EDM Producers are averaging -6 to -5 RMS (WTF!)

[Alécio Costa]

Do you mean -5RMS for the whole song or just some chorus or minor sections?

-5 is for musically ******** people!

[teknatronik]

Originally Posted by quantummastering

That's interesting. I've had a change to play for a crowd on a few occasions in Maine. I think most people leave when they can't connect to the songs and that may either be from loudness or composition. Americans usually like slower EDM music, around 130bpm. Have you tried playing louder music at a little bit lower volume so it doesn't cause as much fatigue? I know you may lose some midrange but it's better than the crowd leaving

id rather have dynamics.

[ONDRAY]

Beatport won't even release it if it's not loud enough. A typical track is -8 to -10db RMS, which for EDM isn't all that bad. You can't take the typical rock route with EDM, slamming some limiters and getting the pump effect is sometimes part of the sound.

Is -6 rms to loud? Yes! it's ridiculous. I don't do it. I’ve found some labels are stepping back the loudness for dynamics recently, which is a sign of good things to come. Thing is there's a lot of independent artist/labels on there and they will just run their tracks through 3 limiters in a chain for their track to stand out. I mean when you're pumping a release every 2 weeks and not making decent coin on every release, I don't blame them from not being able to drop a few hundred every week on mastering.

[StringBean]

If the mix is properly balanced, it really doesn't matter to me how loud it is (unless it's pushed to the level of audible distortion).

The problem is when the mix is purposely imbalanced to get the track louder. Snare is harsh in 2-5k, kick has no sub but way too much boomy low end, bass is nonexistent.

[Huntley Miller]

RMS is not an accurate measurement of loudness, particularly in electronic music.

[The_K_Man]

Originally Posted by Huntley Miller

RMS is not an accurate measurement of loudness, particularly in electronic music.

?!?!?????


(Another soul brainwashed into believing peak is everything..)

[Huntley Miller]

Originally Posted by The_K_Man

?!?!?????


(Another soul brainwashed into believing peak is everything..)

It's an average measurement that isn't very effective in determining how loud something actually is. For example, I could cut something that measures -13 RMS that could be as loud as your -10.

BTW, what's your name?

[The_K_Man]

Originally Posted by Huntley Miller

It's an average measurement that isn't very effective in determining how loud something actually is. For example, I could cut something that measures -13 RMS that could be as loud as your -10.

BTW, what's your name?

The_K_Man.

There's just a lot of weird stuff going on in this digital world for me.

RMS dismissed as a measure of loudness. A race to see who can achieve the smallest crest factor. All elements of a mix mastered to the same volume at all times. All the conventions I grew up on, thrown out the window.

Gets kind of lonely on here for an old-schooler who OD'd on common sense.

[huejahfink]

Originally Posted by The_K_Man

?!?!?????


(Another soul brainwashed into believing peak is everything..)

To my mind, that's not at all what they are suggesting.

There's just too many factors involved. For example the speed / density of the arrangement, plus the amount of and consistency of the bass in the mix can have a big impact on RMS readings.

Also, unweighted RMS is a mathematical average of amplitudes regardless of frequency - and this is not how our hearing works. The human perceives some frequencies as significantly louder sounding than others, even if they are played back at the same sound pressure level.

These are just a few of the reasons why RMS level does not necessarily correlate to how loud a listener might perceive it to be.
I wouldn't suggest an RMS value meaningless - but I think Huntley is correct in suggesting that it cannot be relied upon as am accurate measure of perceived loudness.

[Babaluma]

Yep, I agree, RMS is a terrible measure of perceived loudness, as is the VU meter. You can "learn" to read them, but for an accurate meter of actual perceived loudness, something like LEQ-A, or the new EBU/ITU standards are far better (but still not perfect).

As an example, I recently mastered a three track EP of electro-acoustic music, one of the tracks has a lot of deep sub bass, while the other two don't. I mastered all the tracks so that the perceived loudness was very similar, but on an RMS meter and the VU, the track with all the low end is reading about 6 higher.

[The_K_Man]

Originally Posted by Babaluma

Yep, I agree, RMS is a terrible measure of perceived loudness, as is the VU meter. You can "learn" to read them, but for an accurate meter of actual perceived loudness, something like LEQ-A, or the new EBU/ITU standards are far better (but still not perfect).

As an example, I recently mastered a three track EP of electro-acoustic music, one of the tracks has a lot of deep sub bass, while the other two don't. I mastered all the tracks so that the perceived loudness was very similar, but on an RMS meter and the VU, the track with all the low end is reading about 6 higher.

Fletcher-Munson, no doubt. Good point!

[teknatronik]

Does the precieved loudness meter from ik play any roll in how loud things should be?

[Babaluma]

Originally Posted by The_K_Man

Fletcher-Munson, no doubt. Good point!

Well yeah, RMS is a mathematical figure measuring mean average power, I believe, and not a measure of how the human ear perceives loudness. RMS and VU are closer to how we hear than peak metering, but are still woefully inaccurate. That's why the newer meters have various weightings in the time and frequency domain, to closer approximate what we hear (I am imagining most of those frequency weightings are based on the equal loudness contours).

I have my RME Digicheck 4 channel meter set up so that I can see peaks, ISPs, slow RMS and an even slower weighted/more accurate/"human" bar for perceived loudness, all at a glance.

[teknatronik]

Originally Posted by teknatronik

Does the precieved loudness meter from ik play any roll in how loud things should be?

anyone here use it as a guide?

[tridelica]

Originally Posted by teknatronik

Does the precieved loudness meter from ik play any roll in how loud things should be?

I do my own mastering, and I have a hard time loudness maximizing without screwing up the sound. I monitor The IK loudness meter because I have to slam my mix pretty hard just to get the loudness to encroach into the good zone. That's about as far as I am willing to push things.

[paintitblack]

I was upset to see the new foo fighters rms is -5 dbfs

[Jesse Graffam]

Originally Posted by paintitblack

I was upset to see the new foo fighters rms is -5 dbfs

Does the mastering forum really need a sticky topic to educate people on things like dB RMS and dB FS being two unrelated things?

[The_K_Man]

Originally Posted by Jesse Graffam

Does the mastering forum really need a sticky topic to educate people on things like dB RMS and dB FS being two unrelated things?

They aren't unrelated at all - but they are two different things.

dB RMS is a measurement.

dBFS is a scale.

Both dB Peak and dB RMS can be measured on either the dBfs scale or the VU scale.

Therefore PaintitBlack has a valid point: The new recording he referenced could have an average value of -5dBfs RMS. Death Magnetic already hit -4!

[807Recordings]

Just asked for two refunds of iTUnes because one album was remastered but not marked as such and it was smashed to shit. I mean not at all listenable " Red Man -What the album". Too bad my CD is in Canada still in a box because its much better.

Another was also squashed a bit but had MP3 errors that sounded like a duck quacking.

Seriously WTF is this world of plastic shiz coming to.