Re: K-14 and RMS measurement in SoundForge

In article <12ef0585-6490-48b1-a0aa-
ebd2c92e2b6a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, mrivers@xxxxxxxxxxx says...
On Jan 28, 11:44 am, Nick Delonas <n...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rather than going out and buying a decibel meter, it might be more
practical to settle on matching loudness to some standard.

The standard is a sound pressure level. What are you going to match it
to?

Well, at a given volume setting on my monitors, that to my ears my track
sounds the same volume as the reference.

In reality, I find that the 85 dB SPL "standard" is too loud and I
actually monitor at around 75-77 dB. The point is that once you
establish a monitor level in whatever way you choose, you nail the
monitor volume control in place, or at least mark its position so you
can always return to it. And if you have three controls in series to
control your listening volume, you'd better mark all of them. That's
your standard reference.

Boy, I don't know if I could get used to this kind of method. I vary
the actual room volume a lot during a session.

The problem
is that I prefer the sound quality of older recordings -- pre loudness
wars. But maybe that's a good thing.

That's fine, but it doesn't have anything to do with mixing to a
standard loudness. It may, however, have something to do with the peak-
to-average ratio.

I'm sure that it does -- square waves don't sound as good (to me).

Compare a modern, hot, overcompressed track with your tracks and make
yours as close as you dare.

I do have meters that do that

What meters, and how are you using them to compare.

Well I've got a few different ones I use. My favorite is the Visualizer
(http://www.nugenaudio.com/visualizer.php). I have been keeping an eye
on the distance between peak and average, generally compressing more if
that distance is more than 10 db.

It's not about
absolute level. Well, it IS about absolute level, but you can always
adjust that just by jacking up the overall level of the track. But if
you do that without some massaging, you won't get the AVERAGE level up
high enough. At a given volume control setting, THAT'S what we
perceive as loudness.

That's why I'm taking a look at the RMS measure of the resulting WAV
file in SoundForge. I know it's not perfect, but I read somewhere that
it's a good idea to compare the RMS of your tracks with commercial
tracks of a similar style. So that's what I do.

But then I find that a lot of current tracks have really high RMS
levels. My daughters' favorite band's record has an average RMS of
10.1! I don't want our music squashed that much. My tracks tend to be
around 14 RMS, though one I just mixed was about 16. Sounds great to me
know, but I may have to adjust a bit hotter later.

I am using the resulting RMS as a guide, though I realize it's an
approximation and by no means hard and fast. I was just confused about
how it relates to the K-14 standard if it does at all. I bet there is
some kind of statistical relationship/correlation.

--Nick
.

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