Audio monitoring upgrade advice

[Rick Mac]

[wps_hlee] “Sometimes I’ll adjust a piece of music and it sounds perfect with the voice levels (at my PC) but then when I render it out to DVD and play it on my TV, the sound is too low. I’d like to get closer to the actual DVD output. Sort of a “what-you-hear-is-what-you-get” setup.”

If I understand your question correctly, your rendered DVD’s
are not loud enough when played back on your tv.

New speakers are not going to affect your overall volume
level. It could affect the how you mix sounds relative to
each other. As an example, say you are doing a project
where you are mixing music with a voiceover. The quality
of your speakers could affect your preceived balance between the two. Then after render you play it back on a
different system and the mix sounds different.
That is what your speakers do.

Now to your volume question.
You just need to up the audio level of your project.
Get the peaks level as close to 0 as you can without hitting
0. Need it louder? You could patch in a compressor or limiter
to the main output bus and raise the average level of
your audio.

By the way I am an advocate for mixing on real speakers not computer speakers. M-Audio does make
a good product for the money.

Regards, Rick.

Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377

[Terry Esslinger]

If you are rendering the audio out as AC3 for DVD (as you should) make sure to make the following changes
On the Audio Service tab Change Dialogue Normalization to -31
and
On thr preprocessing tab Line mode profile to ‘None’
and RF mode profile to ‘None’

[Hollington Lee]

[Rick Mac] As an example, say you are doing a project where you are mixing music with a voiceover. The quality of your speakers could affect your preceived balance between the two. Then after render you play it back on a different system and the mix sounds different.
That is what your speakers do.

Sorry for not being clearer in my post. Yes Rick, this is exactly what I’m talking about – the final “balance” is not what I expected.

Are you saying that a new set of speakers/monitors whould be enough to correct this? If so, can you recommend something for under $200?

Thanks so much.

–Hollington Lee

[Hollington Lee]

Thank you Terry. What do these settings do? Is this is something that should be done to ALL AC3 rendered audio?

Thanks.

–Hollington Lee

[Mike Kujbida]

Hollington, it’s my understanding that this is an AGC-type of setting.
That is, the differences between quiet and loud passages will be substantially reduced.
BTW, if you do change these settings, save it as a preset. For example, “Stereo DVD-mod”.
Saving is done by typing a new name in the “template” box at the top of the tab you’re in and clicking the “Save” icon (looks like a floppy disc).

[Mike Kujbida]

can you recommend something for under $200?

Everyone has their own speaker preferences so you’ll get a number of different suggestions.
I use M-Audio at work and have been very happy with them.
A check of their web site shows the Studiophile AV 20 multimedia speakers for $130/pr.
The Studiophile BX5 are on sale right now for only $200/pr. and are the ones I’d recommend.

[Rick Mac]

The M-Audio Studiophile BX5 would be fine.
They make a good speaker for the money.
Your mixes will translate to other sytems better
than your computer speakers.

Regards, Rick.

Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377

[Valvehead]

This method does allow you to max out the playback level without triggering compression, but it defeats the purpose of dialogue normalization. The whole point of dialnorm was to maintain a consistent average level when switching between sources or channels. I have a few DVDs that have maxed-out AC3 levels, and I find it quite annoying to have to dive for the volume control when they start playing. Ack! 😯

Here’s a helpful tutorial: Doom9 AC3 tutorial

[Valvehead]

Good monitors will definitely help. In general the more you spend the better the monitors, but there are good deals to be found.

I use a pair of Dynaudio BM6A. They are quite expensive ($1300 used), but they are worth it for my work. I never have to second guess my decisions on those.

Previously I used a pair of Mission 771. I got them for about $150. They were small but the detail in the midrange helped me make mixes that translated well to other systems.