Hey,

I'm completing a mix project and am a little concerned about the noise floor level where there is essentially no audio present (if that makes sense).

I have a song project that consists of 21 tracks of various instruments (real and synth) and vocals.

I used the Bounce to Tracks feature to create my final mix on a new track.

On the Master bus,  I'm running a multi-band compressor (LP--64) and limiter (T-Racks Concrete Limiter) for some gentle eq-ing and to bring up the overall level of the mix to near commercial standards. I have the limiter set to -.03 to avoid clipping.

Now...

When playing the mixed track during the Count-In (2 measures before the song begins to play) which is essentially silence, the audio level reads -73.5db.

Is this a good level and typical of what I should expect?

What has got me thinking about this is that I created an MP3 of the mix and played it in Windows Media Player and I can see audio activity (although I cannot hear any) before the music begins to play.

Thanks.

  

I always put a gate on my master bus just before the limiter, some plugins can add extra noise. I use the Sonitus Gate, heres my settings, but you can adjust to taste.

One should not need to gate anything on the masterbuss. I have never done it in my life and yet I get totally noiseless masters. Being in the digital world the great thing is we have literally no noise so any noise you hear must be coming from somewhere. Might be a good idea to track it down.

Slip edit any audio clips so they are not playing until there is audio on the track. This is important because although a waveform looks like there is nothing there or silence, there in fact could be some residual noise present. Just not showing up on the waveform image.

Do you have any of those idiotic plugins that introduce noise just to be like their old analog counterparts. I have encountered a few of those in my time.

If you are hearing noise in the intro try looping or cycling over the intro and solo every track one by one. I bet you will find the offending track.

Check you are sending decent (higher)  levels into reverbs or any send effects plugins that may introduce noise and return their signals at a lower volume.

"I have the limiter set to -.03 to avoid clipping."


I usually go with -1dBFS. It sounds a whole lot better than -0.03 on cheapo stereo playback systems.


You can make the track sound loud by focusing on the RMS levels... you don't need the peaks going to -0.03dBFS. It doesn't help anything... and it hurts when someone is listening on a cheap system.



The noise floor issue is something I would fix by going back and finding which tracks are making it happen. I'd trim the clips or use a level envelope to make sure any track that is supposed to be silent actually is. That should be easy and it'll only take a few minutes.


 all the best,
mike

Are you using any plugs that claim to simulate an analog sound? Because sometimes those add a noise floor *cough* Waves *cough*  

Doesn't anyone read posts before they post. I have covered it all in my post #3. Obviously not!  Like I said there is no excuse for noise. It is coming from somewhere. Not a bad idea to get into tracking noisy sources down, it keeps you on your toes. Mastering plugins and things are going to emphasise it so that is why it is a good idea to track it down first.

Your post wasn't posted when I began writing the one I posted.

Interesting...  Looks like I have some detective work to do.

I just disabled all plug-ins, played the project and the audio level is 0 until the music begins to play.

This suggests that a plug or plugs is introducing the noise.

I'm running the Slate VCC on all tracks and buses and now wonder if it is the culprit.

Got some experimenting to do...

Thanks.

I will let you off Mike for that but there is no excuse for shark though!  A better limit level is -0.1 rather than -0.03. I do agree with Mike though in that many playback devices will have problems with even -0.1

But unless you do a lot of very very very loud mastering which I suspect Mike is someone who is not in that realm, there is a BIG difference in level between reaching -0.1 and -1 dB. Sorry, but it is true. When the client is wanting you to squeeze every last drop of level out of that final master, then -0.1 it is. 

It is just a shame that we have to be hunting down every last db when even at 16 bit resolution we have got 90 dB or more of dynamic range. And yet we are grappling in one or two dB right at the very top. Seems silly to me.

Good point from Rasure below, I also drop any final masters down to -1 dB before converting to mp3 though. Worth doing.

I also limit to -1dbfs, since more often than not its going to MP3 afterwards and it clips & distorts after conversion, basically putting it over the "digital 0" if you like.