same DbFS level, different loudness

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romariozen
Posts: 63
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:47 pm

same DbFS level, different loudness

Post by romariozen » Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:32 pm

What could be the reason for this? Can this happen because waveforms differ, some are smoother some are sharper. Pianos start to clip while they still sound very pleasant and don't sound too loud, and percussion can hit your ears while it doesn't even start to be distorted.
https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/432a
https://soundcloud.com/axisforward/0-dbfs-16-bit

warning it's loud
Last edited by romariozen on Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

doghouse
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Re: same peak level, different loudness

Post by doghouse » Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:39 pm

It's the average level that indicates how loud a sound is, not the peak. More compressed sounds will sound louder than uncompressed sounds, for example.

romariozen
Posts: 63
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:47 pm

Re: same peak level, different loudness

Post by romariozen » Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:53 pm

doghouse wrote:
Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:39 pm
It's the average level that indicates how loud a sound is, not the peak. More compressed sounds will sound louder than uncompressed sounds, for example.
The example of a piano is just so compressed that the audio track is pure black, and it started to distort, while the guitar here sounds quite louder. The topis headline is a bit wrong, corrected

Tarekith
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Re: same DbFS level, different loudness

Post by Tarekith » Thu Jul 25, 2019 5:35 pm

Frequencies in the signal make a big difference too, midrange at same level will tend to sound louder than say deep bass for instance.
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