Voiceover Recording: 3 Questions About Loudness

We’ve definitely been on a bit of a Loudness jag for the past few posts. At first, I was just going to limit the responses to those of you in my email community to get an initial sampling of results. Then, the survey link got shared a bit more broadly (thanks George Whittam!), and responses have continued to trickle in from a variety of sources. 

As the survey was shared out through a few social media groups, it generated a bit of discussion, commentary and a few questions. This was an added bonus, as one of my goals was to make more voice actors aware there’s life beyond “Peak” values. As I mentioned in an earlier article, there’s been a de facto process of Peak Normalizing to -3 dB when submitting auditions. Since that can lead to a broad range of actual Loudness values, it’s been interesting to see how many are finding a wide variance in the RMS of their submitted auditions.

When working with an audio technical client to set up an audition workflow, I have a good idea how loudly we’re trying to deliver those auditions. It’s that idea of Competitively Loud. Ideally it sits right in an expected Loudness range so it sounds present without overwhelming the listener. 

As more people responded to the Facebook posts in VO Tech Talk and other groups, a few common threads emerged:

Why are you bothering with Loudness in auditions?

I’ve been thinking about Competitively Loud auditions for a long time. Ever since I saw the recommendation to “Peak Normalize to -3 dB” on an online VO marketplace submission page, it struck me as a highly imprecise specification. For commercial auditions, it remains one of the few guidelines that get repeated in our community. Yet, few know precisely who initially recommended it or why. 

I think it helps everyone if we establish a target range. Great auditions will not be ignored just because they are significantly quieter during the playback/evaluation phase.The producers or casting directors will not get their ears blasted by a compressed and boosted audition that bursts out loudly above everything else. The first step to establishing that range is gathering actual data and then sharing it more widely. 

Why aren’t you measuring Loudness with LUFS instead of RMS?

In the voiceover world we are definitely behind the times in continuing to use RMS. However, that’s the only “standard” which seems to be widespread (driven by audiobook standards) in our industry. I was not making the argument that RMS was better than LUFS (I’m definitely on Team LUFS). I just thought it would be simpler for most to determine. 

I figure we’ll limp our way over to LUFS before too terribly long. Regardless of anyone’s audition mastering or workflow methods, everyone delivers auditions at a certain Loudness value. That’s the data I’d like to start getting my arms around. 

Do Voiceover Clients Really Care about Loudness?

First, I think it’s helpful to be clear – they aren’t “clients” – yet. I’m focused specifically on auditions – not delivering final work to a requested spec. Though, the person listening may have worked with you before, you are very likely just one file in a long playlist of audition audio that someone has to listen through.
Imagine if your favorite music playlist randomly increased or reduced the volume of each song before playing it. Each time a tune started to wind down, you’d be reaching for the volume control. At best it’s a distraction.

Consider how many auditions a typical project generates: certainly more than fifty… probably more than a hundred. On major projects the numbers are likely to be significantly more. If you are in the position of having to go through those hundreds of submissions, the first step is going to be weeding out the bad ones. My guess is that those which can’t be heard are discarded.

Finally, one question for you – well, not all of you…. just those who chose the very high Loudness values.

Are any of you really submitting auditions which have a Loudness above -12 dB RMS?
I’m wondering if it was just a misunderstanding of the terminology, but there were a few responses in that range. 

If you are, I’d love to hear from you. 

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