Old 09-19-2018, 09:35 AM   #1
enroe
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Default loudness metering - useful or not?

These days two new metering-plugins were offered
to every musician: db meter3 from "TB Pro Audio" and
the new version of "youlean meter".

Both are great tools showing the EBU, LU and LUFS-levels.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Maybe my question is naive, ... but it is:

If there is no higher demand for a specific loudness - like
the boss says: I need exactly "-12 dBLUFSxyz"! - then why
should I need any loudness meter?

If I master my songs I listen carefully and set the compression
so that it sounds good for me - no matter what any loudness
meter shows. Because the loudness meter doesn't know
if there a single vocalist with only one acoustic guitar or there
is a band powering up a heavy dense distortion guitar wall.

Even if you set the level to any LUF-number, say -14 dB,
how often do you listen to it and then discard the LUF-setting
because for your ears the fader must have another position?

These LUF- and EBU-meterings seem to be empty artificial
occupations without any real musical usefulness.

Or is there any real use for metering plugins?
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Old 09-19-2018, 09:46 AM   #2
karbomusic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by enroe View Post
If I master my songs I listen carefully and set the compression
so that it sounds good for me - no matter what any loudness
meter shows.
^Then if you aren't supplying your music to someone, such as a service that will then measure it and possibly change the levels of what you worked so hard on (or you don't care if they do), there is zero need for the meters.
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Old 09-19-2018, 11:26 AM   #3
Stews
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I use it for 2 reasons - I want all my songs to be similar loudness levels and the meter lets me do that without having to reference previous tracks.

And also because YouTube is my primary target for the music and it normalises based on lufs. So even if you thought your track sounded better louder, YouTube would turn it down anyway.

So if you're releasing the music on cd or somewhere that doesn't normalize and you're level matching tracks manually or don't care about level matching, there's no benefit.

Not sure if you're under the impression that the loudness measurement can be off but if you are I think it's a misconception. As long as you're looking at short term lufs rather than the average of a whole track then I believe two pieces with the same lufs measurement will be very similar in perceived loudness.
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Old 09-19-2018, 11:31 AM   #4
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Just to add for interests sake, once I've done all the compression to each track and the mix bus purely for sound reasons (without metering) I tend to have to do very little limiting to reach the loudness target of -13. Shave off a few peaks basically. Seems to be roughly the level that I prefer the sound of.
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Old 09-19-2018, 12:51 PM   #5
serr
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It might be nice to know you're in calibration with your system too. I think it's easy to get confused with the volume war albums out there and set your monitor system volume to that. But you end up working in the top 3 or 4db of your whole system!

Make the -16 to -13 LUFS level your nominal and then just mix. You'll turn anything that's too loud down because it's literally too loud to you. Treat the volume war fare as the outlier. And you can still do that to your final master if you want to down the road. Your mixes will be less confusing and you'll actually use some of that modern 24 bit headroom. Some of the volume war stuff could be 8 bit and no one would be the wiser.

Of course, maybe you already basically did that via listening to a few select recordings and you still don't need a meter.
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Old 09-27-2018, 12:25 AM   #6
enroe
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Thank you karbomusic, Stews and serr!

So I can sum it up as follows:

Two reasons for using an LUFS-meter:

1. Similar loudness levels for all songs (of an album or a set)
2. Loudness adaption to a target like YouTube or i-Tunes.

Typical Loudness target:
-13 LUFS (loud) or -16 LUFS (relaxed).

---------------------------------------------------------------
Don't get me wrong: Mastering in a way that you yourself are
satisfied can be more demanding and challenging than just fulfilling a
technical order like "-13 dB LUFS" or similar.

That is because you want that "THIS Song" sounds tremendously
good - also if you listen to it in ten years or in any future - no
matter what LUFS-value it has.
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Old 09-27-2018, 07:10 AM   #7
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Just a side note that a lot of commercial pop stuff you hear, is smashed all the way down to -10 and sometimes to -8 LUFs. Many of them shoot for -10 on purpose - yuk IMHO. That said, the majority of the time, if I just mix/master to the dynamics I personally think sounds good for the stuff I record, it usually falls between -16 and -12 without ever looking at the meters.

Also, "chasing the meters" is more related to one's mix already being over compressed and meeting a target to keep some service from counteracting that and turning it down. Or, trying to get yours to sound like theirs if you 'just have' to compete in the loudness wars. Meaning if you generally like what you are hearing, and it isn't overly compressed, then the target service isn't likely going to mess with it anyway (several only turn down, not up).
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Old 09-27-2018, 07:38 AM   #8
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Yeah, most CD format releases are still in volume war territory (-10 to -8 LUFS).

If you set your monitor level lower to listen to hyped releases like this, you're going to be damned confused trying to mix because you'll be working in only the top few db of your entire dynamic range.

If you set your monitor levels to be nominal for properly mastered levels (-16 to -13 LUFS), you'll just be able to mix. Properly mastered HD album releases will sound best and have proper levels to match. The volume war CDs will be the outliers that you turn down the volume and hold your nose (ears) for. That stuff will simply be what it is. The proper masters will sound their best. And you'll be able to mix with headroom and much less confusion.

At the end of the day, you can always produce a volume war CD version of your master to satisfy that demand.
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Old 09-27-2018, 07:44 AM   #9
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You're kind of thinking about it backwards, IMO.

Guidelines are just guidelines (unless you actually have to match broadcast or cinema standards).

What I did was set it up for a while so everything I was listening to (for pleasure) went through the meters I thought I wanted to use. That let me kind of absorb how they worked/looked for different styles and loudness levels. Or, you can learn them some other way.

So, when mastering, I typically have an R128 momentary meter running because I just like it better than the others at my disposal. If the album is supposed to be Loud(tm), then I know where FF should be. If there are any dynamics left, I know where mf, mp, etc. should hit, more or less as well as how far apart the peak and average readings should be.

So, yeah, I use them. But, it's not to hit a numerical target. Any algorithm can do that, and if that's all it was, you could just normalize to a LUFS target and run it into a limiter. But...that doesn't really work right.

Your ears can trick you. The meters mostly help tell when that's happening.

It's also because I monitor through MeterPlugs Perception to keep the level consistent, so I can actually evaluate my changes instead of just the loudness (which also tricks you). And actually knowing where in the digital scale things are peaking/averaging without constantly having to adjust monitor gain is a plus.
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Old 09-27-2018, 08:31 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by doppelganger View Post
i think it's a matter of taste / kind of music / destination.
I agree but as I've argued before, with content that is, and presents itself as dynamic by it's very nature, crushing it beyond a certain point becomes audible distortion - so much so that once compressed enough, it causes real ear fatigue at louder SPLs (meaning one can't listen as long)- volumes that would otherwise have been both comfortable and more impactful when less smashed and got smashed for competitive reasons more than sonic goodness or taste.

I'm not a rule follower per se and I would not hesitate to veer from this occasionally (which I surely do) but I'm more speaking of the competitive practice of doing so without much regard to the actual sonic quality.
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Old 09-27-2018, 08:00 PM   #11
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totally agree
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