How Loud Should Your Song Be?





TRY TO GET YOUR RMS VOLUME TO REACH -10DB

During the mixing process, a song need not to try to be it's loudest.  It is the mastering engineer's job to get songs loud.  Most DAW plugins cannot successfully reach the high RMS volumes that mastering programs can reach.  Mastering plugins and equipment also process the audio signal differently than mixing plugins and equipment. You should aim for about -14dbs before mastering and -10dbs after mastering.  

 When mastering pop music like Rock, Rap, or even some R&B songs, you should try to reach a RMS volume of -10db.  It is not required but a good rule of thumb.


Most professional Pop music tries to hover around a RMS volume of -10db.  This is seen to be very loud.  Many home recordings will not be able to reach this level without drastically degrading sound quality but it is a good number to shoot for.  If you are mastering a pop song, you should try to reach this number.  But if it starts sounding bad you should back off a bit.  It is not the end of the world if you cannot reach this level.

RMS volume will usually be a negative number on the db scale when it comes to music, and anything higher than -10db would likely be too loud.  A positive RMS volume reading would definitely be too loud in commercial music.

How do I measure RMS volume?

A good meter to use that will help you monitor your RMS volume is the PAZ analyzer made by Waves.

What is RMS volume?

RMS stands for “Root Mean Square”

RMS is the average volume level of the voltage levels measured over a sequential series of samples. 

In other words, it is the average volume level between the loudest portions of the audio and the quietest portions of the audio.  It is not really a perfect average because it will change depending on what part of the audio is playing at any given time.  It is sometimes referred to as “true loudness”.  It is a more accurate way to measure perceived loudness of a piece of audio.

BOGO AUDIO MASTERING SALE

"By Kelvin Butler" Kelvin Butler is the author of this blog. He also is part owner of KBJ Records.com, a website that caters to the working class musician by offering affordable services in audio mastering, and more. Learn about his very affordable offers at www.kbjrecords.com


Location: 3764 Summer Ave, Memphis, TN 38122, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Mic A Drum Set

Image
There are many ways to mic a drum set.  In this short article we will focus on how to get the most optimal sound out of a drum set with an 8 mic set-up.  To get the best sound out of your drum set, you will need at least 8 mics depending on the size of your drum set.  Two of those mics will be condenser mics while the rest can be dynamic mics.  The mic set up for a drum set is as follows: 1 Mic for your kick drum 2 Mics for hi and low toms (1 for each tom) 1 Mic for your floor tom 2 Mics for your snare (one for the top of snare) (one for the bottom of snare) 2 Mics for Overheads & Cymbals (these will go on the left and right side of set and will hover above the entire set. The diagram below is a close example: diagram credit: drummagazine.com Note that in the diagram above, they are using an eleven mic set-up.  They have additional mics on the high hat, the ride cymbal and inside the kick drum.  If you have the mic ports to add t...
Read more

3 Simple Mixing Tips to prepare your Mixes for Audio Mastering

Image
1.      Your song’s overall volume level should reach no higher than -3db.   This is because the mastering engineer will have to enhance the dynamics of your song.   This will most likely make it louder.   If your song is already too loud, the mastering engineer will not have enough headroom to enhance without bumping into distortion. ·       This can be done by simply lowering the master track volume until it consistently shows a -3db or below reading. 2.      You should not add any compression to the master track during mixing.   If you plan to get your music mastered, do not try to add compression to the master track to obtain loudness.   Doing that can greatly hinder the engineer’s ability to master your track correctly. ·       It is the mastering engineer’s job to get your song to its loudest level.   If you add compression and the...
Read more

Our Rack Set-Up

Image
When you place to much gear in the chain you run the risk of over processing and loss of audio integrity.  So when it comes to our audio rack, we keep it simple.  Our audio rack set-up is as follows: PreSonus Studio One Channel This is a killer pre-amp, compressor, and EQ all rolled into one and it will get the job done on all recordings.  We use it on everything! Behringer Tube Ultragain T1953  This puppy is a very warm tube pre-amp.  Not very harsh with a high pass and low pass filter.  It also has phase reversal and frequency altering capabilities. 462 BBE Sonic Maximizer This is basically a phase correcting exciter that lifts the mud off of all recordings. Multigate Pro XR4400 This is a noise gate that we use on live drums.  Used correctly, no noise can penetrate this baby! Ultragraph Digital DEQ1024 If you don't know how to EQ, stay away from this one.  For professionals only.  It is a...
Read more