Loudness of a kick

[W0lfdalE]

Hello there. What loudness is preferred (I usually set it around -3 dbFS)? Is it related to other instruments loudness, or other instrument loudness is related to loudness of a kick? In other words, I need to set volume of instruments in my track according to volume of the kick or vice versa?

[MrMagneto]

Whatever makes you happy.
Both ways are correct.

[GrebsoK]

IMO it depends most on what music you are making, hand the feel of it. not so high that it clips if it is a track that benefits of a inyourface kick, and not so low that it disappears if it should be in the back on another track...
well, sorry, that didn't help much, did it? hahah

[BertKoor]

If you initially set it to -3dB FS, then all the other stuff you add will be equally loud before it will clip. If that's what you want, then fine.

Personally I'd set it a bit lower (-20dB RMS or -10dB FS) so there's plenty of headroom to work with. Raising the volume later is easy...

[maxxxter]

DELETED

[TIMT]

I don't work by numbers and especially not by peak level when it comes to kicks.alot of the loudness from kicks comes from the transient or the sustained part (especially if you have some stereo ambience type layer or white noise to give the sustain some tone)

-6 is a good starting point but that is really dependent on a lot of things.the duration of the transient,where about the energy of the attack is situated,the amount and amplitude of sustain before the tail and the amplitude of the tail

For example if your kick had quite a long hold stage it wouldn't be really necessary to mix it loud (unless your genre favours it that is)as the amount of energy in the hold stage is enough to give the perception of loudness.also the hold stage tends to be situated around about 70-200hz so as you may or may not know theirs the added "proximity effect" which adds to the perceived loudness.another good reason why peak measurements are pretty useless as a tool to mix drums.except for the obvious shit like gain staging which has nothing to do with the actual mix balance of a song at all



TIMT

[SASonlinemastering]

I think you should read up about gain structure that is what this is about. It is a confusing subject for some when relating it to the modern DAW environment relative to the old skool big mixing console ways of working. The principles are based on electrical operating levels of audio signals.

These days you might think it can be ignored but it makes a lot of sense to read up and inform yourself. Good gain structure ensures your signal is out of the noise floor (which these days is very low) and distortion which is 0dBFS digitally.

It's an important concept for producers I believe. The more you know, the more you can control and achieve your goals.

Cheers

SAS album mastering service

[TIMT]

I think you should read up about gain structure that is what this is about. It is a confusing subject for some when relating it to the modern DAW environment relative to the old skool big mixing console ways of working. The principles are based on electrical operating levels of audio signals.

These days you might think it can be ignored but it makes a lot of sense to read up and inform yourself. Good gain structure ensures your signal is out of the noise floor (which these days is very low) and distortion which is 0dBFS digitally.

It's an important concept for producers I believe. The more you know, the more you can control and achieve your goals.

Cheers

SAS album mastering service

Am not particularly sure who this patronizing reply is aimed at but if it's aimed at my post above yours..huh


In the sense of how you want others to perceive elements of your track (e.g how your kick hits,how your synths etc work with the pecussion,how the bass interacts with the volume of the kick) that has absolutely nothing to do with gainstaging..nada

How the kick is perceived is more to do with the kick itself than its actual volume ( examples in the above post).ofcourse in some genres it is kind of the consensus to have the kick at a much greater volume than the rest of the elements (sidechain driven music,mixdowns with overcooked 2 buss compression) but that is literally only a guideline to get you on the way to a decent mixdown that works for that particular arrangement.gainstaging may keep you away from the noisefloor and out of clipping but by no means does it mean a mixdown will work better because of it.i seriously hope people don't actually think this either .

Noisia as one random example pretty much mix with everything into the ceiling (on individual channels but am sure they gainstage after to minimize distortion) and though the quality is sometimes questionable the actual BALANCE of the mixdowns really works for the songs.and this is what we are talking about here,in relation to the loudness of kicks...balance.which again, gainstaging has nothing to do with






TIMT