Loudness has always been an important topic in mastering - never more so than today.
But knowing how loud is too loud has always been difficult. I've written before about how we hear loudness, and different software solutions for measuring loudness - but now, everything has been made far easier.
Recently a new tool has been released, purpose-designed for measuring the loudness of music. Anyone can now see at a glance how loud their mix is, make informed decisions about compression and limiting, and choose to make their recordings punchy, loud and competitive.
And best of all - it's free.
This tool is the TT Dynamic Range Meter, released by the Pleasurize Music Foundation. It comes in two flavours - the one in the animation on the right is the real-time version, available for both Mac and PC now, in AU, RTAS and VST versions.
There is also a second, off-line version, which generates an overall DR dynamic range measurement for a complete WAV file, but we'll come back to that in a minute.
(Edit - Sadly these are now only available to "Active Members" - meaning you have to donate a small amount of money to the Foundation. Personally I think this is a shame - the meter itself is one of the best weapons we have against excessive loudness - but the donation required is small, so I hope people will understand and sign up.)
The plugin shows peak and RMS metering for the left and right channels, but also a measurement of the dynamic range - the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of the music - in the centre.
Broadly speaking, anything with an overall dynamic range of 14dB or more ("DR14") will sound great - in this case, the central DR meters stay green. Louder material will sometimes have less range than this - any less than 10dB will start to sound very agressive and crushed, and the DR meters start to fade from green to orange to red to represent this.
So, to ensure you aren't over-compressing your mix - keep the meters green for most of the time. It's that simple. Not all of the time, but a track where they are always red is almost certainly pushed too hard. Try it yourself - fire it up and watch how the meters react to your favourite recordings.
One of the cleverest things about the DR meter is that it works independently of the overall level of the music. So, something very loud, crushed and distorted, like, say - oh, I don't know - Metallica's "Death Magnetic", for example - will be in the red, almost all the time - even if you turn it down.
This means you can objectively compare how squashed different recordings are, regardless of the overall level. This in turn makes it a great mixing tool - if you over-compress everything in your mix, the meters will show you're in the red, even if the overall level isn't that high, yet.
It's important to note thought that the realtime DR meter only gives the loudness at an instant. And, it's quite permissible (and necessary) to push into the red at some points. To get an overall measurement of a tracks loudness, you should use the off-line version. Currently this is only available in a PC version, but it works very well on my Intel Mac using CrossOver Mac.
I strongly recommend the Pleasurize Music Foundation website - there is lots of good information and they have ambitious plans, including getting all music labels to agree to a standard minimum DR14 measurement on all albums, as measured by the offline metering tool.
If they succeed, this would mean standardisation of levels across CDs in the same way there is in the cinema, and an end to the "Loudness War" madness. I'm cautious about their chances for success, but it's an interesting idea, and one I wish them every success with - and making the fantastic Dynamic Range Meter plugin freely available is a very clever move, in my opinion.
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5 comments:
Thanks for reporting in about this tool. I left my album under-compressed because I was afraid of pushing it too much and didnt want to engage in Loudness Warfare.
I plan on re-mastering that album with the help of this! Thanks again!
funky49
Unfortunatley (mostly for them, cause people will lose interest) the meters are not free anymore... you need to be an active member to download it. 30$ per year.
Hi, i'm a composer and sound engineer from Belgium. I find it to be a great idea, really, but why not letting everyone judge what's ok for a predetermined project ?
Greater DRs sure sound better and i dislike crushed mixes, but i do not agree with the additional headroom needed to get the same RMS level accross all productions and CDS. I just don't get it. If you trully think your album sounds good at, say, DR8, you should be allowed to to do it, with no restriction.
Why should a country ballad sound as loud as a smokin' electro or rock track ?
@Alessandro - That's a fair comment. I think the idea is that if all levels are standardised, the incentive to make a DR4 CD is gone - it will just sound worse in comparison to most more dynamic mixes.
But, I think this is where the Foundation's efforts may stumble - the TT meter is a fantastic tool, but I think it's unlikely they'll get the label support they hope for.
Having said that, all publicity and education about this issue is welcome as far as I'm concerned, so I still support their efforts, even if I have reservations about the details of their plans.
Ian
Since the plugin used to be free it is all over the web.
And I am not talking about pirated copies.
Just do a search on google.
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