I was thinking about how and why certain numbers are selected as loudness standards. Is it all based on trial and error? Is it all about what sounds best? Turns out the answer is, “No.” These numbers for loudness standards are technically based and selected.

Please observe the images properly to understand what is going on:

* Test Tone at 20 Hz (generally accepted as the lowest frequency audible to the human ear - not true, but whatever)

* -14 LUFS Integrated (no Limiting)



* -8 LUFS Integrated (has 18 dB worth of Limiting applied with only 6 dB gained. -8 LUFS Integrated cannot be breached)

 

What's exactly your question or your point of discussion here?
Seems interesting...

 

those standard was wrong but can makes those stupid engineer happy, they always pissing their shit called 'standard' to the clear world

 

LUV - most broadcast metering..... call wiki for it. or youtube.

 

LUFS metering is based on human-perceived loudness, it's a fairly complex algorithm, so I assume 20Hz being almost "off the scale" may produce pretty much useless readings

 

Agree

 

That´s exact the point, LUFS works like RMS = how our ears perceive loudness, so if you are using a very low frequency you cannot expect to have the same result as using a high frequency. We cannot use simple math here, i is logarithmic.

 

any plugins that has it all with these sort things?

 

@karnana
I usually use just Fabfilter Pro-L2 limiter which already shows this stuff,
for just metering I also like Nugen VisLM a lot,
and I will probably give a try to the free beta version of Youlean Loudness Meter

 

I'd like to disagree humbly. Depending on the settings of my limiter, DMGAudio TrackLimit, (type of limiting, release time and ISP on or off) I get values from -13,6 to -6,6 LUFS with a threshold of -18dBFS and a sine wave at 20Hz with peak at 0,0dBFS.

 

the loudness standards is non existent.

So for the sake of conversation, note what kind of loudness agreement you are talking about. since nothing is unanimous agreed upon and as of now nothing implies it is ever going to happen.

 

There are loudness standards in broadcasting world (EBU R128 which is -23 LUFS/LUKS Integrated along with a whole other batch of criteria e.g. true peak and momentary loudness) however not a "standard" as such within commercial music world. There are loudness implications e.g. "loudness normalisation" for sites such as YouTube, Spotify, Tidal etc which implement something similar to LUFS. These vary between -12 and -16 so while there may not be a "standard" many people target -14 LUFS so music will playback without any dynamic compromise. These levels have been created as a good balance between loudness and dynamics (PLR or DR) for most commercial music (folk and classical will likely be higher e.g. -18, -20 as they are generally more dynamic). Don't know why -8 has been referenced but -14 is a target area although the best way to test is if it sounds good to you, load it onto YT and see what happens and compare to other tracks... My 2 cents!

If you just play a tone through this is not relevant as there are no dynamics and as has already been mentioned the measurement is based on how the human ear perceives loudness 20Hz or 20kHz is not going to register the same as 1 kHz (even of the level shows as the same)

 

Never seen a loudness meter shows the same value

 

that's because loudness metering (not measuring) is time-dependant,
basically if you play something and open up loudness metering tool, it does some time-based measuring (of various time durations, usually desribed as short-term, long-term, programme etc..) - it's literally impossible to repeat the process exactly (you play same thing, but maybe open loudness metering tool slightly later, forget to reset it or whatever...)

on the other hand, if you'd do loudness analysis of entire track (using something like SWS Loudness extension in Reaper, loudness scan in Sonoris DDP Creator, Adobe Audition etc..) it will always provide exact same result because it will analyze exact same source item of exact same length

(sorry if my words are a bit confusing, english isn't my native language)

 

Ahhh, is that in multiband mode? Or wideband? As I am only using the True Peak Limiter which is wideband.

 

Singleband, of course, like yours.

 

With the exception of one platform (could be Tidal, not sure), the dynamics are never compromised. They just change the volume, so to speak, they lower the whole track.

LUFS is not connected to dynamics.

 

Last edited: Jun 15, 2018

Is your "dynamics" control set to 0% or 100%? I think 100% would have it behave like a conventional Limiter.

I'm going to have a play with that Limiter later today.

 

Sorry, didn't get that.

Yep, good idea, try it yourself.

 

I want the loudness of the 80's. I already selected a few favorited albums, but am still not sure how all of this works. I use the Youlean meter, thinking it gives good values. So this conversation is super interesting.