i want to ask.. i record my video on smartphone and i have my record voice in -3 db but the volume on record is on 50-60% and i try to put music to see the bar its on -3 db but the volume its on 80 - 90%... so did i must gain up the volume my mic right? i confuse in here
Fantastic video. I found your channel while looking for a microphone and you've been dedicatedly putting out seriously high quality content for what looks like more than a decade! Props!
@epiclightmedia is that one channel that I had to unsubscribe from due to their excessive amount of helpful high-quality videos that helped me get better ;)
I've only been following you for about a year, Curtis, but I've learned so much in that year. Thank you not only for providing your insights and knowledge but also for giving those insights "handles" and showing us how to use them.
Thank you so much for all your content and excellent delivery and production quality. Straight to the point (no BS) and textual summaries to start with, which I'm particularly fond of.
Well that starts to make sense. In some of your videos you talk about something being set for European LUFS. I thought it was short for Luftballons, but I figured it should have been set for 99. No wonder all of my stuff has been so darned loud.
Glad to hear the remark at the end, it sounds like you're going to cover the question I was about to ask. I use FCPX with access to LogicProX, and want to know how to estimate my LUFS before I upload the video, ha ha. I always seem to undershoot, compared to professional style videos that somehow get it nearly perfect on stats for nerds.
In the home audio world, some of us remember when "loudness" referred to a special EQ control based on the long historied Fletcher-Munson curves that describe human hearing as it relates to the perception of loudness. The usual take-away for mixing engineers was to mix a track so it sounds its best when played back at high volume. Hence the phrase, "crank it up, dude", right? Thanks for the link to the ITU document. Great discussion in it about true peak vs peak-sample metering -- certainly worth being aware of.
Great and precise explanation of a concept that is often misunderstood. Your last comment in regards to uploading spoken content on RU-vid at a more conservative level is a very wise practice. Thank you.
When my team started creating content for RU-vid I downloaded 5 or 6 videos from high quality talking head creators and brought them into RX4 to check out the loudness and see what the norm was. Turns out it was - 16 to - 18. I'm glad information like this is becoming easier to find.
Great info! Can't wait for the next one on the topic. Ironically, I watched the video on mute with subtitles on, as my wife is busy working on something on the desk beside mine.
Curtis, you are the MAN. Do you have any idea how much I've learned from you, and how much those lessons have had real life changes in my workflow and understanding what is going on, so I can make better choices? Thank you a million times over.
When I was in high school (about 45 years ago), there were the Stereo Amplifier Kits. There was a push-button in the amplifier called Loudness, and its purpose was to allow low-frequency notes (bass) to be heard better when you would listen at low volume. It simply amplified only the low frequencies. It was very comfortable to listen to music at low volume while still hearing the bass while everyone else was sleeping.
I'd like to point out that television shows on TV have different technical requirements for audio than the commercials to. That allows TV commercials to be louder than program material.
@@curtisjudd I'll clarify. Television shows and movies are produced for release on their platforms. Movies may be adjusted before airing to adhere to LUFS/LKFS guidelines too but TV stations often compress any program content. They also visually process shows too which is why TV is a terrible place to watch a movie or TV show. These are done within guidelines (which are minimum specs) to make it a better experience on TV. Movies and TV shows are produced to look and sound a certain way and if it were possible to air without changing anything, it would be ideal for those of us that worked on it but there are broadcast and cable cast regulations that must be followed. I worked on a show that aired on USA and me and the sound mixer heard all kinds of distortion and compression when the show aired because that's what the station does to all program content. My mixer recorded the show and sent it to post and asked them about some of the things he was hearing. They responded back that their master didn't sound like that and this was common in TV. If we bought the DVD of the show, it would sound better. He was right. It's been over 2 decades since I worked at a TV station and that was pre-HD but I'm sure stations still have safety measures to make sure audio doesn't go out too loud or that dark scenes don't go too dark. Commercials, on the other hand, want to be noticed and may do tricks to get attention. Extreme compression is one truck they'll use so that if you're watching a late night show and doze, you'll wake up and watch. Another trick they'll use it playing the A-weighting curve - boosting the crap out of mid and higher frequencies because you hear them better. Really annoying infomercials may even apply aggressive low and high pass filters so that there's more headroom for an annoying presence boost (for example). Commercials don't have to be cinematic masterpieces, their goal is to sell a product so if that means using tricks to sound louder and be noticed, they will. Commercials aren't immune to processing but aren't afraid of playing games.
@@SoundSpeeds No need to be brief here, sir. Tell me more... Hahaha, thanks for the wealth of input. Your information coupled with what Curtis conveyed tells me that by sustaining certain loudness levels with very few quiet moments, infomercials and such can be perceived to be louder but still fly below the standards that mainly account for dynamic range differences. Am I understanding you both correctly?
@@insanejughead I think I understand that and I think that's right. Curtis said sustained loudness over time is perceived louder than audio with more dynamics and that's 100% right. What I added is that sometimes commercials and infomercials will use tricks to maintain loudness for the entire time and/or boost frequencies humans have a more difficult time ignoring while cutting those we may tune out.
I do wish more people on RU-vid would pay attention to this. So many are just too low. I have my playback volume set so that your videos are at the right level for my comfort since I know that you know how to do this correctly. I also adjust the loudness on my videos to -16. Thanks for the explanation.
Curtis, that's amazing, I've just sent a question about LUFS on RU-vid in your online course, and you came with this video:) anyway, the question is - what is the right LUFS level for the RU-vid videos in 2021, for mono and stereo? Updated: I've reached the end of your video and finally have the answer, thank you! Funny fact from Russia: the "statistics for nerds" was translated by RU-vid as "statistics for system administrators ", so we're lacking some humor there🙃
@@curtisjudd And what do you recommend for videos with a mix of spoken word, music and sound design? I think you have to crush the dynamics too much to keep it on -14 LUFS without distortion.
I've been struggling with video editing - and sound quality as an important aspect of it. So far, this video is the best explanation of the important terms that I could find, by a person who seems to know what they're talking about. :) Thank you.
Thank you Curtis for yours recommendation to go with -16 in general. I will define this as Target for our company social media with podcasts and Videos.!
Useful, because I recently began to investigate why my videos are so low and others higher, and this question of losing quality for loudness is useful! Thank you! 😇
I have been doing youtube stuff for nearly eight years, I am better with my audio than most, because it's the first thing to bug me (and many, many others) in a video. But this was very helpfull, thank you!
I've been using Adobe Audition for years and I never dug into those terms in Match Loudness Settings but just follow my personal taste. This video helps A LOT for me!! Thank you for such clear-presented information!
Your content is amazing. Thank you so much for this. I've been struggling with audio, particularly when it comes to loudness for a while. Part of that is me, and the fact that I feel the need to news commentator "shout" on camera. But there is also the technical factor of where I should be in terms of audio signals. And this helps with that tremendously. Can't wait for the next video where we learn about tooling.
Felt like this video was only 5 minutes but it's 10 minutes, I was so into it that it felt short. Thanks as always for the rich content, can't wait for the next video you mentioned at the end. Thanks again and happy new year.
THANK YOU!!! First time these terms have ever been explained to me in a way I can understand. Looking forward to the next one on how to edit your video's audio tracks to a target LUFS value.
Hi, I have just discovered your channel during these holidays. Thank you for all these great and useful infos, just starting a youtube channel (music) and I've found (and still finding) lot of help from you
Fantastic video. I've yet to encounter a channel that is more educational and trustworthy. If you're not a teacher somewhere in your life, you should be.
Oh man! I was looking for this type of information. In the upcoming video, please don't forget to cover the difference between stereo and mono loudness requirements. Cheers!
Mind blown. I can't wait for the follow-up video... And hope the instruction will translate to Premiere, Reason Studio's Reason (DAW), and Resolve :) Thanks Curtis!
What I do is take live calls on live stream and have six dedicated wattsapp lines.. The audio technic used I have learnt through this your channel which I appreciate and THANXX u loads.. 👍
Another outstanding video Curtis. I can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge and expertise. It has made a dramatic impact on my understanding of quality audio for my videography projects.
Interesting takeaways. I've always wondered if youtube has any standards because when I'm watching on my smart TV I have generally found the loudness of various videos compared to each other is all over the place, forcing me to ride my volume knob every new video.
Super informative Curtis, thanks! A volume related challenge I often face on my main channel is mixing my spoken work along with background music. I know you keep things clean on your content, but I wondered if you’d thought about making a video on that subject with tips and tricks. Background music can help cover a myriad of sins as well as stopping dead air when there’s a reason not to speak for a few seconds. Getting the levels right though can be an absolute pain.
Thanks Dean. Here's an older video on that topic but we'll also do an updated version using more sophisticated techniques: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fvUn8l30VLc.html
Great info! I'm looking forward to the 2nd part video. I hope you provide examples on how to go about measuring loudness and setting levels)) Fantastic content, thanks :))
@@curtisjudd I found the Loudness meters in my NLE. They are in LUFS, great. But there are 4 measurements: Momentary, Short, Integrated and Range. I guess that the numbers you gave for YT or Spotify is the integrated. But what about the Momentary and Short, what are good values for those?
@@dlapierre99 Yes, integrated is the measurement of the entire video but you have to play though the entire piece to get the final integrated measurement. The others are for analyzing and solving issues at particular spots within the piece, e.g., maybe I need to compress or level out this little bit here...
@@curtisjudd Thank you so much! I have an option to generate a loudness log during render so I can get the integrated value quite fast if I render only the audio. And I am able to graph each 4 metrics over time in Excel. Thanks a lot again, now I am able to understand what I am doing.
