How Loud Should Ambient Drones Be?
Guidelines for setting drone levels in films, games, or videos — loud enough to feel, but not so loud that they draw attention or mask other audio.
Hey, quick heads up: I’ve got a free Drone Sound Package (30 eerie, atmospheric drones) that I’m giving away.
More on that later – but if you stick with me, you’ll not only know how loud to mix your ambient drones just right, you’ll also snag some new sounds to try out.
Now, let’s chat about those droning soundscapes and how to get them sitting perfectly in your mix.
The Goldilocks Zone of Drone Volume
Have you ever watched a movie or played a game where the background drone was so loud you couldn’t hear the characters?
It’s the worst.
Or maybe you didn’t even notice the drone was there – it was so quiet it may as well have been mute. In both cases, something’s off.
Ambient drones live in a Goldilocks zone: not too loud, not too quiet, but just right.
You want that low hum or atmospheric tone loud enough that the audience feels it emotionally, yet quiet enough that it doesn’t steal the spotlight or muddle other sounds.
It’s a fine line, I know.
But finding that balance is easier when you understand why drones matter in the first place.
When your drone’s volume is just right, your audience won’t consciously notice it – and that’s a good thing.
They’ll be engrossed in the story or the gameplay, but subconsciously that ambient sound is working its magic.
It’s building tension, adding weight, giving people goosebumps without them realizing why.
As sound designer Douglas Murray explains, audiences often don’t pay attention to background sounds, yet they’re still psychologically influenced by them without thinking about it.
In other words, your listener should feel the drone’s presence more than they actively hear it.
If Homer Simpson is nodding off in front of the TV, your drone should subtly make him uneasy, not jolt him awake asking “What’s that noise?!”
Feel It, Don’t Notice It
The secret to great ambient drone mixing is making it felt rather than heard.
Imagine your drone is like the foundation of a house: you don’t walk in and say “Nice concrete slab under this floor,” but without it everything else would collapse.
A well-mixed drone solidifies the mood. It might be a deep ominous rumble in a horror scene or a gentle airy tone in a fantasy landscape.
In a suspenseful game level, a dark ambient drone can cue the player to feel tension and anticipate danger ahead.
The player might not realize it, but that low throb in the background is making their heart rate pick up.
So how loud should it be?
Loud enough to set the mood and emotional tone – but softer than any dialogue, voiceover, or critical sound effect.
One rule of thumb many sound pros use: keep your ambient background around 10–20 decibels lower than your main audio (like voices).
In practical terms, if your characters are speaking at about, say, -12 dB on your meter, you might set the drone around -22 dB on average.
This ensures the dialogue stays crystal clear while the drone hums along underneath, adding atmosphere without competing.
In fact, a film audio guide suggests background music or ambience usually sits roughly in the -18 dB to -22 dB range, whereas dialogue might hover around -12 dB.
That’s a handy starting point!
Now, I’m not saying you need to obsessively watch dB numbers (though keeping an eye on levels is smart).
Ultimately, your ears are the boss.
A great trick is to slowly raise the drone’s volume until you just consciously notice it in the mix – then dial it back a notch.
At that point, you’ve likely hit the sweet spot where the drone is present but not intrusive. It should feel like part of the environment.
As sound designer Matt Yocum puts it, backgrounds should not overpower important moments or distract viewers from intimate scenes.
Your drone is there to enhance the experience, not hijack it.
Setting the Level: Practical Tips
Alright, let’s get practical. You’ve got your dialogue, music, sound effects, and this droning atmosphere all layered in your project.
How do you mix that drone in real life?
- Start with Context: If your scene is quiet – say a lone explorer in an alien temple with just a drone and sparse sounds – you can let the drone swell a bit more.
If the scene is busy – loud gunfire, lots of talk, a thousand things happening – keep the drone more subdued or it’ll turn into a muddy mess.
In busy scenes, you might even automate the drone’s volume to duck under dialogue or action, then rise slightly in pauses or transitions.
This way it’s felt during the action and maybe just briefly heard in the silence for effect. - Use EQ to Carve Space: Drones often sit in the low or mid frequencies.
If your drone shares frequency space with voices (typically human speech sits in the mid frequencies), consider gently EQing some mids out of the drone.
For example, reduce around 1–4 kHz in the drone if dialogue lives there.
This isn’t about volume, but it prevents the drone from masking the dialogue frequencies – meaning the voice can cut through clearly while the drone occupies more of the bass or high shimmer.
The result? You can keep the drone feeling loud in the low-end “feel it” sense, without actually overpowering anything. - Mind the Bass: Speaking of low-end, be cautious with super bassy drones.
Our ears perceive bass differently – too much rumble and the audience might literally feel uncomfortable (unless that’s your goal!).
Subtlety goes a long way.
Often, rolling off the very deep sub-bass on a drone (or side-chaining it with other low-frequency sounds like music) can prevent a boomy drone from swallowing up the mix. - Test in Different Environments: What sounds perfect in your studio headphones might boom on a living room TV or vanish on a phone speaker.
So do a quick reality check: play your mix through your laptop speakers, a TV, or that old phone.
Does the drone still come through appropriately?
On tiny speakers, you might lose low drones entirely (they can be literally out of range of small speakers).
In such cases, maybe mix a tad higher or add a hint of higher-frequency texture to the drone so it translates.
On a surround sound system, drones can shine, enveloping the viewer – but you still keep them under dialogue level by a healthy margin so speech isn’t drowned out. - Get a Second Opinion: I can’t stress this enough.
After working on a project for hours (or weeks), your brain gets used to the mix.
A drone that seemed subtle at first might actually be a bit loud, but you’ve grown accustomed to it.
Take breaks, and let someone else listen.
As one seasoned video editor quipped, “If you’re listening to your mix and thinking, ‘Ehhh, not sure if that background drone is too loud,’ then it almost always is.” 😅
In other words, when in doubt, err on the side of slightly quieter. You can always boost a touch if needed, but it’s hard to undo the damage of a blaring drone that masked half your dialogue.
Remember, people don’t complain that a background sound was too subtle – they complain when it’s distracting.
Your audience wants to be immersed and feel the mood (that’s why you put a drone there!).
They don’t want to struggle to hear what a character just whispered because a wah-wah synth pad is buzzing like a hive of bees.
Keep that perspective, and you’ll naturally ride the levels in the right range.
Adapt to Your Medium
One more thing to consider: the medium and audience.
Are you mixing a theatrical film, a YouTube vlog, a video game, or a TV docu-drama?
The listening environment changes how loud a drone should be.
For a film in a theater, viewers are in a controlled, quiet environment – you can mix drones lower and trust that the high-quality system (and attentive audience) will still feel them.
In fact, big theater subwoofers love subtle drones; they’ll make the seats tremble without anyone consciously noticing why.
For a YouTube video or something people might watch on phone or laptop speakers, you might have to push the drone a tiny bit more in the mix (or else it disappears entirely on tiny speakers).
And for video games, consider that players often have volume sliders for music, SFX, dialogue, etc.
If your drone is part of the “ambience” or music track, you want it balanced such that even if the player lowers the music volume, it doesn’t wreck the experience.
Also, continuous drones in games can become fatiguing if too loud, since players might hear them on loop for hours.
Aim for “felt, not fatigued” – a volume that adds mood but lets the player’s ears rest over long play sessions.
Regardless of medium, the guiding principle stands: the drone should support the content, not steal focus from it.
If there’s a critical line of dialogue or an important sound effect (like a gunshot or a phone ringing), make sure the drone isn’t covering it up.
You can automate it to dip in those moments or design the drone’s EQ to stay out of the way.
Think of it like a movie soundtrack – the best composers make the music swell when there’s no dialogue and then pull back when characters speak, keeping the story front and center.
You can do the same with your drones. Let them bloom in the transitions or when showing a landscape, and then recede into the background when the plot thickens or the characters take the stage.
Trust Your Feelings (And Ears)
Audio mixing isn’t an exact science; it’s equal parts technical and intuition.
I always tell my friends: trust your gut.
If the scene feels tense and the drone is giving you that slight knotted feeling in your stomach, you’re on the right track.
If you suddenly notice the drone and find it distracting, it’s probably too loud.
The beauty of drones is in their subtlety.
The audience should be saying afterwards, “Wow, that scene was intense, but I can’t put my finger on why,” rather than “That background sound was super loud.”
As one audio engineer advice goes: when a background sound does its job, you don’t actively notice it – but you’d miss it if it were gone.
That’s the balance to aim for.
A practical tip: do a volume sweep – play the scene and ride the drone volume up and down slightly to see where it feels best.
You’ll often find a “golden point” where just a little lower or louder suddenly makes the scene less effective.
Lock that spot in.
And, like I said before, get feedback.
Your ears can play tricks on you, especially with constant tones like drones (ear fatigue is real)
So have a friend listen, or come back the next morning with fresh ears.
You might be surprised – that drone you cranked at 2 AM because you thought it was barely audible might actually be booming when you listen fresh.
Bringing It All Together (And Free Drones!)
By now you know the answer to “How loud should ambient drones be?” – loud enough to feel, not so loud that they draw attention or mask other audio.
In practice, that often means riding your mixer fader around that sweet spot where the drone adds emotional weight and space to your scene without anyone noticing it’s the drone doing it.
You’ve got some guidelines (like the -10 to -20 dB behind dialog idea), but you’ll also trust yourself to tweak for each situation.
Every film, game, or video is a little different, and that’s okay.
The key is that you, as the creator, understand the purpose of your drone sound – it’s there to serve the story and experience.
When you approach mixing from that perspective, you naturally won’t let it overpower what matters.
Before you go, remember that freebie I mentioned? 😊
Since you’re clearly interested in crafting amazing ambient soundscapes, I want to make your life a bit easier.
I’m giving away a Free Drone Sound Package with 30 high-quality ambient drones you can use in your projects.
Consider it a thank-you for hanging out with me through this discussion.
These sounds range from light and ethereal to dark and creepy – and they’re all ready to drop into your timeline and experiment with.
Play with them, practice setting their levels using the tips we talked about, and see how each one can instantly change the mood of a scene.
Mixing is like cooking: you add a dash of drone here, taste it, adjust the level there, and suddenly you’ve got a delicious sonic stew that hits the spot. 😉
With the right volume, your ambient drones will glue your scene together, stir your audience’s emotions, and elevate your project’s quality (all without anyone muttering “I can’t hear the dialogue!”).
Now go forth and craft some killer atmospheres!
And don’t forget to grab your free drone SFX pack to help you on your way.
You’ve got this. I can’t wait to hear what you create when your drones are sitting perfectly in the mix – giving chills, building tension, and immersing listeners in that world you’ve built, all without ever upstaging the story.
Happy mixing, and enjoy those drones!