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At what volume do you write music?

ChickenWhisperer

ChickenWhisperer

New Member
I do not know if this is the right section of the forum to ask this question but I have this issue that is always bugging me and that is the fact I write music that is too quiet. I am not sure if I do this subconsciously to protect my ears or I am unsure of the instruments I use and I slowly turn the volume down just to hide imperfections. When I am slightly content with what I've done I add a gain on the master channel and this helps me to discover what mistakes I made and correct them as my ear usually gets used with a mistake and I got to take a break or find a way to listen to a track at a different volume to spot it. But in the end my track is still very quiet. I listened it along some pop songs on my speakers and it's half of the volume of those songs. The weird this is that when I listen to orchestral tracks from other composers they still do not sound as loud as pop songs, for example a TSFH song has about 75% the volume of a pop song, so IDK if this is an orchestral music thing and maybe having an orchestra needs a softer volume so that you don't have all instruments clashing or because pop music is 90% voice and you have a loud voice with little harmony and thus it allows you to make it loud. I have no idea.
But what's annoying me more is that when I write a track, and I feel like I want to do another movement, when I want to glue the two parts together I run into a massive volume gap, and I do not know if this only happens to me or this happens to other people as well.
For example I write music at a computer output volume of 14% (that volume slider next to the taskbar clock) and the volume that my ears can handle (shown by dB meter in DAW) is around -3db, and that's the max, when I write music the volume is somewhere around -20db so I got to glue a -20 dB section to a -3dB section and it's just annoying.
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There's a fair amount to unpack here.

The final volume of a finished piece of music is determined by having it mastered. Using a combination of compression and limiting during the mastering process, the desired volume level can be achieved regardless of the original volume. Mastering is particularly useful when you want to ensure that all tracks on a single album have the same relative volume.

Mastering usually targets a specific LUFS level (LUFS is a standardized measurement of audio loudness that factors human perception and signal intensity together).

Not all music tries to achieve the same LUFS level. Pop music, and other styles that don't prioritize dynamic range, tend to aim for very loud levels, while orchestral, jazz, folk music, etc... tend to target lower LUFS levels, trying to preserve as much dynamic range as possible. This is why orchestral music tends to sound quieter when played side-by-side with pop music.

Thus, the volume at which you compose your music has no appreciable bearing on the final mastered volume.

When composing, you should work at whatever volume level feels safe and comfortable for your ears. However, when you're ready to mix your piece, the general recommendation is to mix at 85db. This is because of something called the Fletcher-Munson curve, which describes how volume affects our ability to hear certain frequencies. 85db is the level at which our ears hear the entire frequency spectrum most evenly. At quieter levels, lower and higher frequencies become disproportionally quieter. This is why you suddenly can hear more details in your music when you turn up the volume.

For me, 85db is actually too loud for my ears. If I listen at this level for more than 2-3 minutes, my ears start ringing and quickly become fatigued. So while mixing, I listen at this level only in short bursts to check details and balance.

As for the disparity in volume between two movements... if both movements are contained in the same DAW project, there really should be no disparity - presumably you're using the same instruments with the same settings.

If each movement is it's own separate project, you can normalize their volumes by mastering each one separately and targeting the same volume level.

Hope this helps.
 
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A good article can be found at:

https://www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/the-perfect-monitoring-levels-for-your-home-studio

Re monitoring levels, check section 4:

4. Now you need to work out at what volume you want to listen to your audio in your studio. 85dB SPL used to be a common suggestion for monitoring levels, but this figure was intended for larger spaces such as a cinema. This level is close to the more flat portion of the equal loudness contours (a more accurate update of the Fletchure-Munson Curves). It was later discovered that the method used for measuring the pink noise signal was slightly inaccurate and the reference level for cinemas was changed to 83dB SPL. This level would be super loud and overwhelming in most home studios. Most home studios are smaller than 142 cubic meters, so 73-76dB SPL C is a more appropriate target. Below is a table created by Sound On Sound with recommendations based on room size.

Personally I think that if you monitor using near monitors I would lower that figure even more to a level that feels comfortable, especialy in a smaller room.
 
rudi said:
Most home studios are smaller than 142 cubic meters, so 73-76dB SPL C is a more appropriate target.
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75 dB in a small studio is excessively loud for long periods of time, and I wouldn't recommend it as a general guideline.
 
IIRC, that original 85dB comes from calibration for the studio recommendations for the K-System and was designed to be "ouch, this is loud" on the basis that this was what an output level of +0dB from the DAW sounds like during a mixing session – and that you would actually be well under this most of the time. For example, if you were maintaining headroom by mixing to, say -12dB.

So, you'd actually be well under 73dB in the small studio setup, which would conform to around K-12 in the K-System.
 
Henu said:
75 dB in a small studio is excessively loud
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do you mean 85? I don't think 75 is loud at all, at least for composing. For mixing and mastering some people use dB values below 70, but that's a different exercise.
 
No, I actually mean 75. It might come from me from my old studio habits, but me and my colleagues/ earlier mentors always mixed pretty quiet most of the time and it has stuck in me, especially when composing stuff.

I discussed this last week, but just made another quick check to confirm- for me it's pretty much 60 dB composing/ editing, 65 dB for mixing. 70 is already too loud for normal work and 75 is my that "ok, listen listen it loud" level. I have very sensitive hearing though, and loud noise makes me physically uncomfortable quite fast which might also explain the very low numbers. My listening spot is also quite close the nearfields as well and when cranking the speakers up to reach 85dB I don't think I'd last for a couple of minutes longer without going insane.
 
Henu said:
No, I actually mean 75....
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You're certainly not alone. One of my old buddies who does a lot of mixing and mastering works at 70 dB or below. Sometimes way below.

Quite interesting how much preferences vary, particularly from you @Henu , because I thought you wrote metal?

I find that if I try composing at those levels (in the mid 70s) I end up whacking everything so everything ends up "at 11." Consequently, I set a much higher ceiling so that quiet passages are still very audible. Then, for the really loud passages, it feels....really loud.

I certainly concur that for mixing it's a good idea to listen at a variety of levels, mostly softer. That way something doesn't poke out unless you really want it to do that.
 
You do have a point with that composing thing, and I should maybe try that sometime as well. But then again I'm too often also feeling that my stuff isn't quiet enough in the quieter passages, so go figure. :D

And yeah, I do metal as well but 95% of my daily composing work is non-metal as I have been doing game music for ages, ranging from orchestral music to jazz and back. When I compose metal (which has been increasingly rare during the last ten or so years and I feel kinda guilty about it, to be honest) the levels might be a bit louder due to the nature of the genre and the fact that I'm not spending eight hours doing it in a row.

I master a lot of metal albums though, and then the listening levels vary drastically, depending on the phase. But still never exceeding 80 dB even for only short periods. :P
 
Yeah, as I mentioned, 85db is way too loud for me, especially for for any sustained period of time. However, I still find it useful to push it up that loud while mixing for short intervals, because it does enable me hear things that I completely miss at lower volumes, even 70db, especially in the high frequencies.
 
To address one aspect of the questions posed: As I am writing and recording, volume goes up and down so I can hear what I need to hear at any given moment. I typically want to hear the part I am recording a little to a lot hotter than it will ultimately be in the mix, so detail and nuance can be sensitively imparted. Think of musicians in a band or orchestra... their own instrument is closest to their ears, so it is heard louder than the instruments of bandmates.

I am getting along in the years and have been performing live for many of them so, like @NekujaK , I will monitor at high volumes periodically when mixing to help me balance high frequencies. His first post is a good one re: relative levels of commercial vs OP's mixes. Super hot commercial pop mixes use a LOT of compression and limiting, plus simple arrangements that emphasize On-Off of mix elements as opposed to more traditional blending of sounds.
 
Henu said:
But then again I'm too often also feeling that my stuff isn't quiet enough in the quieter passages, so go figure. :D
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I got like the exact opposite problem, I feel like my tack is too loud in the loud passages compared to the quieter ones and I somehow end cutting down the value of the loud volume and that's something that's affecting my mix. It's like a continuous process of checking back and forth the volume balance between different parts and I end up with what you would call a "manual compression" where I add a gain then fiddle around and fix what is wrong, then realize that the overall volume has decreased a lot and then add another gain on top of everything, and I do this for like 3 times until I find a balance.
I have no idea on what level of loudness I am writing at though. As @NekujaK said LUFS is the measuring unit for this aspect and it makes sense because you can't really measure the volume of a song in dB, in dB you measure the output levels of your speakers. I will try to get a plugin that measures LUFS inside the DAW so that I can get a rough idea of what I am dealing with. Also I just tried to see how loud I listen to music through speakers (not writing) and I measured a range of 75 to 80 dB (of course I did it with a phone app so I have no idea on how reliable it is) but I can't measure it on the headphone speakers (some people did try and failed miserably) so I will have to guess how loud it is.
Also I saw that metal was involved, I still see a high dynamic range in some metal songs especially when orchestra is involved. But I also know that there are some heavily compressed songs but they sometimes sound boring to me. I still love it when a softer part comes to let the brain relax before exploding again.
 
I turn my computer volume up to about 40-50% and then lower all the instrument and master track volumes. Then, once the track is mixed, I export it (at the lowered volume) and then master the wav file boost the audio to as loud as I can get it without clipping. Since I write epic music I always try to get the track as loud as I can to optimize for streaming, but I usually keep everything at a low volume in Cubase to avoid clipping.
 
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