Pompeysie Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Does anyone have any tips on how to make sure levels/volume are consistent between different snapshots other than the obvious - using one's ears! Has anyone tried using a Decibel meter? Is there a way to do this within a DAW or another piece of software? Any advice will be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brue58ski Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Many people here use a DAW to set levels. I have a Mackie mixer I use for this. One issue with doing it this way is that even many VU meters have a frequency response curve and will be more sensitive to different frequencies. So if it's more responsive to say 1Khz, If your patch has more of it's sound in the 1Khz range than another, one patch will appear louder than the other on the meter even though they may actually, overall, be equal. So if you use that method you still need to use your ears, but it will get you in the ballpark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocco_Crocco Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I used a meter to get close at home, then tweaked it by ear at rehearsal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADBrown Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I will tweak levels with a meter or hooked up to a DAW. brue58ski pointed out some good things to be aware of with frequencies when leveling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinDorr Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I got best results from loudness metering, especially if you have a mix of clean and high gain sounds and want to factor in the effect of not constantly generating sound for different songs (loop a mix of what you play to meter). I had a free loudness meter tool running on the PC in the past, but can't remember the name. There is loudness metering in DAW SW like Logic and in 3rd party mixing or mastering plugin tool sets from companies like Izotope. Use the LU-I results for loudness based balancing. If you have no loudness metering use RMS metering. Peak metering is the least effective, but might help if you balance only one kind of tone, e.g., cleans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbuhajla Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I use the meters in Daw (Reaper) to balance to around -12dB, then tweak by ear at rehearsal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Well I guess its about time. It's been at least 11 minutes since the last "Grand Mystery Of Volume" thread...😩 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropt_Packt Posted January 8, 2018 Share Posted January 8, 2018 I'm certainly no expert in the area of volume-leveling, but it is a constant struggle. Others had posted a link to a free utility that I use occassionally, so I thought I'd re-post it here: Orban Loudness Meter. In general, I rely on using a volume pedal block (usually just after the amp or cab block), and adjust by ear. In the Global Settings, you can change whether the volume pedal maintains its position across patches, or if it's set to a default after you switch. I use the former, as it lets me easily use the pedal to lower the general volume, and as long as the patches are roughly the same in output volume, it works just fine. If I had to switch while playing live, though, I know I'd need to do sound checks and leveling per patch as part of the setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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