Dynamic range true value

[Googly Smythe]

You mean there's a company claiming they've invented measuring DR and their methods are the right ones? Haha seems totally legit I wonder how many have falling for such a marketing trick.

perfect…
is there any Alan Parsons or similar that tomorrow can proclaim a definitely standard for all? so when someone say that the Dr of that track is "x" anyone knows what he is talking about??

I repeat - use a loudness meter. It ha a dynamics readout, it uses standards hammered out over several years by internationally recognised organisations.
And the Youlean one is free.

[Doctor Doubledrop]

I repeat - use a loudness meter

ok, so basically u are saying me and all the other producers that I've threw my money in the trash and there should really no needed to repeat my error, that when someone say the DR of that track is "x" we really should not trust in him because there are no reference. Basically that Dynamic range is a ghost parameter, have no sense monitor it and developers should really not sell a ghost meter.

Sorry but it's like open a thread for "how to drink water" and have "why drink water? drink wine!" as reply...

[mike_the_ranger]

Dynamic Range is the difference between some peak value of the signal and some averaged value of the signal.

Some peak value? Yes, it changes: how often are these peaks meassured? How is the decay rate? Maybe even consider true peak for true peak DR
Some averaged value? Yes, I don't know if RMS meassuring ever was standardized (time frame and method) but now we have standardized methods: for example loudness meassuring a la EBU R128.

RMS has a small time frame and this means the DR value of DR meters will often depend on where it was meassured (like a quiet intro or a loud hook). Could we do it over the whole song? Yes with -integrated- loudness meassuring you can do that, because that's one reason why it was standardized.

So look at the peaks of your track (should be easy as you know how you tweaked your limiter) and meassure the integrated loudness for the whole. Then you can get a DR value for the whole song.

You wanna know which of your DR tools is accurate? IMO do what's described above and check which of your meters spits out a similar DR value...
To measure the loudness there are great tools out there, for example Youlean loudness meter, FabFilter ProL2, Toneboosters EBU loudness.

[Doctor Doubledrop]

What is IMO?

anyway as said measure loudness was not my goal.. LUFS, R128, EBU or what else needs to be monitored by mastering engineer I think.. or is there anyone that monitor them in a mix purpose?

I was just looking to understand better about dynamic range.. honestly for what I've understand I think that developers that make monitor plugins for DR really should write in the product description something like "DR is not a standard value and we use our own method to misure it, other tools may shows different values".

Honestly I feel robbed.

[BlueprintInc]

anyway as said measure loudness was not my goal..

You can't calculate DR without some sort of loudness measurement (either via small RMS time frames for current DR or with a standardized method like R128 for integrated loudness and the DR of the whole song).

LUFS, R128, EBU or what else needs to be monitored by mastering engineer I think..

What's the point of measuring DR within mixing stage then? Shouldn't it be monitored by the mastering engineer too (which he already does with loudness monitoring)?

[Doctor Doubledrop]

Seems that I can't calculate DR even with a DR meter.. of course talking (like until now) about a universal standard value.

anyway as previously said I monitor DR when I use compressor, tube or saturator in the mix process.

[plexuss]

Honestly I feel robbed.

You feel robbed because you are not willing to put in the time and effort to learn about all this. It's not sufficient to just have software and hardware for music - you have to learn how to use it. So take the 5 hours it will take to research this topic. If you don't understand enough basic audio to understand the loudness and DR stuff, then you need to learn the basic stuff first. If you buy products without the knowledge needed to use them, you will feel robbed but you are the one robbing yourself.

[Doctor Doubledrop]

umm.. sorry but I don't agree with u.. before to have bought a compressor I've learned what I was going by moving threshold, ratio , attack, release, what was the GR and so on.. this had a sense for me.. if I bought a meter to measure the volume of a track I'm really not interested in learn what mathematical calculations was made in order to say that what I'm hearing correspond to "x" db of volume.. I just need to know that volume is = "x" db.

Anyway, those are just different point of views .. developers will be for sure more happy if people will follow your thought.. my personal one is don't waste your money for a meter if u are looking to monitor the DR.

Peace

[plexuss]

umm.. sorry but I don't agree with u.. before to have bought a compressor I've learned what I was going by moving threshold, ratio , attack, release, what was the GR and so on.. this had a sense for me.. if I bought a meter to measure the volume of a track I'm really not interested in learn what mathematical calculations was made in order to say that what I'm hearing correspond to "x" db of volume.. I just need to know that volume is = "x" db.

Anyway, those are just different point of views .. developers will be for sure more happy if people will follow your thought.. my personal one is don't waste your money for a meter if u are looking to monitor the DR.

Peace

Thinking that just buying the meter is somehow going to teach you what it does is naive at best.

All the information you need to understand DR and PSR and the MAAT meter is in this thread.

[Doctor Doubledrop]

[mutantdog]

The DR value is only of any real consequence in the mastering stage anyway. Your well mixed track may have a DR value of, say, 12 but your mastering engineer may decide to limit it to say 8 (depending on genre it could be as low as 4 or 5). However the loudness range as measured in something like Youlean Loudness Meter should give a value much more in line with the final mastered product.

The popularity of DR ratings online owes more to its simplicity and the fact that it gives a good indication of how lively or squashed the mastering of a track is, this is particularly useful when comparing different releases of older music. Also, Foobar2000 has a free DR meter addon which is almost certainly what most people are using.

Personally, I would recommend downloading Youlean, it's free and it provides loads more information than just the one single value. It also gives a graphical representation of loudness over time which can help get a better idea of what it's measuring and what, if any, adjustments may be needed to your track.

https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/

[pixel85]

If it's too complex... leave it. For mixing purposes all what you need to care is to keep peaks on every channel/bus/aux below 0dB. That's it. It's really that simple. If you want to measure dynamic range: use your ears. Numbers doesn't help you here. If you want to make dynamic mix then simply ride faders and make it sound dynamic (or vice versa). For mastering keep master bus level at -6dB or below. And you're golden. No need to care about DR if you follow these rules.
DR, LUFS etc. level standards: these exist for final print of audio. Thats it: leave it for mastering engineers.
Now it depends on where this is going:
- CD: do whatever you want. CD will accept everything
- Streaming services: we can agree that some kind of standard is -14 LUFS but it's not official and it's in development stage. Almost every stream service have a bit of different norms (or doesn't have them at all)
- Vinyl: ideally mix should be without any master bus dynamic processing (except it's for character not to squeeze dynamics)
- Radio: here comes PPM and BBC standards; 6 is max
- Film: -23LUFS (but it's not the only one measure unit that have to be considered here
- Adverts: 43842983dB above absolute zero otherwise they say that it's too quiet

Did I mentioned RMS? This one similar to LUFS and other 'dynamic meters' depends on settings and it seems that every meter seems to have different defaults (afair because now in Cubase I have meters build in so I could say bye bye to plugin meters )
And so on and so on...

Btw. this may be helpful: https://www.live-production.tv/sites/de ... tering.pdf

[Googly Smythe]

I repeat - use a loudness meter

ok, so basically u are saying ...

Shouldn't put words into people's mouths.
I'm saying use a meter that abides by standards hammered out by several international organisations that are not trying to sell you their product. Standards that are used throughout the music profession. And which include a reading for dynamic range.

The 2 meters you mention do not abide such standards, (one of which is based on the work of just one man) and therefore produce different results.

The Youlean meter, which everyone seems to recommend, does abide by internationally recognised standards. And does include a reading for dynamic range.

You haven't wasted time or money - it's a learning experience. We all have them.

Just pick a meter, get to know it, and stick with it.

[jbarish]

He's a Doctor for God's sake! Didn't your mother teach not to argue with a Doctor?!?!?!

[Googly Smythe]

He's a Doctor for God's sake! Didn't your mother teach not to argue with a Doctor?!?!?!