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Sound, db Levels
Hello,
Okay – I’m using Vegas Pro 9e.
I’m making a blu-ray movie. It is for playing in home cinema set-ups and cinemas/festivals. It is not a ‘broadcast’ piece of work. The film is mainly dialogue with low-level background music and chit-chat ‘behind’ it. There’s a middle part that is only music. And there’s a violent scene at the end where someone is stabbed repeatedly.
I have several questions, all about db levels.
1. I know I need to go through the dialogue track-by-track (i.e. actor-by-actor) to make sure the volume is about level all through. But what should my average/peak db levels be? Bear in mind that only one person is ever talking at the same time, and that the background stuff will be low level, so the ‘additive factor’ can almost be ignored.
2. In the musical interlude, where all there is is music, what db level should this average/peak at? The music is not crazy – it’s quite gentle with no major fluctuations.
3. The stabbing scene needs to make the viewer jump really and be quite a bit louder than the rest of the movie. So – bearing in mind the other levels, what db level should these peaks be at?
4. Lastly, either through careful balancing of the individual tracks or with a single ‘master’ adjustment at the end, what Average/peak db levels am I looking for for the overall sound-track.
I need this to play at a similar volume as a commercial disk.
Now I haven’t been lazy – on the contrary – I’ve read many similar questions and answers on here. The answers seem to fall into two camps. Camp One saying average at -20db with -12db peaks and a max-ever peak of -8ish. And Camp Two saying to hover around -6db and have a loudest peak of -3 at most.
Please help me????
Thanks a lot.
Fred
PS: I’m very experienced at sound mixing (just not for movies), so I don’t need to know about compression, notching, limiting, equalisation or any of that. Just need guidance on target db levels for movies.
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3 Replies
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I always try to keep the main voice sound as loud as possible up under zero. Whether the person is yelling or whispering. Then I adjust all other sound effects, background music, etc from there.
The pain is that most non professional talent seem to start their sentences louder than the end of the sentence when they have less air in their lungs. So you have to correct for that.
I don’t think Bluray versus DVD should make a difference. Other than Blu Ray is automatically AC3, and DVD could be pcm or AC3. AC3 is the format that goes nuts when the sound clips.
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video ProductionsJohn Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com -
Yes, this is what I’ll do too. It’s just that I’m looking for a bit more precision regarding your “up under zero”. Plus, because there are some much louder parts at the end, if the voice is “up under zero”, then these later sounds won’t be able to be any louder relative to the spoken parts will they.
Fred
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Correct,
You have to keep the total sound under zero. If you have loud sounds at the end, you will have to reduce the voice and those sounds proportionally to keep the total under zero.
There are two ways to do it. Simple way is to create a smaller event and lower the volume in that event where it gets too loud.
If it happens many times throughout the video, you put the background sounds on a track and use an audio fx to lower the dynamic range of that track.
John
John Lenihan
LeniCam Video Productions
https://www.lenicam.com
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