SuperG

bitflipper
3. Peak limiting is only indirectly related to perceived volume. It's entirely possible to achieve competitive loudness without exceeding a -1.0 dB maximum peak, or even less. Perceived loudness is all about average RMS, and when you lower your brickwall limit you raise RMS, so sometimes setting a lower limit will actually make your mix sound louder.

 
Good advice.  
 
I roughly adjust levels by eye using K-14 levels in Ozone 7. I'm not really interested in hitting that last 1 db. When compiling for a CD, I also check Ozone 7's 'integrated' meter setting to make sure the perceived loudness of all the tracks are compatible. For me this has been working out at about and average of -16LUFS.
 

Mister G,
 
If I were to type a post in this thread, it would be exactly what you typed. I also use Ozone7 and shoot for -16LUFS, (not participating in the "Loudness War"), use a Sound meter and finally my ears to make sure all the songs are roughly the same perceived loudness. I don't want to have to touch the volume control when I'm listening to one of my albums.
 
Walt
 
Walt

Anderton
SSL's X-ISM is an inter-sample distortion meter. It emulates the roundoffs of smoothing filters and extrapolates whether anything goes above 0.
 
It's a discontinued piece of software (it was introduced 9 years ago) but is still available for download (and as far as I can tell, still works) on SSL's Japanese site. It does chew some CPU, though.

Not found on the official site, but I found in http://store.solidstatelogic.com/sites/default/files/00bbada4-cc18-4c72-ad86-64e8bd511965/SSL_X-ISM_Setup.zip
 

Hi Chuckebaby,
   I've read these posts and I think I have some useful advice.
1.  Dynamic range is the big gig in audio for loudness, recording, mixing, mastering and such.
Record at 24 bit (144dB S/N) and every consumer format will allow you to compress to a more useful, but inclusive, dynamic range.  This will allow you plenty of headroom and noise level removal.
2.  Try to edit all recordings to a -1dBfs level... you can always turn things down.  It is best to avoid turning up the levels as your noise will get louder too.
3.  Try to mix to a -3dBfs level... transients may compromise your mix levels but you can either manually adjust them, reexamine your source files or use a limiter when going for more loudness.
4.  When mastering, it is important to use the standards for presentation, i.e. DVD, CD, theater, surround sound, mp3, internet, ect...  There are no true standards to make "all-in-one" masters.
5.  Avoid generic mastering sites as they are just using hi-ratio multiband compressors to get the most volume and this will change your mix of dialogue (vocals), sound effects and music.
6.  If you master in 24 bit, you will have 144dB of S/N so you can convert to standard 16 bit presentations very easily.  I generally master to -1dBfs.  I try to keep the most important audio parts between -1dBfs and -12dBfs, depending upon the other material.  I generally keep secondary levels between -6dBfs and -18dBfs and third level sounds under -12dBfs and -24dBfs.  This generally will give you a 100% (loudest) to 12.5% (softest) volume.  This works well for theater film sound...  I compress a DVD sound level by 2:1 to go 100% to 25% (for normal... you may be required to reduce the dynamic range to 1/2 of that, depending upon the movie).  For music, it really depends upon the artist and style but most people like these above setting (hip-hop artist may like a 100%-50% setting to keep everything sound loud on ear-buds, iTunes, internet, ect.).  Any DNR lower than 25% may disappear in a "less-than-perfect" environment and any DNR larger than 50% will change the mix.
 
I hope you find this useful,
 
Tom
 
 
 

I am surprise at the amount of -0.3dB posts unless we aren't discussing -0.3dBfs.  I think people are misinterpreting dBfs, dBspl and dBu with dynamic range of audio recording, editing, mixing and mastering levels.  We need to keep in mind that a Decibel (1/10th of a Bell unit) is actually a ratio of two pieces of information... typically, this is a reference value of strength to a perceived value of strength.  In a sound file, this is the signal level compared, in a ratio, to the perceived volume... which also includes an ability to measure the dBspl of the presentation venue and the Fletcher-Munson curves to evaluate perception of the presentation venue.
 
If one masters to 0 thru -6dBfs, the resulting sound at theater volumes of 110dBspl will mean the entire sound will be 110dBspl to 104dBspl (this would be so loud you will get nauseous!)  Even lowering the DNR to 96dBspl will be amazingly loud in a film.  For a DVD, this would be fine... in an internet music presentation, this will mean some sounds are loud and some are too soft to really hear on a laptop speaker system.
 
I have found the best mix/mastering technique to allow for a 24dB DNR for modern sound.  A little bit of compression can the be used to master for various presentation requirements.  For some, specific requests, I have mastered to a 48dB DNR... but you can still compress at 2:1 to get back to 24dB DNR without compromising the basic sound.
 
 

BASSIC Productions
I am surprise at the amount of -0.3dB posts unless we aren't discussing -0.3dBfs.  I think people are misinterpreting dBfs, dBspl and dBu with dynamic range of audio recording, editing, mixing and mastering levels.  We need to keep in mind that a Decibel (1/10th of a Bell unit) is actually a ratio of two pieces of information... typically, this is a reference value of strength to a perceived value of strength.  In a sound file, this is the signal level compared, in a ratio, to the perceived volume... which also includes an ability to measure the dBspl of the presentation venue and the Fletcher-Munson curves to evaluate perception of the presentation venue.
 
If one masters to 0 thru -6dBfs, the resulting sound at theater volumes of 110dBspl will mean the entire sound will be 110dBspl to 104dBspl (this would be so loud you will get nauseous!)  Even lowering the DNR to 96dBspl will be amazingly loud in a film.  For a DVD, this would be fine... in an internet music presentation, this will mean some sounds are loud and some are too soft to really hear on a laptop speaker system.
 
I have found the best mix/mastering technique to allow for a 24dB DNR for modern sound.  A little bit of compression can the be used to master for various presentation requirements.  For some, specific requests, I have mastered to a 48dB DNR... but you can still compress at 2:1 to get back to 24dB DNR without compromising the basic sound.

I master to 0.3 db PEAK all the time.
However that's not really the important thing in mastering to me anyway, RMS is.
I shoot for between -8 to -12  RMS but am always hanging in around -9.
 
Mastering is something that takes years to polish the craft.
Back in the day I would simply throw some limiters in the master bus and start some vigorous knob turning.
Its still a craft I get better at over the years, with new tricks, new methods. I only do audio, never DVD, soundtracks. I have found over the years, the best way to get better at it is to try new things, experiment.
It takes you down new roads, trying an unorthodox style, something different. I approach songwriting the same way.

This excellent topic has awakened a need to deepen my knowledge about audio.
For those who wish the same, I found an excellent beginner course: https://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/audio-sound-basics/
 

AllanH
Thank you for a lot of good and interesting information. I sometimes have a few high peaks but relatively low RMS. I've tried a variety of compression tricks to increase RMS but have had no general success.
 
Q: Any guidance on increasing RMS while only gently compressing the peaks? I do recognize that the peaks, in relative terms, need to get smaller.

 
Unless you really want to reduce the peaks, a limiter is probably the tool of choice. But the other thing I do (and recommend only to those with infinite amounts of patience) is isolating the rogue peaks and reducing their levels, so everything else can be brought up without needing to use dynamics. 
 
For example if most of a mix’s peaks reach –5 dB but a couple dozen go to –1 dB, I’ll normalize just the half-cycle of those couple dozen peaks to –5 dB. That way I can raise the level 4dB without having to use dynamics processing.
 
I do participate in the loudness wars, but as a conscientious objector . I slam my own material pretty hard these days because that's the kind of material I do, but I'm working on some newer, simpler songs and dialing back on the slamming. As to clients, I give them several options and let them choose what they want. I'm mastering an album project by Bryan Ferry's lead guitarist and he's great to work with, he doesn't want it slammed and wants everything articulated well. I recommended what I thought worked for his music, and we were exactly on the same page...I love it when that happens.

-0.1 on my Master Bus with my Fabfilter Pro-L Limiter set to 0.0