During the course of making the track, I probably have 30 or more layers, but I end up muting/deleting the vast majority of them by the end.

I usually end up with a group called "Floor" which is where I throw layers that I'm not ready to throw away, but not actually using any more.

Not real sure why you feel a need to be so confrontational, but fine, if you have no interest in continuing the conversation, no skin off my back.  Have a good one!

Venues actually tend more toward 95-105dB, not 85dB... though that is based on some random resources on the net (this is not new research, I built my gray noise a couple years ago)... 85dB was a compromise between club and (loudish) home stereo.


I can't really provide a link, as there was no resource that just said "here's how to make gray noise."  I had to figure it out myself.


I did misspeak slightly, though... you actually need to shape pink noise, not white noise.  It's important when going from SPL to digital that you still follow that 1/f  line.


Grab the ISO:226-2003 curve values - this can mean needing to pay for the ISO if you can't find the values.  I found them in a matlab thingy back when I made it, but can't find it online any more - if you can find something similar, I recommend that as a cheaper alternative.  I would paste them here, but it's a lot of data (most of it useless, as we're not going to be mixing for very much below 60dB SPL).

Next, grab yourself some pink noise, slap on a 32 band EQ, and adjust the channels to match the values from the ISO standard.  Depending on the range of your EQ, you may need to use two in parallel - my EQ has a range of -18 to 18, and the maximum range at 80dB is 37.16dB.  (Looking back at my spreadsheets, it was 80dB, not 85, that I used).  I highly recommend not using the values for 20Hz and 20KHz (and possibly 25Hz, your choice there, but I don't use it), as they are outlier values that will give your curve extremely harsh edges.


After that, you'll probably also want to add on a strong low pass around, say, 50Hz and a high pass around, say 15KHz, just to soften things a little bit further.


Finally, adjust the level so it's at 0dB, and there ya go, gray noise.


If you don't like 80dB, then you are of course quite free to choose a different value.  I actually have three gray noises that I built, 60, 80 and 100.


You can extrapolate the curves to any dB SPL value you want, but I'm not going to go into that here.


I am using this technique in the DJ software I wrote to measure all the tracks in my setlist's frequency spectrums, then at performance time, measure the level of the room (I am working on a realtime meter that uses a radio transmitter to send this directly to my laptop so that this part happens automatically), and adjust the curve of each track in real time to fit the room so that it can adjust the sound to the levels in the room... but that part is still in prototype stage, I don't use the room leveling yet when I play out.  I admit that I am not completely sold on using it all the time anyway, for the same reasons as what I detailed earlier about following the curve perfectly not being interesting enough to me.


Here's a screencap of what my gray noise looks like in ProQ2.  Note that the spectrum is rotated 4.5dB per octave to make it more readable, as is the standard with ProQ2 (and many other EQs).

Sorry, I wasn't recommending using your ears, I intend that you start with white noise then using the published official ISO curves to shape that noise into gray using a 32 band EQ.


A large enough sampling (which the original Fletcher Munson didn't have, but the ISO:226-2003 did have) results in something that is accurate enough for my needs when it comes to quick leveling.


All that said, using either of these for anything but quick leveling is not a good idea anyway.  Using pink noise will just mean each of your channels has exactly the same power - that doesn't feel like a desirable outcome to me.  Gray noise will just mean that each of your channels feels to the average person like it has the same power level - that also doesn't feel like a desirable outcome to me.


It's OK for just getting things to a good starting point, but from there, you need to focus on what the music needs.  I don't imagine there are going to be many songs where either having the exact same power levels, or perceived to have the exact same power levels, is going to actually work all that well.

I have a vested interest in liking Bitwig, 'cause I'd really prefer to move completely to an open source OS, but it's just not quite ready to replace Ableton.  It's so close I can almost taste it, and I can't wait for that day to arrive.

I must say, though, that I am shocked to see a DAW written in Java.  That is some crazy tight coding to pull that off.

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with music - if I was anywhere near a piano, I was drawn to plink on it... even if I wasn't allowed to. When I was 5, friends of the family played "Dark Side of the Moon" for me, and it was in stereo!  My little mind was blown, that was some radical stuff right there!  (This was in the 8-track tape days.)

Then, in the mid 80s, I got hooked on "The Art of Noise," originally because they had Max Headroom in their music video.  The bits with him in weren't even on the album, but I was hooked anyway.

Around 86, I got my first keyboard - a Yammy toy, but even so, I started making (really terrible) music on it, then later on my Commodore 64 and my best friend's Amiga whenever I could get him to let me use it.

In the early 90s, I finally took some music theory, and suddenly, my music wasn't completely random noise, it had proper harmony and structure.  It still wasn't exactly great, but it wasn't horrid either. 

A few years later, I bought my first real hardware synth, a Yamaha CS1x, followed by a Roland JX305, a Yammy RM1x and a Yammy WX5 (I used to really dig Yamaha hardware).  I made an electronica album with some friends (I was composing, she was singing, he was muddying up the engineering), but that fell apart because they were dating... and then, they weren't any more.

I took several years off, only making the odd tune, but then I took a job as the Tech Lead at a small indy video game company in Amsterdam and moved from Alaska to the Netherlands.  While there, life got very challenging, and I started looking for something to help my mood.

Around the same time, I discovered Ghetto Funk.  Woah, now that was some shit, man, I can dig it! I connected that with needing to improve my mood and decided I was going to learn how to DJ, playing at a private party every Friday for some folks from the A'dam game and movie industry, and occasionally small shows (100-200 people) around the Netherlands and Germany.  However, it wasn't long after that to where I wanted to try making that kind of music, so I picked up Ableton and Massive, and started hacking away.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped absolutely hating my own music, but I am still my own harshest critic.  That said, every track I make, I learn something new, and I get better.

I suggest looking at "gray noise" as a mixing tool... that is to the Equal Loudness Contour what pink noise is to the equal power line (1 over f).

It can be tricky to create your gray noise, especially since the contour shifts depending on the volume that the music is played at, but you can (for example) plan for club play at, say, 95 dB, and then you will have loudness but you will still be able to hear the parts.


If you get the right gray noise for your needs, you can actually just use the matching in FabFilter Pro-Q or Ozone to adjust your song's curve to that of the curve for your volume level.