HOW TO SOUND LOUD - in productions and VOing

Leif M. Synnevaag

Hello friends,

Here's is a tip for you that don't know about this Trick,
and a reminder for those how you who are skilled to know about it.

How to gain loudness in your productions.
How to make it sound LOUD.

A lot can be done in the EQing, to make your production
sound solid and LOUD.

Here is a thought:

If anybody is speaking to you from 20 metres in front of you,
what part of the sound would enter your ears first?

The body of the sound, and only the body.

Most probably the treble frequencies will not be heard 50 meters away.
Same thing if you enter a room with music.
Before you enter, you will probably hear the Body of the Sound outside, through the door,
and when you enter the room, the Presence, and the Air of the sound will appear.

It's actually quite easy to understand. Do we agree? Body beats Presence in distance.

The same principle appear when You as a voiceover auditions for a job, or if you produce a radiospot or a TV-commercial. The Louder the public can hear you, the more audio penetrates into their ears and their minds.

Then hear me out:

By EQuing, you can increase the loudness of your sound upto +5dB, and that is nearly the double in volume. That is incredibly Loud. So how do we do it?

Be drawing an EQ line.

Make sure that the area between 30 - 80 Hz is the area you will concentrate on.

Eliminate the frequency area below 30Hz. It is only Hum down there. Pinpoint a Line between 50-60 Hz, and draw a curve,
like a banana with its ends pointing downwards. The principle here is that the curve should be
gained 3dB between 50-60 Hz, and then at 30Hz and 80Hz fade down towards 0dB.

The Line that you draw in the area between 80-150 Hz should be gained down to -2 or -3dB and then,
the rest of the frequency area between 150Hz and up to 20KHz should stay Linear all the way, and -2db or -3dB.
Everything lower than 30Hz should point towards -50dB (or Nothing)

Very important that 150hz-20KHz appears Linear. As a line. Not curved. The Curve of the EQ-drawing should
only appear between above 0dB between 20-100Hz - and the top of the curve, peak at +3dB between 50-60Hz.

Before you get this right, you might think the sound is a bit like wool in the bass, but then, try again, and you shall find the harmony's sweet spot.

What you have done now is actually increase Loudness, and the sound and the Mix can be Gained upto +5dB,
without making any clipping or disturbance in the Audio. Amazing, eh?

You actually manipulate your digital sound card to decrease the frequencies in the upper register,
and increase the volume of the Body in the Sound to appear much loader. And the Human ear loves it!

Most Contemporary Artist and Producers are working in this register. The Body of the sound.
How you ever thought about why for instant Timbaland's productions sounds so incredibly loud?
Or why George Martin's production of The Beatles in the 60's still sound fashionable and incredibly good and LOUD.

George Martin knew, and so should You.

In principle, every track of a mix can be gained a lot using this trick.

I shall look forward to hear your comments on this, and I shall try to make a Print Screen attachment of my EQ-curve.

Thanks a lot for your attention.

Greetings from

Leif.

Bruce Jacobson · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 00:17 (GMT) Post subject: E Q settings

Lief: Thanks for your post. I noticed that you use Cubase. I do as well, but I have the LE 1.0.7 version and I attempted to dublicate your settings and I didn't get close. Our EQ page seems to be vastly different in layout and I am not an engineer.

While I always look for ways to improve the audio quality, I have to admit I am a tad lost. OK....Really lost. Are you familiar with the LE version of Cubase and can you help? Thanks...B

P.S
I just tried to send a .vmx attachment of the EQ section, but this post will not allow the extension.

Colin Day · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 11:21 (GMT) Post subject:

Leif

Surely most domestic speakers without any kind of sub bass, will not even resolve frequencies below 80Hz. In effect, aren't you boosting frequencies that nobody will hear? You may well increase the body of the sound, but could that be at the expense of clarity? Also, any pops or wind noises would be horribly accentuated.

Maybe I'm missing something here?

Colin

PS Doesn't +3dB represent a doubling in volume? +5dB would be even more. A great trick if you can pull it off!

Bill Campbell · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 11:48 (GMT) Post subject:

I don't believe this EQ theory has much impact on simple VO.
It may actually make voice less loud. Most anything under 80hz is noise for VO. The loudness comes more from the 2K-4K range.

His theory may work nicely on music, listened to on high quality
speakers. The Beatles stuff still sounds amazing.

Most of what we do is played back on crappy TV/Radio/computer speakers.

Bruce Jacobson · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 12:43 (GMT) Post subject:

I'd still like to give it a shot especially if it will add "presence"...just don't know how. I have heard a little compression gives the audio a little bump.

One the other hand...I have had clients who wanted the VO to be more or less "flat". They in post, "sweeten" it. I have also heard an engineer say...most Radio and TV stations "juice" the audio (this, I know to be true). So it's best to send "flat".

I usually...when "flat" is not requested...use a little compression and I have a "BBE" which is set to boost the "highs"a little before the signal gets to the mixer.

Still..."presence" is the sound I desire. I want the voice to stand out. How many times have you heard spots on Radio and TV and the VO sounds muddy and others sound "right there"? Any thoughts, ideas or easy to understand tricks?

Colin Day · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 14:08 (GMT) Post subject:

Bruce

"Presence" is usually what engineers call the mid range in a voice. We can't all agree where that falls, but it's somewhere between 2kHz and 5kHz.

One thing I've learned in 25 years; all voices, rooms and mics are different. There are no cookie cutter solutions.

Colin Campbell · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 14:14 (GMT) Post subject:

Compression. Threshold -15 db, radio 3:1. Levels aproaching 0 db.

THAT WILL MAKE YOU LOUD.

Bruce Jacobson · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 14:31 (GMT) Post subject:

Colin Campbell:

Doesn't the audio (re: making it more loud ) in compression depend on the "gain" level? B.

Colin Day · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 14:41 (GMT) Post subject:

Lance Blair · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 21:36 (GMT) Post subject:

This EQ setting just doesn't work at all for voiceover...it's not horrible, but it's really not in play in terms of the frequency range. Sometimes it's good to bump things up just under 100Hz to offset a high pass filter, but this doesn't do anything for me.

For Timbaland and Mr. Martin, fine. It's a decent tweak.

I just tried it in my Cubase just to be fair and unbalanced. Not an improvement in quality or loudness.

Compression, Limiting...and proper mic technique and acoustics are valid answers. I agree, Colin Day, excessive compression is yucky (and it doesn't take much for things to get yucky).

Being a good vo talent helps too.

If this thread was reposted in GEEK PALACE, it would probably not be warmly received. Politely received, but not supported.

Bruce Jacobson

Lance: I assume you are talking about Colin's EQ setting. Right?
And maybe I should know but, who are Timbaland and Mr. Martin?
BTW: You are correct. It helps if you have the "pipes".....B.

Lee Kanne · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008, 23:46 (GMT) Post subject:

Leif

I have to pipe in here and offer my .02 in saying that is one of the worst pieces of audio info I have every read on any internet forum anywhere...

vocal presence occurs no lower than 200hz and mostly around 2-4khz

maybe you're confusing Timbaland and like groups that might use mastering eq in the lower registers to compensate for a lot of the bass heavy systems music is played on today....

George Martin used vocal doubling an other tape tricks to get that legendary Beatles vocal sound

furthermore, they used EMI consoles, (among others) back in the day, and their EQ's were no more than glorified bass and treble knobs...the low eq boost was a 100hz shelf, which means that when you crank the knob, you mostly boost 100hz, but also everything around it in gradation...so if you are trying to achieve a 5db boost @50hz, would have to boost 100hz quite a bit, which would have left "She loves you" and " a hard days night" an unintelligible mess...

also, back in the 60's, the vast majority of people who listened to Beatles records didn't have systems available to them that could accurately reproduce 30-80hz

Lance Blair · Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008, 05:36 (GMT) Post subject:

Thanks for being more in line with my initial impressions, Lee.

Thomas C. Gass · Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008, 06:11 (GMT) Post subject:

Leif M. Synnevaag · Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008, 11:09 (GMT) Post subject: thanks for your feedback...

I am sorry for this misleading info.

I should have re-written my thoughts, or, never had said anything about it at all..

I see now, and i knew, that the human voice appears from 200Hz
or maybe in some cases from lower, and that the VO probably never will touch registers between 30-80hz.

What i Meant was when I mix my Voice into music or production elements, I add this EQ to make the production sound loud - in the mix. The Voicetrack in the mix can then be adjusted to any EQ that will suit the Voice, and by using a setting that is gaining +3dB between 30-80hz (as shown in the curve), you can sound louder
without peaking....up to 5dB - but ofcourse - only in the mix. I am really sorry for misleading the terms.

If i use a setting like this one, I can gain 4-5dB in the sound before limiting, and the frequencies above 100 hz will not dominate as much - as if when I did not.

I'm sorry if my English was poor in the message above, and when I read through it now, I can see that its not well written.

Can anybody tell me how to delete a message? (oops!)

Again, I did not want to mislead anyone. Sometimes the brain, the language and my fingers do not correspond as well as I would have wanted. I did not wanted to sound posh or arrogant, and I hope we still all can be friends. Point taken. Smile

Leif.