Interesting levelling method using pink noise?

[Jagwah]

This seems to be effective, was hoping to get some other opinions on it:

Cheers!

[WongoTheSane]

Which technique, the pink noise one or the mixing with earbuds one?

[Jagwah]

Which technique, the pink noise one or the mixing with earbuds one?

Haha I have seen a few of this guys videos and he does leave me questioning him at times

[jappe]

This seems to be effective, was hoping to get some other opinions on it:

Cheers!

Interesting technique!
I have a psychoacoustics book ("Psychoachoustics" by E Zwicker& H Fastl) with a chapter about "masking of pure tones by noise"...now I feel an urge to read it. It's only been years and years on my todo list.

If there are tracks with different dynamics, I guess it could be unbalanced anyway though?
Could be compensated by mixing against the average rather than the peaks for each track I guess.

In case I mix a genre that diverts from the pink noise shape, an idea would be to make an own noise file filtered by the frequency shape of some reference track of the genre.

[Olivier]

The right fader positions is just a part of getting good balance. Another, often overlooked part (especially by beginners) is the right arrangement. The better the arrangement is the easier the mix will be.
Many beginners cram a lot of sound into their projects not being aware about instruments masking because of overlapping frequency ranges and what not. I doubt those kind of projects will get any better using this method.
In this case the arrangement is allready quite clear to begin with, so i'm not too surprised the end result sounds like a usable starting point for a mix.

[Marco Raaphorst]

interesting idea. will try this myself. it's also something that would be easy to automate.

but there's one big issue going on here: he is adjusting the levels based on his headphone. the headphone is not flat sounding in no way, so the compensation is not flat either. but again, this would be cool to automate in a DAW, not by listening but by calculating the levels.

[Olivier]

interesting idea. will try this myself. it's also something that would be easy to automate.

but there's one big issue going on here: he is adjusting the levels based on his headphone. the headphone is not flat sounding in no way, so the compensation is not flat either. but again, this would be cool to automate in a DAW, not by listening but by calculating the levels.

I'm confused Is the headphone really an issue ? I know you probably shouldn't mix on headphone, but in this case the headphones eq curve works on both signal and reference, so shouldn't that cancel eachother out ?

[Marco Raaphorst]

if some frequencies are not produced well on headphones you won't notice them on both pink noise track and other tracks

[Marco Raaphorst]

try to eq using this method by the way

[Olivier]

if some frequencies are not produced well on headphones you won't notice them on both pink noise track and other tracks

Sure, but i don't thats not a headphone specific issue.

What he's basically doing is making it easier to compare a track to a reference track. Which in this case is pink noise. What i'm just suggesting is that if you can compare tracks on old NS 10's (lack of low, slightly boxy mid), or new (boomy) KRK's, provided that it can produce the frequencies in the track, you can do that stage of comparing the one to the other.
If this would work for NS 10's and KRK's alike, it also works on headphones... provided they can produce the frequencies available in the track.

i'm not advocating eq'ing on headphones, but thats a different issue i think

[Marco Raaphorst]

what's he is doing is trying to set all tracks on maximum volume compared to the pink noise reference (which is flat range and NOT how a mix reference in any way). he is NOT comparing channels in a MIX. he is comparing channels ONE by ONE. so not combined, which is mixing in fact.

this might work, but in general this is just like normalizing every track to the same rms level. pink noise is not how a normal mix should sound like by the way.

[WongoTheSane]

Thor's noise osc has a weird curve, Malström FX:PinkNoise has a weird notch, so: here's 10 seconds of pink noise in wav format, 32 bits float, made with Audacity. Drag-drop in the sequencer, duplicate as needed.

pink noise.zip

(1.56 MiB) Downloaded 102 times

[aRiver]

Useful idea to even your sounds out and have them at the same dynamics at the start. It just I think you don't want it always be at the same level in every part of the song.

[bstylee]

Useful idea to even your sounds out and have them at the same dynamics at the start. It just I think you don't want it always be at the same level in every part of the song.

its an old trick to say the least but I found that it seems to make the high / mid end more prominent than I like it to be honest using this trick
I preffere spending my five to ten mins doing my lvls myself by my ears how I like them balanced .

[Ostermilk]

I find it's more effective to use pink noise at the 'master' stage as sometimes the meat of an individual sound isn't always found effectively by just listening to its audible peaks over the pink noise, although it can help you get your level balance in the right ballpark certainly. It won't tell you for example that your lush synth bed is trampling all over the same frequency space that your virtuoso guitar part also uses.

I think of it as a useful guide tool rather than a magic bullet as I've found using a matching EQ (there isn't one available for Reason AFAIK) with pink noise on the master bus is usually enough to gently tame any harsh frequency spikes on an otherwise well-balanced mix.

A useful guide though and worth understanding how and why it works along with its strengths and shortcomings.

[cosignsessions]

I have experimented with this for the last month and developed a method I find interesting and more useful than actually having to 'hear' the pink noise. I've posted a tutorial trailer on youtube. Check out the short video. https://youtu.be/A3Tirt719xQ

[sdst]

I have experimented with this for the last month and developed a method I find interesting and more useful than actually having to 'hear' the pink noise. I've posted a tutorial trailer on youtube. Check out the short video. https://youtu.be/A3Tirt719xQ

first time I see a robot doing a tutorial, Thank

[selig]

Useful idea to even your sounds out and have them at the same dynamics at the start. It just I think you don't want it always be at the same level in every part of the song.

its an old trick to say the least but I found that it seems to make the high / mid end more prominent than I like it to be honest using this trick
I preffere spending my five to ten mins doing my lvls myself by my ears how I like them balanced .

+1 to both comments - this approach could be considered to be kinda like training wheels IMO; something that can help you learn to hear basic balances, but may just slow you down once you begin to "hear" them for yourself. To put it another way, any frequency spikes big enough to affect your mix are likely the easiest to hear since they will be obviously louder than any other frequency in that range.

But I'm always going to end such comments with "if it works for you", then it works. That being said, this comment ALWAYS assumes you've give all the alternatives a fair chance as well (which not everyone does), and it also assumes your skill set will grow over time. Meaning a technique that worked at one stage of your development process may just get in the way when you have progressed to the next.

As always, your primary job when working on music is LISTENING. The more you learn to do that job yourself, the less you will need "tools" to do it for you.