in the car for exemple.
i think its 82-85DBU.
but youll need a DBU meter. if you dont have, just use your ears to adjust to normal level to the room your working in. but dont try to make it a club.
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sorgenkind
- mnml maxi
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- Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:41 pm
- Location: zh - switzerland
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Expecially when doing whole day sessions I start at a couple of dBs more that noisefloor (that's why I'm getting a liquid cooled tower pc soon, to keep the background noise even quieter) so that my ears are still fresh after say 5 hours... in fact I tend to use the first three hours to finish off the mixdown of tracks I have already written and the second part of the session to go further in unfished tracks or start new ones.
I measured once my levels with a lowend dB meter (iPhone of my studio mate) and I noticed my highest production volume is at around 75 dB, but mostly slightly under.
Since I got very good studio monitors I don't really need to crank things up too much to feel all the track, I'll maybe go up to 100 dB for a couple of seconds for the quick "club sound feeling" and to see if the low end rumbles how I like it before recording the track.
I felt I needed to crank up things more in the past when mixing on low end monitors so I would say that monitors quality has to do with needed loudness... what lcvl was saying in his post above it true I think.. if music is lound your ears think it sounds better.
The thing is that I can't really get concentration when music is too loud,
so loud sessions are definitively not for me.
In fact when friends are in the studio jamming with me I'm usually the one who turns the volume down...
protect your ears, you'll need them for a long time!
I measured once my levels with a lowend dB meter (iPhone of my studio mate) and I noticed my highest production volume is at around 75 dB, but mostly slightly under.
Since I got very good studio monitors I don't really need to crank things up too much to feel all the track, I'll maybe go up to 100 dB for a couple of seconds for the quick "club sound feeling" and to see if the low end rumbles how I like it before recording the track.
I felt I needed to crank up things more in the past when mixing on low end monitors so I would say that monitors quality has to do with needed loudness... what lcvl was saying in his post above it true I think.. if music is lound your ears think it sounds better.
The thing is that I can't really get concentration when music is too loud,
so loud sessions are definitively not for me.
In fact when friends are in the studio jamming with me I'm usually the one who turns the volume down...
protect your ears, you'll need them for a long time!
just finished reading henke's interview with masterer rashad becker, this what he had to say on the topic regarding mastering, im guessing the same applies for producing.
"it has to change all the time!!! Hearing is not linear, that means if you change the level your perception changes, so if you listen to a piece at different levels the perceived relation between frequencies will change.
Also you have to ask yourself, will this be a piece of music that will mostly be listened to very loud, or is it music which will be listened to normally in a home listening environment? That should change your way of approaching the piece and how you are looking at it in regards of sonic consistency. Not the same results will be consistent in both scenarios. Of course people will also listen to club music at low volume at home, but if you have a reference it should be taken into account.
And besides that, I find it hard to judge compression at normal listening volume. At normal listening volume its easy to make wrong judgements about compression. At very very low levels compression mistakes become very evident and at high levels also. So the first thing I do is to listen to a track at a very very low level, I also do AB comparisons often at the limit of the capability of hearing. Besides that, the longer you work on a thing, the lazier you get, so you have to really discipline yourself to change the listening levels, but it should always change. When I work I always have one hand at the volume control. One should change the level two times a minute! (laughs).
The mastering engineer Bob Katz tries to establish a fixed listening level for mastering, similar to the fixed level approach for mixing movies for cinema, where it really makes sense. But I am not very confident about this when mastering music... "
"it has to change all the time!!! Hearing is not linear, that means if you change the level your perception changes, so if you listen to a piece at different levels the perceived relation between frequencies will change.
Also you have to ask yourself, will this be a piece of music that will mostly be listened to very loud, or is it music which will be listened to normally in a home listening environment? That should change your way of approaching the piece and how you are looking at it in regards of sonic consistency. Not the same results will be consistent in both scenarios. Of course people will also listen to club music at low volume at home, but if you have a reference it should be taken into account.
And besides that, I find it hard to judge compression at normal listening volume. At normal listening volume its easy to make wrong judgements about compression. At very very low levels compression mistakes become very evident and at high levels also. So the first thing I do is to listen to a track at a very very low level, I also do AB comparisons often at the limit of the capability of hearing. Besides that, the longer you work on a thing, the lazier you get, so you have to really discipline yourself to change the listening levels, but it should always change. When I work I always have one hand at the volume control. One should change the level two times a minute! (laughs).
The mastering engineer Bob Katz tries to establish a fixed listening level for mastering, similar to the fixed level approach for mixing movies for cinema, where it really makes sense. But I am not very confident about this when mastering music... "