I use Bitwig, and have been trying recently to achieve 'pro loudness'. From what I've read, post mastering, peaking just below zero and RMS from 6-15 (very generally) is ideal, depending on a variety of factors and as always, how it sounds. However, I have been pulling some songs into my DAW and using Voxengo span (as well as the Bitwig meters) to have a look at the RMS and peaking levels. For a song like Calvin Harris summer, the peak is -10, RMS -20. This can't be right, could it? I've pulled in a bunch of other (pro) songs, and none of them are peaking higher than -10, with RMS around -20. The voxengo and bitwig meters can go above -10 (I recently had a song at -1 peak, -15 RMS), but I really cranked it through a limiter just to see if the meters would go that high.
This doesn't seem to make much sense to me, given all the threads and posts I've read about how so many edm songs are flattened to RMS -10 to -5, and then all the songs I've been testing don't even peak that high. And bouncing my master, it isn't like the waveform is squashed...I compared it to DJ Snake the Halfs waveform, and mine was far more sparse with less peaks as well. I just checked martin Garrix wizard, and my readings were -21 rms and -11 peak. I did some searching and on another forum a person measured that songs RMS at -5.
Maybe I am missing something obvious, but I am a bit turned around, so if anyone has any thoughts or inputs I would be very grateful.
- I'm aware that different meters will read these levels differently, but this seems like such an extreme difference I'm not sure I can trust the meters at all **It keeps autocorrecting bitwig to bigwig, sorry if a few slipped through
Submitted March 05, 2017 at 01:06AM by krroww https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5xl23z/rms_and_peak_in_bigwig/?utm_source=ifttt