Cubase 11. Kontakt 6.
Orientation: I am in the process of building a very large, mostly orchestral template in Cubase 11 with Kontakt 6, Halions, EW PLAY, Spectrasonics GUIs and more. for use is a large scale project. The Template has about a thousand tracks and will be used to pull ready made presets for largely (but not exclusively), orchestral projects, that will be part of gthe same production and require similar levels. Live in theaters in London. I am not composing with the intent to go to a live orchestra the tracks will be the end result.
The template is largely finished. I am now in the process of balancing the instruments. The structure of the template is folderized and grouped. Each instrument type has its own folder. Flutes for example number 16 in count. All flutes outputs are then sent to a Flutes Cubase group track, which is then sent to Woodwinds group and then to the orchestral out etc etc.
In order to make a pro job of balancing the instruments in the template, I am seeking, an objective way of balancing the loudness of each track - first instrument against instrument (flute against flute), then instrument against other instruments in the orchestral sections, then sections across the orchestra.
instrument group.
I could use Cubase's control room to measure soloed loudness of tracks 1 to 1 against each other, but the issue for me is all instruments of the orchestra have different natural levels of loudness, so a triangle has less DB than say a sustained French Horn. Not sure what levels to aI'm for.
In order to understand how to professionally balance this template, I have concluded that I must understand my Cubase 11 meters.I am more musician than engineer.
Let me say now I am NOT seeking to maximize loudness of my tracks, use limiters and crush them with compressors. I want a broad dynamic range and plenty of headroom for partials in these orchestral mixes.
Reading up, I have learnt the following:
LUFS (or Loudness) metering is taking over from Peak level (dBs) metering because the human ear perceives the volume of different frequencies differently. LUFS compensates for this and gives us a more "human" measurement of loudness. The purpose of the loudness scale as far as I understand it is to compensate for facts like a sound at 100 hz of X Db is subjectively perceived as quieter than a sound at 1500 Hz also at X dB . In short two sounds of different frequencies, of the same dB, are perceived differently in terms of loudness. This is because we are wired for sounds in the range of human speech, unlike whales.
Q1.
I am told that 1dB = I LU. This makes no sense to me as if it were true it would seem to me that the two scales would be identical (Db and LU scales) and that would be pointless.
So, would it not be the case that a LU scale would change so that 1 dB would NOT be equal to 1 LU at certain frequencies?
Q2
Engineering Boffins (and that excludes me), talk about various Loudness measurements:
1] Integrated or "relative" loudness. The describe as: "Average loudness that is measured over the whole track in LUFS (Loudness Unit, referenced to Full Scale."
What is this Full Scale? Google does not know and utube sweeps over the topic.
They go on to talk about:
Short-Term Loudness
Loudness that is measured every second on an audio block of 3 seconds. This gives information about the loudest audio passages.
OK that's easy to understand
Momentary Loudness
Maximum value of all momentary loudness values that are measured every 100 ms in an audio range of 400 ms.
OK so that's super-short loudness
Then they talk about Loudness "range"
In this is a single LU number that measures the dynamic range over the whole title in LU. There are a few caveats in my definition of this measurement, but it's a LU number which represents the distance between the softest perceived sound, and the loudest perceived sound - sort of.
This is what I am learning:
"A loudness range between 6 LU to 12 LU shows that a track has a considerable difference in loudness between the various sections." ( I would think for classical pieces often this could be toward the max.
"Tracks with a loudness range below 4 LU could be considered rather static in loudness." Probably this is some kind of crap rave track that is supposed to bypass the brain and appeal to your anatomy.
OK so this is important information - ignore it at your peril when mixing and creating tracks. Realize that Cubase mixer tracks use DBs whereas the control room, which everyone should use, can meter in either loudness or peak DB values.
Bringing all this back down to composing. It's clear that different manufacturers provide instruments sampled at widely different volumes. So if one is going to have a professionally balanced template, where one can easily swap out a ridiculously soft Berlin piccolo with a loud EWest piccolo, then adjustments need to be done, either in Kontakt or in the pregains of Cubase.
But (I have now actually got to my second question! ) to what level? Obviously different instruments can create different levels of volume.
If one does nothing, then one has a very lumpy unequal template. If one levels all instruments to one level, then one could ruin the template. If one does this " subjectively", by ear, then its so easy for mission creep to set in, by which I mean in one session balancing the flutes, you set levels at X, the next day the clarinets get level Y, the strings level Z and again the whole process goes out of kilter
So, that is why I think an objective measure of some sort is required, so as to avoid mission creep. But what measure? I suppose they will be loudness measures but which ones?
