LOW Audio levels from Pro Tools

[Michael Gissing]

Richard, I agree that mastering levels up to 0dbfs will improve dynamic range. It will also lower distortion as digital is inversely proportional between THD and levels to analog recording. The fact that broadcasters insist on digital levels only peaking to -10dbfs has its history in the fact that Sony digital machines from day one made -20dbfs = 0 VU so in the analog domain, levels peaking to 0dbfs were the equivalent in analog of +24db which would distort the front end of practically all broadcast analog routing systems and the front end of a lot of analog mixers.

However, in 24 bit files you have (theoretically) 120 db dynamic range so reducing that by 10db still gives you a huge dynamic to work with. In 16 bit it reduces the dynamic range to 80db. Typically feature films use no more than 40-50 db dynamic range and broadcast programs would rarely use 30db dynamic range. So in practical terms it makes no real difference.

You can use whatever levels you like but as you know, there is nothing but pain once you peak past 0dbfs and your final product, if broadcast, will have to peak to -10dbfs anyway. All VOs recorded here use mild compression on record an peak to around -10dbfs.