wavlab analyser

There are many features of Har-Bal we still haven't discussed in this forum. Below we will start sharing a few items. Please feel free to add yours.
har-bal
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Post by har-bal »

elliot wrote:thanks earle,
another saturday night in front of the comp :(

btw, i extracted that file and its giving me an average of -16.41 none of the filters are on and i even tried buning on another pc, still the same though. anyone wanna buy a studio setup?, i give up :roll:


So, somewhere in the process you are losing 6dbs. I am up for some professionals in this forum to take a stab at it. Lets see what happens.

Earle
mflorio
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Post by mflorio »

Have you tried burning the cd in Wavelab ? I always use WL to burn audio cds and Nero only for data cds.

Mike
elliot
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Post by elliot »

hey mike :)

to be honest i cant figure out how to do it in w/l i found the help files very confusing, perhapes yoiu could advise?
mflorio
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Post by mflorio »

I'm not at my daw now, but I believe it's just File / Create New CD program. I'm on WaveLab 3, so your's might be different if you're on a different version.

Mike
elliot
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Post by elliot »

im using 5 but i cant work it out :cry:
dyonisos
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about loudness...

Post by dyonisos »

I hope everyone has read the various pages on the web dealing withthe pitfalls of trying to make one's music "too loud". It's the "loudness race". I used to be in that race because I didn't know any better. After doing some reading I'm no longer trying to get -12 dB average RMS before burning to CD. I'm shooting for -15 to -16 dB average RMS these days. The result is retention of dynamics and an overall better sound, not to mention better sound when played over local radio stations. The result of insisting on -12 or lower is someone having to turn down the volume of their system when:

1. switching from watching a movie (VHS or DVD) to listening to a too-loud CD.

The best bet is to figure out the loudest level of a commercially available DVD and then make a point of keeping your audio CD no louder than that.

Just thought I'd add that to the conversation. :)
har-bal
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Re: about loudness...

Post by har-bal »

dyonisos wrote:I hope everyone has read the various pages on the web dealing withthe pitfalls of trying to make one's music "too loud". It's the "loudness race". I used to be in that race because I didn't know any better. After doing some reading I'm no longer trying to get -12 dB average RMS before burning to CD. I'm shooting for -15 to -16 dB average RMS these days. The result is retention of dynamics and an overall better sound, not to mention better sound when played over local radio stations. The result of insisting on -12 or lower is someone having to turn down the volume of their system when:

1. switching from watching a movie (VHS or DVD) to listening to a too-loud CD.

The best bet is to figure out the loudest level of a commercially available DVD and then make a point of keeping your audio CD no louder than that.

Just thought I'd add that to the conversation. :)


You make a good point, however mastering engineers are in now in a terrible dilemma.
Most record labels are demanding loud cd's these days because they are worried about competition.
Heck, even my clients want their music slamming the meters.
The problem is this....you have to give the client what they want or shut down your business.
I get a lot of business from labels and if I send them a cd with an RMS level of -14.00 they will send it back insisting that I make it louder.

The only folks who understand and appreciate dynamics in their music seems to be acoustic, jazz, gospel and classical artists.

Even radio stations are competing for listeners by increasing their output volumes to the edge.

I recently finished a cd for a popular group (no names) and they weren't satisfied until the RMS level was between -9.00 and -10.00.

So what are gonna do :)

If the client is happy you get to stay in business :)

Earle
dyonisos
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Re: about loudness...

Post by dyonisos »

I guess it's a matter of waiting it out until everyone comes to their senses and realizes that a competition over loudness should no longer take precedence over the quality of music. Until that time, yes, one has to do what one has to do to stay in business, I won't argue with that!
har-bal
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Re: about loudness...

Post by har-bal »

dyonisos wrote:I guess it's a matter of waiting it out until everyone comes to their senses and realizes that a competition over loudness should no longer take precedence over the quality of music. Until that time, yes, one has to do what one has to do to stay in business, I won't argue with that!


I am with you waiting with utter anticipation for everyone to come to their senses as well. It will be a great day to hear music that actually has a decent dynamic range again :)

Earle
mflorio
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Post by mflorio »

Of course in 10-15 years from now, when a reversal of this louder-is-better philosophy gains mass appeal, labels will be able to release remastered versions of today's music with RESTORED dynamic range (which is what digital was supposed to do in the first place). So maybe the labels do know what they're doing after all ($$$).... Keep all your un-mastered mixes around !!!

Mike
dbmasters
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Post by dbmasters »

Jeezuz, you guys talk like one solid listening level on every piece of music is a bad thing... :wink: :D
chams
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Post by chams »

Has this issue been resolved?
My first crack at har-bal showed the file to be about -10 db RMS after tweaking.
The monitors reflected this.
After recording, the wave analysis in wavelab 5 showed -18 db RMS, and the -eq file was
noticably at that level.
har-bal
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Post by har-bal »

chams wrote:Has this issue been resolved?
My first crack at har-bal showed the file to be about -10 db RMS after tweaking.
The monitors reflected this.
After recording, the wave analysis in wavelab 5 showed -18 db RMS, and the -eq file was
noticably at that level.


Chams

Which issue are you referring to? Are you referring to the average and peak level at the top of the graph on right hand side of Har-Bal.

Thanks

Earle
har-bal
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Post by har-bal »

har-bal wrote:
chams wrote:Has this issue been resolved?
My first crack at har-bal showed the file to be about -10 db RMS after tweaking.
The monitors reflected this.
After recording, the wave analysis in wavelab 5 showed -18 db RMS, and the -eq file was
noticably at that level.


Chams

Which issue are you referring to? Are you referring to the average and peak level at the top of the graph on right hand side of Har-Bal.

Thanks

Earle


Chams

They are actual dB levels but not in the sense you are used to. Your more acustomed to the level as portrayed by VU meters but in the spectral domain how strong something appears is a function of its bandwidth and its level. For example, if you take a sine wave and pink noise both of the same power, the levels as displayed by a VU meter will be the same for both signals but in the frequency domain the sine wave will have a large peak that is at a much higher level than the spectrum line representing the pink noise. This is because the power of the signal in the frequency domain is the integral sum of the components across the spectrum. That is the area under the curve (when displayed on linear-linear scale) is the same for the sine wave spectrum and the pink noise spectrum.

If you're lost think of it in this way. You have a balloon of fixed volume and it has a particular overall length. Now squeeze the balloon and what happens to the length? It increases because the volume in the balloon is trying to stay constant and your restricting its width. A similar thing happens with signals in the frequency domain but in this case the width is the "spectral width". A sine has a very small spectral width so the peak level in the spectrum is correspondingly much higher than for a wide bandwidth signal like pink noise. For this reason it isn't very useful to think about the absolute values on the spectrum axis too much cos it is only the area under the curve that has an easily identifiable physical significance. By the way, the reference I used for the dB scale was arbitrarily chosen. In the next release it will be dB referred to a full scale sine wave, which you may or may not find more useful.

Regards,


Paavo.
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