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#Izotope insight showing all left signal pro
This is great for old telephone lines and old-timey motion picture equipment, not so great for modern pro audio circuits.ĭBu – This is the norm in professional audio hardware. It is a power measurement where 0 dB references a 1 mW across a 600 ohm load. About 20 micropascals of sound pressure on their ear drum.ĭBm – This was the original application of the decibel in audio. 0 dB is normally defined as the quietest sound a person can hear. (The table below is adapted from Audio Engineering Society Presents: Handbook for Sound Engineers by Glen Ballou)ĭB SPL – As described above, dB SPL is a measure of sound pressure level in the air. The trick is to determine what it is you are trying to measure, and then pick a value for “0dB” that makes sense. The terms “decibel” doesn’t mean much until it’s tied to a specific absolute reference point. Since decibels are just a way of comparing units with a large difference in magnitude they can be applied in any way you can imagine. When you hear someone says “decibel” they could be referring to many different types. The “bel” is seldom used due to its large size, and so the deci-bel was the proposed working unit. This name is derived from bel, a unit of measurement devised in honor of the great telecommunications pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. The decibel originates in telegraph and telephone industries of the early 1900s, where engineers needed a way to measure how much signal they would lose over a long line.īack in 1924, Bell Telephone Laboratories came up with the “Transmission Unit” (TU) which was renamed the “decibel” in 1928. Similar ratios are at play in electrical circuits as well. It’s a lot easier if we just write this as “120 dB”, which is a much more easily digestible number.
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00002 pascals, while the loudest sound the average person can stand before saying ‘It hurts, turn it off!” is about 20 pascals. The very quietest sound you can hear is about. LED meters are often faster, and modern digital meters often present a whole range of potential options and speeds. For example, the ever popular and useful VU meter has an attack and release time of about 300 ms, which is designed to approximate the dynamic response of the human ear.
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Meanwhile, the time it takes the indicator to return its resting position is it’s release time.Įach major type of meter has different ballistics determined by its type. Similar to a compressor, you can think of a meter as having an “attack time”-how quickly it responds to incoming signal. Let’s start with the basics: All audio meters are used to measure levels in some capacity or another.Įach type of meter has different “ballistics”, meaning just how fast the meter responds to the sound it’s measuring. And what’s sexier than knowing more about audio and making great sounding records? While meters might not be the sexiest topic in audio that I can think to write about, it’s something every engineer can benefit from understanding. Not in the red? Okay, I’m good.Īs my audio career progressed however, I started to see the benefits of using meters as a visual aid when you can’t always trust your ears. Once upon a time, I only used meters to make sure I wasn’t clipping. From the humble VU meter to the most advanced spectral analyzer, you can understand them all-once you have a good grasp of the fundamentals.