To evaluate a video’s dialogue, check speech peaks, compare loudness across sentences, then measure the complete mix. This Mac workflow uses DaVinci Resolve’s Fairlight page to help you find uneven lines and distinguish dialogue balance from final output level.

What should you measure when checking dialogue?

Start with three questions: Are individual words producing excessive peaks? Do neighboring lines sound consistently loud? Does the complete soundtrack meet its delivery requirements? Each question needs a different reading.

A peak meter follows brief signal changes. A loudness meter measures audio over time: Adobe documents a 400-millisecond window for momentary loudness, a three-second window for short-term loudness, and an integrated measurement covering the measured program. Consequently, two sentences can have similar maximum peaks while maintaining different loudness between those peaks. Adobe’s loudness measurement documentation explains these measurement windows.

Reading Useful question Limitation
Track peak level Which words or clips produce the highest levels? A brief peak does not describe a whole sentence.
Short-term loudness Does sustained speech change noticeably between passages? It depends on the audio included in its measurement window.
Integrated loudness What is the loudness of the complete measured range? A selected excerpt cannot represent the entire video.
True peak How high are the output peaks, including peaks between samples? It does not establish whether dialogue is balanced against music.

Use numerical readings and their units before interpreting colors. Resolve lets you configure meter detection, scaling, peak-hold behavior, and bus color thresholds. A yellow region therefore needs to be understood in the context of the selected meter settings. DaVinci Resolve 21.1 Reference Manual, “Audio Metering”.

Set up Fairlight so the meters reflect your adjustments

Open the timeline containing your video and select the Fairlight page. Display the Mixer so you can identify the dialogue tracks and their output bus. Fairlight’s monitoring panel includes individual track meters, bus meters, and monitoring and loudness displays. Check the track names before deciding which moving meter represents speech. DaVinci Resolve 21.1 Reference Manual.

For this task, use post-fader track metering. Open Project Settings, select Fairlight, and find Audio Metering. Clear Pre fader metering on tracks. With that option unchecked, lowering a track fader lowers its displayed level. When it is checked, clip-level changes still register, but track-fader changes do not. This setting explains a common apparent mismatch between a fader adjustment and an unchanged meter. Resolve 21.1’s metering settings.

Before playback, write down what you are evaluating: an individual dialogue clip, all dialogue tracks together, or the complete output. This simple distinction makes later readings comparable. For an existing exported video containing speech and music in one mixed soundtrack, its meters measure that combined soundtrack; you cannot interpret the result as an isolated dialogue measurement.

The version boundary matters. The project-metering settings above are documented in the Resolve 21.1 reference manual. The detailed dialogue-balancing and loudness exercises cited below come from Blackmagic Design’s Resolve 20 Fairlight training guide, which remains listed on its training page. Treat its lesson targets as instructional examples and allow for interface differences between releases. Blackmagic Design’s training library.

Compare dialogue passages before measuring the whole video

Temporarily isolate the dialogue tracks using their Solo controls, or mute the music and other accompanying tracks. Play representative passages: an opening sentence, a middle section, and a passage containing a stronger or softer delivery. Compare complete phrases rather than a single moving bar.

Blackmagic’s Fairlight training guide teaches dialogue balancing by watching track meters, adjusting clip gain, and adding clip-volume keyframes where needed. Its exercise uses approximately −15 to −10 dB on the illustrated peak meter, with an average reading around −12 dB. Those are contextual starting points for that exercise, not an integrated-loudness target or a universal delivery specification. The Fairlight Audio Guide to DaVinci Resolve 20, Lesson 5.

Apply that approach in a controlled sequence:

  1. Play two neighboring dialogue passages without changing your listening volume.
  2. Note whether the difference lasts through a sentence or occurs only on a word.
  3. Adjust clip gain when a complete clip needs a level change.
  4. Use clip-volume keyframes when only part of a clip needs adjustment.
  5. Replay both passages, including the edit between them.

A useful evaluation record has four fields: timeline location, peak reading, the sentence’s apparent loudness, and the change you made. This is an editorial comparison aid, not an automatic pass/fail test. It helps you avoid repeatedly raising and lowering the same line without a reference.

Do not force every phrase to produce identical readings. Instead, decide whether a change in level fits the delivery and whether the words remain easy to follow. Once the dialogue works on its own, restore the accompanying tracks and repeat the comparison. A balanced dialogue track can still be difficult to follow when music competes with it.

Measure the complete mix with a fresh loudness pass

After balancing dialogue, measure the soundtrack that will actually leave the project. Restore the intended tracks, confirm the monitored output bus, and return to the beginning of the video. A dialogue-only reading and a full-mix reading answer different questions, so label them separately.

Blackmagic’s Resolve 20 guide documents this real-time measurement sequence: open the loudness meter’s options menu, choose the required measurement standard, enable Absolute Scale and Lock Metering to transport, then click Reset and Start. Play the entire intended range and stop at its end. Its exercise uses BS.1770-4; choose your delivery specification when one has been supplied. Fairlight Audio Guide, Lesson 10.

Record the final integrated loudness, maximum true peak, measurement standard, and measured range. Reset before comparing a revised mix. Otherwise, accumulated measurements can include material played before the change. Blackmagic’s exercise demonstrates that measuring only the ending of a scene produces a different integrated result from measuring the complete scene. Fairlight Audio Guide, “Showing the Loudness History Curves in the Timeline”.

Avoid treating the default loudness reference as an instruction for every video. Resolve 21.1 documents a default target reference of −23 LUFS, but that is a configurable metering reference. Your required output target must come from the destination’s requirements or the project brief. Resolve 21.1 Reference Manual, “Audio Metering”.

An illustrative decision: can you simply raise the level?

Suppose a hypothetical delivery brief asks for −18 LUFS integrated loudness and a true-peak ceiling of −1 dBTP. Your complete mix measures −21 LUFS integrated with a maximum true peak of −2 dBTP. These are illustrative inputs, not recommended delivery targets.

The nominal loudness adjustment is +3 dB. With uniform gain and no other processing changes, that would move the true peak from −2 to approximately +1 dBTP—above the example’s ceiling. The calculation identifies why raising the entire mix is insufficient. Revisit the passages producing the highest peaks, make the necessary level or dynamics adjustments, and measure again. The final result must satisfy both conditions.

Use the readings to choose the next adjustment

The following diagnostic sequence combines the documented meter behavior with practical editing decisions. It is intended to help locate the problem before changing the entire soundtrack.

What you observe What to check next Practical response
One complete line is quieter than adjacent lines Compare the dialogue in isolation Adjust that clip’s gain, then replay the transition.
One word produces a large peak Locate the word within the clip Make a local level adjustment and recheck the phrase.
Lowering a track fader leaves its meter unchanged Inspect the pre-fader setting Use post-fader metering to evaluate fader changes.
Dialogue works alone but becomes unclear with music Compare the same passage with accompaniment restored Rebalance the accompanying tracks.
Integrated loudness changes between attempts Compare the measured ranges and reset state Reset and measure the same complete range.
The mix needs more loudness but has little peak headroom Locate peak-producing passages Resolve those peaks before applying more overall gain.

Listen after every meaningful adjustment. A meter can identify level differences, but it cannot decide whether a particular word is understandable or whether a musical entrance distracts from the sentence. Finish by checking the complete video, including transitions into and out of speech.

What changes in Fusion, Premiere, or Final Cut Pro?

Fusion Studio’s documented audio workflow supports loading a WAV file through the speaker icon’s Choose command or a Saver node’s Audio tab. The Fusion 21.1 manual also permits AIFF on macOS and explains that the entire WAV file is loaded into RAM. Through a Saver node, the waveform can be displayed in the Keyframes editor for locating audio cues. Keep files as short as the composition requires. Fusion 21.1 manual, “Loading Audio WAV Files in Fusion Studio”.

That documented waveform-and-cue workflow does not establish a dialogue-loudness measurement procedure in Fusion. For this task, use the supported Fairlight meters in Resolve. If your graphics work is already in Resolve’s Fusion page, return to the timeline and perform the audio evaluation in Fairlight.

In Premiere on macOS, select Window > Audio Meters and play the timeline to inspect levels. For an existing Loudness Meter, Control-click it and select Edit to open its settings. Adobe explicitly states that this meter measures loudness without changing audio level. Monitor volume levels in Premiere, Measure the loudness of your track.

In Final Cut Pro for Mac, choose Window > Show in Workspace > Audio Meters, or click the audio meters icon below the viewer. Apple advises checking the combined level of concurrent clips and keeping it from exceeding 0 dB during the loudest sections. It also explains that the number of displayed meters depends on the channel configuration. View and change audio levels in Final Cut Pro for Mac.

A useful final record states what you measured, which meter and scale you used, and the playback range. Pair that record with a listening check of the finished mix. You can then distinguish an uneven dialogue line from a peak problem or an overall loudness adjustment—and make the change at the right place.

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