Sound Output levels

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I keep coming across sound level problems - often the usual “teenager’s mum” problem (i.e. it’s too loud!). Like a number of people in this great family, I play in a worship team at church, and originally the problem was different sound levels between songs, and even between states, largely caused by which vsts were in use in each song or state. I have taken to using Fabfilter’s Pro L-1 limiter on the output of every song, and set the output level to - 1dB. It then shouldn’t matter what song or state I am at, the output should be the same. Obviously i do the sound check at maximum volume, and then use the expression pedal on my Behringer FCB1010 to drop the levels for quieter passages, but the problems still persist, sometimes seemingly too loud, other times the perennial keyboardist versus PA man battle that I simply can’t hear the keyboard at all!

The problem is compounded because I am currently doing all the bass guitar work, using NI’s Session Bassist Icon Bass, which is brilliant. This brings up the “the bass is too loud” or “the bass is boomy” complaints. I am considering a massive programming session, panning the Bass to the left chanel and everything else to the right. This will take up another PA channel, as the FOH is currently in mono, so I only use one channel.

Is there a better way of getting a uniform sound output, or am I doomed to thw same fate as the teenager’s music which, no matter how much it is turned down, is always still too loud?

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I’ve grappled with this problem a lot too (maintaining appropriate volume in church worship). Here are three ideas that helped me:

  1. I recommend using Pro C for this instead of Pro L. Loudness perception in church tends to be more about sustained volume than brief peaks. For example, I can play a mallet instrument in church that has quite loud peaks (nice for punching through a mix), but if I play an organ at the same volume it sounds offensively loud. With Pro C you can dial-in threshold, ratio, in-gain, out-gain, attack, and release settings that keep sustained volumes moderate while allowing higher-volume peaks, which allows the instrument to be “more hearable” at “lower volume” (paradoxical as that may sound). Also, Pro C has much lower latency than Pro L. I recommend Pro C’s “Clean” setting unless you’re playing only piano, in which case “Opto” feels pleasingly musical to me.

  2. If you use an expression pedal to control overall volume levels, be sure to bind it to the gain of the last route in your flow (not to anything that comes before your compressor/limiter). Otherwise your compressor/limiter may try to fight your volume changes, reducing their intended effect.

  3. Whenever I playtest a new instrument for church, I attach Youlean Loudness Meter (free loudness-checking plugin) to the instrument output (before my compressor) and just play for a while to get an idea of how much volume it’s really pumping out over time, and what its peaks look like. This helps me choose good gain settings for routes in my flow, or adjust compressor settings if I feel it necessary.

–Kevin

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All good suggestions. As a guitar and EWI (and some keys) player in 2 bands I’ve faced the same issue. And yes, splitting out the bass to another output would at least give the soundperson, if you have one, more control. I’m not sure how you monitor, but I use IEMs. Interestingly, I’ve found the IEMs are the most sensitive to volume peaks and valleys. The problem with that is, the PA is what really counts, especially with how patches sit in the mix. Here are some of the things I’ve done to help the problem, YMMV:

  1. Normalize volume for all your Rack patches. Time consuming but worth it. I use the Youlean LUFS meter also, but your ears are the final determinant… and check them alll while playing against the same track so you can hear how it is in a mix. Then during rehearsal on a PA I can tweak slightly as needed.
  2. I have a “reference” patch that I put in a song state on every new song I create, so I can easily check my new patches against it.
  3. I have learned the hard way to limit the number of different patches I use at gigs. Very hard for a guitar player who is a tone junkie! :rofl: I now use just one amp modeler, the same Cab IR, mostly the same amp except for a couple outliers, 1 clean tone, 1 crunch, a few chorus/efx tones, and 3 lead tones. That helps a lot.
  4. I use Song states rather than a volume pedal for quieter passages, since it’s 100% repeatable.
  5. I use a compressor at a 3:1 ratio in each of my “Master output” racks (1 for Guitar, 1 for EWI/everything else). I do that rather than a limiter since I need my lead tones to be at the proper volume, and the compressor levels a bit while still allowing louder leads to cut through.
  6. If you really want to be perfect, record every song straight from the board as a “preamp only” feed for every individual channel. Best if done at actual gig. Most boards have this feature where you basically use the board as the computer’s Interface while recording. Then later play it back through the PA (at same exact settings as when recorded, then don’t change the mix at all) and make C4 adjustments as needed (re-recording over your part then checking the result again). Often I don’t have the time or ability to go through everything with the PA, so I take the recording home, set up a good mix in my DAW through some smaller but decent PA speakers, then don’t touch that mix at all while reviewing and re-recording adjustments. The main point is to have everything consistent from song to song, because you can always make global adjustments at the board or in C4 Master Racks. That works quite well as a work-around.

While all this helps a lot, there’s one thing you can’t really control… the rest of the band. Dynamics are important, but they make it really hard to have perfectly repeatable mixes. That’s where the soundperson is crucial. The good news is that once you’ve done all that, creating new songs is much easier since you have solid references and “rules”… i.e. my leads are always about 2db hotter. Anyway, that’s how I do it, and I admit I’m a little OCD about it because we use different sound guys.
Tom

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Thanks guys for your replies. They have been most helpful. I now have the long slog of changing the limiter to a compressor for every song! And yes, I am dependant on other band members, some of whom having no awareness of band dynamics, so find it easy to come out with the teenager’s mum “It’s too loud” statements more times than I can shake a stick at!

Also our pa guy is heavily autistic and tone deaf! Practices and performances are often “fun”, if you like that sort of thing!

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You might want to consider a linked master rack if you haven’t already. Then if you decide to make a change like using a compressor rather than a limiter you only need to make that change once. But of course, if you don’t already have it yes, you will have to insert the Master rack into each song.
Tom

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Tom’s suggestion of a linked rack is very wise. I use a linked rack with one midi input and several audio inputs, one for each compressor/limiter “style” I want as an option in my songs. The midi input is so that I can bind common gain controls across all my songs. Each song’s plugins send their audio to whichever rack port does the compression style I prefer for that instrument.

–Kevin

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Just my 2c on this.

I use white noise to set my levels. (I think the advice came from this forum…) You run the white noise at whatever level and set your patch levels so they just poke through the noise ( or are more audible for lead/feature sounds). This works because the noise masks the sounds so you get and idea of how different sounds cut or not. It’s not infallible but it gets you pretty close.

P

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I’ll pitch in with my 0.02 EUR a bit late in the party :wink:

I generally advise AGAINST using compressors or limiters just to level your sounds. That said, I’m not at all against using compressors or limiters in your sound setup - but be very conscious what they actually do - and what they don’t.

A compressor (as the name says) compresses the dynamic range of your signal. Essentially, it reduces the level of your signal once it crosses a certain loudness threshold. There are parameters to influence the speed at which it does that (that you can use to make your signal more punchy, by letting the initial transients through, or to create some musical “pumping” by adapting the release time), but essentially that’s the function.

So when you use a compressor to “level” your sounds, you essentially reduce your dynamic range (between quiet and loud notes) for your louder setups, while leaving the dynamic range intact for those setups where you don’t reach the threshold. Depending on the material you play, this can be useful, but it can also totally kill your dynamics and make your playing lifeless.

A compressor doesn’t just adjust overall levels; it shapes the dynamics of your sound - sometimes drastically, and not always for the better.

A limiter is simply a compressor with a very high reduction - it simply kills your dynamic range above its threshold - anything above the threshold will be “held down” to the set maximum volume. This is nice for avoiding extreme peaks, but I wouldn’t recommend it for volume leveling.

You CAN abuse a limiter with a very long release time as a kind of leveler, but that can get very unnatural results - it will trigger on the first loud note that crosses the threshold and then reduce everything that comes after until the release time has passed. This means that a quiet note played before a loud note will be louder than the same quiet note AFTER a loud note - not very helpful…

There’s really no way around really leveling your sounds across songs. Set your normal “comping” sounds to a certain level on a metering plugin, and your lead sounds around 3-4 dB louder. If you have more subtle background sounds (pads etc), level their volume against a “standard comping sound” e.g. a piano.

But: a meter only gets you roughly in the neighborhood - the sound characteristics play an important role on how well you actually hear your sound against the rest of the band. An acoustic piano cuts through a lot better than a Rhodes at the same measured level. A high gain guitar appears much louder than a clean guitar, even with the clean guitar showing higher peak levels.

So some fine-tuning “by ear” is required. I often do this against backing tracks or with some of our rehearsal recordings - minus my playing.

If you want to go down the “mixing against noise” route, I’d recommend using pink noise instead of white noise. Pink noise (equal energy per octave) will resemble a typical mix better than white noise (equal energy per frequency). If you set your sounds against white noise, you’ll typically end up overly bright.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Torsten

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A linked master rack is something I will have to explore - I have never considered it before, as I have built my songs list up bit by bit without having to worry about levels until fairly recently.

It would mean not having to add dynamics on every song/state, if I hadn’t already done that!! This is the downside of coming back into music tech after 30 years out while most of the tech has appeared during the hiatus! Early on there was actually no need to worry about levels as the pa guy took care of that. There has been a lot of change at the church where I play. WE now have a brand new Allen and Heath SQ5 desk which is a monster. We also have a new tech guy who doesn’t know the desk, and because of autism is virtually unteachable. He is also setting up livestreaming, and is therefore not too focussed on the job.

I am keen to take training on the desk, but at the moment don’t know anybody near me (I live in Derby) who can provide such training, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

So master racks it is then! Wish me luck!

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I agree with everything that Torsten said … except if you’re playing in church and have a pa guy and sometimes can’t hear keys at all. It’s because you said that that I advised compression.

Torsten is totally right (as usual)—it will kill your dynamics and make your playing lifeless. The problem is that the church pa guy will do it for you if you don’t, and he’ll go way too far because he’s busy and doesn’t have time to make it tasteful. Church is a special challenge because the pa guy’s number one job is to avoid big jolts of sound, not to make you sound good. If he hears one slightly loud note, you’re at -30db for the rest of the service (or at least until there’s utter silence and he realizes he’s gone too far). He’ll also duck you under all the more important stuff (singers, drums, guitars) if you dare to invade their sonic territory, so keep your eq levels in that upper-mid range where keys are allowed to live.

To stay in the mix, you must deliver an extremely consistent, unobtrusive (i.e., lifeless) volume for all sustained sounds (pads, organ, strings). To inject more life, configure your instruments to make velocity affect tonal character but not volume. Keep that volume steady or you’re out. That’s my experience, at least. :slight_smile:

Note to my pa guy in case he reads this post: I’m obviously not talking about you. It’s that other pa guy who turns me to -30db at the drop of a hat. Your levels are always tasteful and perfect.

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ugh - I’m glad that I’m not playing that scene… Not a fan of playing defense throughout a gig. And in these cases, I’m all for using a compressor as a kind of safety feature - I’d probably build that into my master rack as an optional feature (a “worship” rack state with the compressor active…).

Still, I think it is extremely worth-while to put on a mixing hat when building your Cantabile songs. For example, I am extremely careful around managing the low end of my sounds so I don’t get in the way of kick and bass. I so love the sound of doubled bass lines on the piano, but i shave away most of the low end on my piano, except for my “solo piano” rack preset.

Also, it helps thinking holistically when laying out your keyboard parts - how do they contribute to the overall tapestry? When the guitar lays down broad power chords, I tend to move up on the keys; with cleaner arrangements, I may need to play a more “supporting” role with lower chords and maybe a pad. A bit of experience producing and mixing songs helps understanding and executing your individual role a lot better.

I like having our own mixing team; and I actually make mixing notes in our LivePrompter songs for them - stuff like “feature guitar here”, “check that backing vocals are not overwhelming”, “keyboard part is important here - make sure it is heard”, “guitar solo - get volume right”. That also works with house techs if they’re open to that - most are really surprised that we’d think of them; typically the max they get is a setlist…

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Yes, Torsten and Hamlen have a lot of good points. A couple of additional thoughts on what works for me…yes, compression or limiting isn’t a panacea, I normalize everything first with the comp off. And I don’t hit the threshold too hard, just a touch. Also, because it’s guitar, a touch of compression helps to simulate speaker compression, theoretically I suppose. And helps my cleaner tones cut thru the mix a little better. But if I had to pick just one thing that works for me, it’s checking all sounds against the same pre-recorded track. BTW you can also put a global EQ, a stereo sim or double tracker, or whatever in your master rack if you don’t trust the sound guy. But global EQ can also cause more issues if your sounds are too varied, EQ wise. Just my .02
Tom