dBvu, dBfs, etc...

[sansharbour]

Hi Loren

I have spent much time trying to understand levels. That was the beginning of an incredible journey for me
A few years ago I came across a mastering engineer Ian Shepherd
He uses Lufs as a loudness measure. After devouring many of his videos I understand now what loudness is

Yes you can gain stage which is good but ultimately you have to know the loudness destination

I purchased this metering plug called Lcast stereo by Meter Plugs
It lets me know if I am in the ballpark of my loudness destination
When I started out I was at around -13.8 when is not extremely loud by any means

With Lcast I could now see my loudness and if I wanted to be louder say -12 -11 or -10
I personally like -11 then I feel I am not too low nor too loud
Something to consider as well the new streaming standards. they will turn it down if it exceeds their level.

As Andrew mentioned sometimes its the genre that dictates

I have the Mastering the Mix Reference and Levels ....both are incredible tools that reveal things

Good luck
Don

[cosmicdolphin]

DBvu , DBfs etc...

It's easy to overthink this stuff but I have learned not to worry about them too much anymore and I am someone who read Bob Katz's Mastering Audio book from cover to cover a number of years ago as well a numerous other recommended tomes on the subject.

After having Libraries ask me several times to make my submissions louder I just make sure they compete in loudness with the reference tracks and as long as they don't go into the red on my master buss and there isn't any audible distortion.

Once my mix is done in the DAW I take them into Ozone to make them a similar volume to the references, some of the presets are good starting points but I've had some placements recently on tracks I had to make quite hot to match the references and they sound fine.