Practical meaning of decibels (dB) in audio engineering
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- Опубліковано 15 гру 2019
- linktr.ee/marcogalvan
In this video you will learn what decibels are in a practical way. Decibels (dB's) are very important in the audio and sound world, as they are a basic unit for setting levels, eq, processing and more.
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very well done - articulate
This helped greatly, in my struggles towards basics in audio recording for voiceover, I'm going lower down in the details of what I need to learn, and this video was very well explained and greatly appreciated!
Man this was so simple and effective! I LEARNED! Thank you..
You're welcome!
now thats the video world need
Than you sir
GREAT VIDEO.
Thanks man! Much appreciated!
very informative
Thank you!
Thanks for this lesson.
My pleasure!
Excellent explanation. I suggest viewing the khan academy video on the decibel scale and then viewing this: when you couple the two, your understanding of how gain settings on a soundboard work will be greatly enhanced.
Thank you Don, great advice!
Thanks I didn’t understand the other vids about dB’s urs I did
That's great, my pleasure!
👍👍👍
Decibels explained by Tommy Wiseau.
i installed amplifier in my car, the AMP manual suggesting me to tune the amp with 1000 HZ @ -5 dB
what does -5 dB means? and how to compare it with 1000 HZ @ +5 dB or 1000 HZ @ -10 dB, .... etc ?
Hi Mark! That does not look very clear from the manual. dB's are relative to a reference (usually 0 dB). So we need to know what 0 dB means for that amp. Maybe 0 dB is the standard operating level, but it also could be the maximum level. If you provide me the brand and model, perhaps I can investigate further.
Excellent video. I'm a video editor, but I often am also the one mixing the sound unless there is a higher budget. So what I am getting is that 0db is usually the maximum level an NLE or DAW is able to output to a digital file, but the amplifier for my speakers can go above or below 0db because it's able to amplify or attenuate the input sound above or below 0db. But sounds in real life are measured above 0db because there is no practical maximum in real life, and 0db would be total silence.
Is that right? Basically 0db means different things depending on the nature of the sound and how the sound is being measured?
Thank you Jeffrey. 0 dB means maximum level in the digital domain (dB Full Scale, dBFS). 0 dB means almost no sound when measuring sound levels (dB Sound Pressure Level, dB SPL). And 0 dB means unity gain or "no change" in most mixers and audio equipment. You need to know the context indeed.
@@MarcoGalvan Wonderful, thank you. Makes perfect sense now!
huh, i tried testing that and noticed something else: i put 2 of the same sample on top of each other and it sounded twice as loud (tho i would assume it would only be twice the power, not twice the power and a 3 dB gain) - i had to decrease the loudness by 6 dB in order to make the 2 samples sound the same loudness as the sample by itself. whats the explanation here? i used FL Studio
Hi Dan. It's great that you are experimenting to learn more, congrats! If you duplicate the samples, you get twice the "voltage" in the digital domain. Voltage and power are not the same, but they are related though (I'd need a dedicated video to explain this 😅). Doubling the voltage equals to 6 dB indeed, that's why you have to reduce it by this amount as you mention.
@@MarcoGalvan aah interesting. good to know, thanks!
I was allways thinking that 3dB is 2x sound. now i know its 2x power
That's right! 10 dB is approximately 2x the loudness.
@@MarcoGalvan thankYou!
So what's the formula of the "loudness" compared to the power? ..
Second question: on a microphone,
-10 dB will decrease the volume of the microphone to the half, right? .. does this have to do anything with the frequency ? .. I believe no.. right? 😜
Hi there! Loudness measurement is much more complex than power level. Loudness takes in count frequency and time, not just power. The power level was among the first attempts to measure "loudness" (around 100 years ago!), but it's just a rough approximation. Modern technology allows us to measure loudness more effectively. Nowadays, it's more common to find loudness units (LUFS) in audio software.
@@MarcoGalvan thanks! Informative ❤
So why is zero NOT at the bottom?
Hi, because in most pro equipment, 0 means 0 dB, not 0 "volume". There are cases though, where 0 actually means 0 volume (like guitar amps or pedals), but that's not the case of most audio mixers.
So what is the best 0db or 5 db
What do you mean by this? Could you give some context behind your thinking
@@parp Hello Professor .. How are you .. I am a sound engineer from Iraqi Kurdistan .. Erbil city. I am working on the dynacord sound mixer .. and I mean by my words on the fed..and I am using the 5 db option for the sub-hydrates
@@marwanosaji2563I am good thanks :)
Ok so I am looking at the mixer you mentioned, but I don’t know what you mean by “sub-hydrates”
Could you explain to me what that is?
@@parp Hello again..You sure have seen the dynacord audio mixer, right, sir? I mean the faders have to be at 0 db in order for it to be a true gain setting on the main signal.
@@marwanosaji2563 yes they do, but what do you mean by best? Like what do you want the mixer to do
I presume, because I know what dB means, a "fader" is the lazy man's term for attenuater. I wonder what an audio engineer is. It seems an audio engineer is not capable of defining dB in a coherent manner. He should define what he means by "gain", "stage", and the other words that have specific meaning in audio engineering that differ from a layman definition.