Volume Levels (Meter)

roughnecks

Member
Hello,

should I try and keep the volume level of my audio sources at green in the meter? Or can I go up to yellow maybe?
Asking because I have currently set it up to stay on green but my Twitch and Youtube streams feels kinda low on volume. To be noted that I don't want to ear-rape anyone, just find the best settings for viewers.
 
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Deleted member 121471

While you can do that, those meters are more useful for balancing the relative loudness of different audio sources. If it's too low on the stream, the listener can always increase the global volume on their end.

For example, I have almost all my audio sources on mostly mid-high green barely peaking just into yellow while discord and mic hover inside the yellow section. Additionally, I set a sidechain compressor on my desktop audio so it never has any chance of competing in loudness with my mic.
 

koala

Active Member
It's important you keep the meter below 0 dB, not reach 0 dB, and even peaks must never completely fill the bar. To always have a little space for peaks, the yellow and red parts of the bar exist. It's no problem if the meter reaches red - it's only an issue if the red part is completely filled and would go beyond the red part.

There is an additional thing to keep in mind. If you mix audio from multiple sources, the levels of all sources are added in the mixed output. So the sum of all your audio sources must not reach the maximum (0 dB) to avoid clipping, even if all your sources by chance have all peaks at the same time.
So if you have 2 sources to mix, their maximum level must stay below half of the maximum volume to avoid clipping. Half the maximum volume is -3 dB, so both sources must not go over -3 dB (in the red area).
With 4 sources, their maximum level must not reach 1/4 of the maximum volume, this is -6 dB. Still in the red area, so you have plenty of space in yellow.
The red area ends at -10 db, this is 1/10 of the maximum volume. If you never reach red, you can mix up to 10 sources without clipping. This can be considered safe, so you should actually try to go into the yellow area to make noise as low as possible, but never into the red area, to avoid clipping at all costs and to have room for really loud peaks you never see in testing.
 

roughnecks

Member
It's important you keep the meter below 0 dB, not reach 0 dB, and even peaks must never completely fill the bar. To always have a little space for peaks, the yellow and red parts of the bar exist. It's no problem if the meter reaches red - it's only an issue if the red part is completely filled and would go beyond the red part.

Thank you too, very clear.
 

garrbear2012

New Member
In simple words the yellow is not supposed to be bad.

May be not good news but yellow can mean a lot of things or sometimes nothing. It should just mean your are in the headroom area and to watch out for clipping. Believe it or not, in the context of digital audio, it's better the closer to red you get.

Theoretically, the meter should display yellow in headroom area between output clipping or other distortion, which should be red, and some and some arbitrary level, commonly -12dBFS. On some digital equipment, this yellow level reaches much lower.

For extra information, Every equipment are not designed sound great due to their design. So do not hope that equipment would be great every time. Some pieces of audio equipment are great, and some are just really not so great. So do not rely on eqipmwnts but with unknown equipment it is easy to just have a look with a function generator and an oscilloscope to see what is really going on.

For safe purposes no peak should be above -6 dbs. I personally edit videos with overall audio normalized from -10dbs to -20 dbs.
 

koala

Active Member
The red area is important (and forbidden) for analog audio processing. In this area, for analog processing, distortion can and will appear. In digital audio processing, no distortion will appear, because the audio data is just numbers. Hard clipping will appear at 0 dB, because at 0 dB the whole number range is reached and larger numbers cannot be saved.
 

roughnecks

Member
So, we're talking all digital here.. But why I can set > 0.0db in advanced audio properties (from the mixer window) if you say "larger numbers cannot be saved"?

And what's the difference between distortion and hard clipping, because I just noticed that doing some loud noise my MIC meter went all red, so that would be a problem, right?
 

koala

Active Member
This is for gain. It doesn't set the signal to that value > 0.0 dB, it only amplifies the signal if > 0.0 dB. If some input signal is very low, for example at -30 to -40, and your other sources are normal, in the -20 area, it makes no sense to reduce all sources to -40 to make them equal, but to amplify the -40 signal to -30 or -20. This is still below 0 dB, so no clipping will occur. Of course, if you amplify a signal that is already loud, it can go over 0 dB and get clipped.

If you have a very quiet signal, try to not use this amplification in the first place. Instead, look into the device that generates the signal. Try to make the device send a higher volume. If it is a windows audio device, you can look into the second tab ("Levels") of the old control panel configuration. Make sure the level is high - ideally near 100. These settings can be seen as attenuator: 100 is 100% of the signal, thus the full signal. 50 is 50%, thus the signal reduced to half.

Try to avoid you reduce (attenuate) some signal near its creation and re-amplify it later during processing.

Distortion and clipping appear the same to the ear but have different causes. Distortion is mainly from analog audio processing. The frequency response is not linear with analog audio processing. The analog components have a optimal work area, where the frequency response is almost linear. Very loud signals are outside the work area. Outside the work area, a signal becomes distorted due to the inadequacy of analog processing. If you first amplify an analog signal so it gets distorted, and later attenuate so it is quiet enough, the signal is still distorted.
Very low signals should also be avoided. You always have a small bit of noise with very low signals. If you amplify low signals, you amplify the noise as well, so it becomes audible.
The best analog work area is just below the green/yellow border. For digital signal processing, the frequency response is linear over the whole volume area from -infinity to 0 dB.
 
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roughnecks

Member
If you have a very quiet signal, try to not use this amplification in the first place. Instead, look into the device that generates the signal. Try to make the device send a higher volume. If it is a windows audio device, you can look into the second tab ("Levels") of the old control panel configuration. Make sure the level is high - ideally near 100. These settings can be seen as attenuator: 100 is 100% of the signal, thus the full signal. 50 is 50%, thus the signal reduced to half.

Try to avoid you reduce (attenuate) some signal near its creation and re-amplify it later during processing.

That sounds fair enough but it looks like keeping the MIC volume in Windows at 100%, it produces a lot of background noise.. From my tests it's best to have it at 70%, not above that, but while in other software like Skype they hear me loud enough, from my tests recording in OBS I'm very low.. (so I applied some gain, thinking that would be better than rising MIC volume in Windows :)

P.S. I am already using noise suppression filter.
 

koala

Active Member
70% is ok. However, instead of in the Windows settings, you can also reduce the mic level within OBS with the slider in the audio mixer. Bad is only if you reduce some signal and later amplify it again. If you only attenuate a signal and never amplify it again, it doesn't matter where it is attenuated. At least for digital audio processing. For analog audio processing, it should be attenuated as late in the signal path as possible to keep noise away.

With noise, you should try to not create noise in the first place. A noise suppression filter is never as good as not have any noise in the first place.
 

roughnecks

Member
Alright, I will check it again maybe at 80% in Windows and see how it goes with OBS without gain.

Thanks, much appreciated.
 
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Deleted member 121471

If you're using WIndows 10, there's still a bug with audio where 100% system volume (most noticeable with mic volume) may add distortion/clipping yet changing the setting to even as high as 99% won't cause it, only 100% specifically. This bug was doing my head in as I couldn't find any other reason for it to happen, with OBS meters showing audio well below the levels where this was expected to happen. MS still hasn't fixed it for years now.
 

jelutz77

New Member
All these things helped me fine-tune my OBS setup but was never enough to really help keep my voice from being drowned out by my applications. My voice, even though it may go into the red of the meter, was NOT loud enough, even with my applications turned down in volume.

However, stepping back a bit helped me realize the problem: the meters were not helping me manage the relative volumes of my voice vs. the applications. Despite my configurations, my voice was being drowned out by applications when they got too loud. Applying some of these same filters to my OTHER audio channels helped with this issues. I received immediate relief when filtering my games with a limiter that would ensure they would never go above -20 (top of green), so that the range of volume of the application is limited and everyone can always hear my voice. I chose to limit other audio channels as well (such as discord), so that I could have relief from the other applications as well.

I'm not completely sure if this will help with my voice volume relative to other streamers', but at least my viewers can turn up volume and not have the game blasting while they try to hear my voice. From what I've read here, any streamer louder than me will probably have trouble with speaker distortion.
 

koala

Active Member
If your voice is drowned by background sound, you need a feature called audio ducking. This is an active filter that reduces the volume of the background sound as soon as it detects activity on your mic and restores the volume as soon as you stop speaking.

Audio ducking can be made by adding a "Compressor" filter instance to your background sound source with special settings including setting your mic source in the "Sidechain/Ducking Source" setting. This will attenuate the background source, while activity on the mic source is detected. Explanation for the settings specific to ducking here (at the bottom of that page):
 
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