Levels for Broadcast

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

I always monitor my audio on external “VU meters”.
The “Peak-reading meters” in FCP (and virtually ALL NLE’s) are not good at telling you how “loud” (meaning AVERAGE level) your audio actually is.
Peak meters just reveal “instantaneous” peaks in the track… that, in many cases, your ears would effectively “ignore.”

Peak readers ARE good (essential?) for making sure you don’t exceed the very exacting (and unforgiving) top clip level in digital audio… that’s why FCP (and many other digital audio devices) uses them.

But the Peak meters can make you THINK your track is much “louder” than it actually is when LISTENED to (or when viewed on VU meters).

If you have a Beta Deck (say a UVW-1800) in your suite, you can send the audio from FCP to IT and watch the audio levels on the decks VU meters when editing.

Adjust your audio tracks to read “normally” on the VU meters and then set the TONE LEVEL.
(Yes, you can adjust the TONE to match the edited tracks.)
Then you can make sure the dubs you send will have audio that is more “standard” in level.

[Gunleik Groven]

You’d maybe be well off to read up and test some compressor/limiter tools. There are a few handy in FCP/Soundtrack, though I’ve never used them.

Three hints:
1. Trust your ears
2. Put on your hard hat and do not fall into the immediate “louder is always better” pit
3. Trust your ears.

With some compression and limiting, youd’d smooth out the peaks and make it easier to bring up the general level of your mix.

But: Test!
if it sounds like s***, it probably is…. -;)

Compression and limiting is considered a alchemystic science of it’s own by quite a few, but as long as you don’t try it, you’ll never know what your opinion’s going to be on THAT subject.

Gunleik

[Bret Williams]

Sounds like you have a good average level that most here prescribe by. Somewhere around -12 with peaks going into the -6 range. Actually, that’s pretty conservative. You could average -8 with peaks around -4 or so.

In either case, your tone would be around -18 or -16. Your tone value of -12 is a very loud tone. Which means of course that they have to turn down the tone of your machine to bring it to zero on their analog machines. Kind of counterintuitive I know. But make some dubs one day and it becomes pretty clear.

[Michael Mcintyre]

I think Bret probably nailed it. Sounds like you’re looking for real-world digits for output. I had the exact same problem when I jumped over to FCP.

Bring down the tone levels and you could probably let your program levels top out around -6.

[Mark Maness]

I agree with all the guys here! I, too, had the same problem when I switched over. Its not a FCP thing, its a digial audio thingy…

You have to keep in mind that digial audio has a much greater frequency range than analog audio, therefore, your FCP might sound great, but when you dub it to BetaSP, the level meters barely move and then sometimes they will peak really high. Sadly enough, most broadcast facilities still cannot handle digital audio and we have to crush this frequency range to a narrow one.

Personally, I have to agree with the consenus here… Mix the audio for your ears and let it peak at -6, set your tone aywhere from -20 to -16. Unity for digital audio is -20, so that would be a good start to work with. I would have to say, the next project you have… set your tone to -16 (to be conservative) and see how your levels are when you dub to BetaSP. After that, if the levels are better, lower your tone to -18, then to -20, and look at the results.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Walter Biscardi]

[Max Kaiser] “My TV station guy is saying that when he gets the tape to dub to BetaSP, he matches the tone and then my spot is really, really quiet. Why would this be?”

One thing I’ve always done since way back in my Media 100 days is to do my audio “backwards” when laying down a project to tape. intead of setting up my tone first on the tape, I set up the project first and then match the tone to the project.

What I’ll do is set up my UVW-1800 to the audio in the project first. I generally run my projects about -6 peak in the FCP audio meters. I’ll send the audio to the UVW-1800 and set the levels so I like where they are peaking. Now walk away from the UVW and leave the audio controls alone.

Now go back to FCP, play out the Tone adjust the level so it hits zero on the UVW. ONLY adjust the level of the Tone in FCP, leave the UVW alone. Most of the time this level is -12 on FCP, sometimes it’s a bit higher or lower depending on how I’ve set my project audio. All you’re trying to do is make the Tone playing out of FCP hit zero on your deck.

This assures that the station can set my tone to zero on their equipment and get the project audio the way I’ve set it up.

Now if you’re going to DV or DVCAM and you know your audio is consistently low at the station, then bump your bars and tone up by a few dB. Bring a test tape over to the station and ask the Engineers which tone bring in your project at the correct setting and set up for that in all future projects.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob Flood]

hi

“Now if you’re going to DV or DVCAM and you know your audio is consistently low at the station, then bump your bars and tone up by a few dB”

Actually, its the opposite. To make your prgram seem louder, or at least come across louder, set your tone LOWER on your dv cam master

BTW the guy i look to for definitve audio info is jay rose over at dv.com Not only is he like the original audio production geek, but he was my competition and later a coworker when i started out, so hes got my props

Hey Walter, you a Media 100 guy? geez that was one weird box! but man, could they make 100kB per frame look good!

bee eph

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Max Kaiser]

Thanks to all. Unfortunately, I don’t have my own analogue tone receiver (or deck) so I’ll take some different tone down to the station. I can understand a difference in digital and analogue tone “0” levels, I’ve always read that -12db is roughly equivelent to analogue “0” and that going as high as 3db in analogue world is fine, when, of course, you cannot over shoot at all in digital land. What I cannot understand is why if my tone out of FCP is -12db and my persistence in FCP timeline is -12db why when connected to an analogue deck which is adjusted to match my -12db to his 0db (analogue), why then wouldn’t my audio peak out just perfectly – confounding! I can’t understand why my audio should peak at -6db digital in the timeline, set my fcp tone to -12db and I wouldn’t wind up with an adjusted analogue (peak) tone of +6db? Maybe things just aren’t that straighforward.

Max

[Michael Mcintyre]

I could be way off here, so someone correct me if I’m wrong.

I believe the issue may revolve around the fact that tone is playing at a sustained level versus a timeline with peaks and valleys. Imagine an on-going drum roll versus the quick ‘pop!’ of just one snare drum stick. The decibel level for both may be exactly the same but when placed in the context of a surrounding sound mix, it could have a totally different perception.

I konw – a bit esoteric but it made sense when an audio guru had all the knowledege to back up the metaphor. Hopefully, it wasn’t too off-target….. Anyone?

[Bret Williams]

Because your tone and level are the same. +3db is very quiet in the analog world! Where’d you get that? Peaks analog world can be very different by the equipment. Analog gear can be peak or average reading. Average reading gear like the UVW series of Beta would peak at +3db. That WOULD be very hot. But peak reading gear in the analog world is more akin to the meters in FCP, and peaks can easily hit +8. Good analog gear can handle more. That’s why in FCP your tone would be -12 and yoru peaks would be -2 or close to zero.

Look at the waveform of a CD. It utilitzes all the compression it can get. The volume of a CD IS zero. The tone for that CD would be -12.

Analog meters go waaaay beyond +3. If that were the limit what would be the point?