A little unclear on RMS

[AntonyR]

Har-Bal

I just purchased your product last week and have been getting to grips with it. I think I understand everything except the RMS bit. I have read all the guidance you have written and am still unclear on the RMS piece.

For example:

I load a mixed wave file into Har-Bal, I then load contemporary reference and adjust Har-Bal's lines to match. This is fine. I then do match loudness and it moves the gain up by 4db (can't remember exact figure, but assume that for now). I make a note of it and set gain back to 0dB and export new_eq.wav file.

I then open up SX3 and load new_eq.wav file. I have Waves Platinum edition so I use L2 limiter and set limit to -0.1dB. I am not going to use Compression as only vocals, strings and guitars.

I pull down the L2 left panel slider until it sounds louder but not squashed. But it is as this point I am unclear where the 4dB difference comes in or where I check RMS level. What I did do was to user the PAZ Meters that comes with Waves Platinum and this has an RMS blue meter in the middle, so what I did was ensure the peak of this RMS meter was around -10 to -11dB. Is that enough or have I missed something?

Thanks in advance.

Antony Richards

Carillon P4, 2.6GHz, 1GB RAM (XP SP1)
Aardvark Q10 (7.13)
MIDEX 3 (1.6.1)
Roland SC-88

Cubase SX v3.0.2.622
Halion 3.1.0.947, VG (Electric)
Waves v5.0, RMIV v4.1.2, Autotune 3, HarBal 1.51, Jamstix 1.01c

[har-bal]

Har-Bal

I just purchased your product last week and have been getting to grips with it. I think I understand everything except the RMS bit. I have read all the guidance you have written and am still unclear on the RMS piece.

For example:

I load a mixed wave file into Har-Bal, I then load contemporary reference and adjust Har-Bal's lines to match. This is fine. I then do match loudness and it moves the gain up by 4db (can't remember exact figure, but assume that for now). I make a note of it and set gain back to 0dB and export new_eq.wav file.

I then open up SX3 and load new_eq.wav file. I have Waves Platinum edition so I use L2 limiter and set limit to -0.1dB. I am not going to use Compression as only vocals, strings and guitars.

I pull down the L2 left panel slider until it sounds louder but not squashed. But it is as this point I am unclear where the 4dB difference comes in or where I check RMS level. What I did do was to user the PAZ Meters that comes with Waves Platinum and this has an RMS blue meter in the middle, so what I did was ensure the peak of this RMS meter was around -10 to -11dB. Is that enough or have I missed something?

Thanks in advance.

Antony Richards

Carillon P4, 2.6GHz, 1GB RAM (XP SP1)
Aardvark Q10 (7.13)
MIDEX 3 (1.6.1)
Roland SC-88

Cubase SX v3.0.2.622
Halion 3.1.0.947, VG (Electric)
Waves v5.0, RMIV v4.1.2, Autotune 3, HarBal 1.51, Jamstix 1.01c

Antony

An average RMS between -10 and -12 is ideal for most commercial music. It sounds as though you have a handle on the process.
Normally when you use the match loudness feature you are comparing the loudness of your song to a commercial song. The db in Har-Bal increase just lets you know how much you need to drag down the threshold in your limiter to have the same loudness. This is perfect when you want the loudness to be equal across an entire album, which is something a lot of folks have a problem with.

Cheers

Earle