dBs Explained: A Musician's Guide To

Understanding Decibels
Friday 08.21.20

We’ve all said things like, “Hey, can we bring that down a dB or 2?” or, “Bring that
up about 3dB,” but what do we really mean? Or, even more to the point, what
does that really mean? I mean what is a decibel, really?

You see, the word decibel simply means one-tenth of a Bel. A Bel is a unit of
measurement that measures the ratio of a source against a known reference
level. It was named after Alexander Graham Bell (scientists and engineers like to
name things after their heroes). Since the decibel is one-tenth of the Bel, it’s a
simple way to measure smaller increments without all those nasty decimal
places.

So the reality is, when talking about decibels, we need to know what reference
we’re dealing with, and what we’re actually measuring. Fortunately for us, those
that have come before us have done all the hard work of figuring out those
references and how they all relate. We’ll get to all of that in a moment. Before we
do, we need to understand something about scaling, and how it relates to decibel
measurements.

Logarithms

So the first point to make is that decibels are not measured on a linear scale.
That is to say that the difference from 1dB to 2dB is not equal to the difference
between 10dB to 11dB, even though they are both represented by a 1 decibel
change. Decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale, which is a way to express
large data ranges in a compact way. The logarithmic scales also change as you
move away from your reference point. It’s a bit confusing, but if you think of it
like a ruler it might help.

On a ruler the distance between markings is consistent all the way up and down
the ruler. But what if your ruler’s marking got closer together as you moved to
the higher numbers? That’s what a logarithmic scale is doing.

Looking closely you will see that the distance from 1 to 2 is the same distance
from 2 to 4, which is then equal to the distance from 4 to 8.

The distance between numbers (or the scale, if you will) is compressing. This is
how a logarithmic scale can cover a much wider set of values with smaller
numbers. In fact, I mentioned this in a previous article about gain staging,
pointing out that faders are logarithmic, and have much finer control closer to
unity than they do as you move farther away from unity.

This graph is another visual representation of how a logarithmic scale is

different from a linear scale. In this case I put a linear scale (the blue line) right
next to a logarithmic scale, showing dBu (the red line). The X-axis
(horizontal/bottom) would be decibels, while the Y-axis (vertical/left) would
represent volts. Take a look:
As you can see they are not the same. The blue line is very much a 1 to 1
representation, which is the definition of linear (where 1 in = 1 out). The red line
starts off slow and ramps up over time, and at no point is constant.

On the chart above the red line shows that 10dBu = 2.45 volts, and 20dBu actually
equals 7.75 volts. And, in case you’re wondering, 30dBu = 24.5 volts. This is the
magic of logarithms. You cover more ground with the same amount of change.
Our first 10dB only increased the voltage by about 1.6 volts (because 0dBu = 0.775
volts...which we’ll cover more about a little later). The second 10dB change
increased the voltage by 5.3 volts, and the next 10dB change increased the voltage
by 16.75 volts. This also happens with smaller increments, such as with single
decibel changes. Take a look.

dBu volts Amount of Change

-3 dBu 0.547 volts n/a

-2 dBu 0.614 volts +0.067 volts

 -1 dBu 0.690 volts +0.076 volts

0 dBu 0.775 volts +0.085 volts

1 dBu 0.870 volts +0.095 volts

2 dBu 0.980 volts +0.110 volts

3 dBu 1.095 volts +0.115 volts

4 dBu 1.228 volts +0.133 volts

Even just understanding this much will help you realize how much variation
there is within the decibel scale. The change between any one decibel and the
next is never the same as the change between another, different, two decibels.

Now that we have a better understanding of how decibels work, let’s look at the
different things we measure with decibels.

dBspl, The Sounds Around Us

The world around us is full of sounds. Our ears pick up sound through the
vibration of the air molecules bouncing into our tympanic membranes (that’s a
fancy name for ear drums). The force that a specific sound enacts on said air
molecules is called Sound Pressure Level, and we measure that force in Pascals
(named after Blaise Pascal)

This is what dBspl is measuring; sound pressure level referenced to pascals,

where 0dBspl = 0.00002 pascals. In comparison, the threshold of pain is
120dBspl, and that is equivalent to 20 pascals of pressure. That’s 1,000,000 times
more pressure, represented as a change of 120 decibels.

dBu, Our Gear

When we pass signal through our studio gear it’s all done by bothering
electrons. We like to call that “signal”, as in “Do you see any signal on that
channel?” We typically measure this signal in volts. The reference point for the
dBu measurement was chosen so that 0dBu = 0.775 volts.

There’s a story as to why this number was chosen over an integer, or even a
cleaner decimal. You see, a 0.775 volt reference made a 0dBu measurement the
same as a 0dBm measurement. By the way, dBm is a measurement of milliwatts,
and used mainly for electrical power. We aren’t going to do more than mention
them here, since we rarely have to deal with them in the studio. Just know that
while all the decibel scales we use daily are 20Log scales, the dBm is a 10Log
scale, making for messy cross referencing, and the 0.775 volt dBu reference level
is evidence of that.

Most of the gear in our studios uses the dBu reference, and will be labeled
“+4dBu”, meaning that it’s expected unity line level voltage is 1.228 volts.

dBV, Because Decimals Are Messy

Even knowing the reasoning behind it, 0.775 is a decidedly messy choice for a
reference level. It’s not an integer, or even a clean decimal like 0.5 (½) or even
0.75 (¾). If you’re thinking, “Hey, wouldn’t it make life easier if we just made 0dB
= 1 volt?”, you’re not alone. Others have thought that and created a second
decibel reference for voltage, and called it dBV (always with a capital V, please).
And, while that makes the math easier, it adds complication by introducing a
second reference, giving us 2 decibel measurements that reference volts to keep
track of. Two references that are very easy to mis-label.

Luckily, the dBV measurement was relegated to “consumer” electronic

equipment, where you usually see a nominal output level label of -10 dBV, which
makes the expected unity line level voltage a mere 0.317 volts.

The lesson here is: There is no mildly messy measurement we can’t further
obfuscate by creating an alternate reference and measurement method.

dBfs, We Are Living In A Digital World

dBfs was a way of expressing digital headroom in a digital recording, and

directly relates to bit depth. The “fs” stands for Full Scale, and the reference is
0dBfs = full bit depth.

This one is a little bit of an oddball because the reference can change based on
the bit depth of the audio. At 24-bits you have 16,777,216 (2^24) bits per sample.
0dBfs would be filling all those bits with data, so in the case of 24-bits, 0dBfs =
16,777,216. At 16-bits you have 65,536 (2^16) bits per sample, making 0dBfs = 65,536.

Another odd thing about dBfs is that it is the only decibel measurement where
we stay consistently in the negatives, since anything over 0dB, no matter how
small the over is, is digital distortion.

A common confusion point for dBfs is how it relates the analogue gear that feeds
it. Somewhere along the line we have to convert our analogue signal, in volts, to
a digital equivalent. There are 2 accepted standards for referencing a dBfs meter
to a dBu meter. The first standard is that -20dBfs = 0dBu. The other accepted
standard is -18dBfs = 0dBu. It doesn’t matter that much which you choose, but
you should choose one of the standards, and make sure your gear is all
calibrated so that 0dBu through the gear is hitting your dBfs reference of either
-20 dBfs or -18 dBfs.

Decibel Quick Reference

Decibel What’s it
0dB Reference Formula
Reference measuring

Sound
20 • log ( pascals
dBspl Pressure 0dBspl = 0.00002 pascals
/ .00002 )
Level

20 • log ( voltage
dBu Voltage 0dBu = 0.775 volts
/ 0.775 )

20 • log ( voltage
dBV Voltage 0dBV = 1.0 volts
/1)

Digital 0dBfs = full bit depth 16,777,216 at 20 • log ( bits /

dBfs
Headroom 24 bits 65,536 at 16 bits 16,777,216 )
HINT: Are you more of a visual learner? Do you want to see what these formulas look
like on a graph? Head over to Desmos and you can copy these into the formula bar to
graph the formula. Just precede each formula with ‘x=’, and replace the reference with
‘y’. So, for dBspl you’d get: x = 20 • log ( y / .00002 ).

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped you better understand one of the more prevalent
measurements in the life of an audio professional. We are surrounded by the
language of decibels, and we don’t always ponder the complex system behind
those everyday parts of our working lives.

Steve DeMott is a Connecticut based audio engineer, producer and multi-

instrumentalist. He studied Songwriting and Music Production & Engineering
at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA & has been recording professionally
for over 20 years. He now manages a commercial studio where they produce,
record, edit, mix & master music & audio projects for artists & companies.
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