Manual

20 MD3 NATIVE User Manual
Loudness is a modern, but still well-rehearsed reference method, which is
standardized in BS-1770, and many music streaming services refer to this
standard, or similar proprietary methods.
Loudness is measured on the LUFS metering scale. LUFS stands for "Loudness
Units Full Scale." The scale does not measure sound as a dB meter or a VU meter
would. Rather, it accounts for how the human ear (and brain) perceives the
loudness of a track. That is also why there is only one loudness value or level,
instead of one per channel.
Loudness examples: Some Streaming Services will aim for -16 LUFS loudness
when they play back music tracks with “Sound Check” enabled. The AES
community recommend streaming music between -20 and -16 LUFS. Often
you will see songs that measure -14, -12, -10 or even -8 LUFS and it will vary for
example by music genre.
6.4.2 True Peak
Often, there can be small peaks of sound in-between digital samples,
intersample peaks, that go undetected in most digital tools. Where traditional
peak meters and conventional peak limiters fail to read these true peaks of
sound, a True Peak meter will provide the mastering engineer with the actual
reading.
Without a True-Peak Limiter, a mastered track could go into digital clipping when
converted to a lossy format like MP3 or AAC or when being Digital-to-Analog
converted in normal playback systems. This can happen, even if no distortion is
heard when monitoring the nal master.
Although it doesn't have a True-Peak meter, the MD3 Limiter can be set to True-
Peak mode, which ensures that there are no intersample peaks above the level
that the limiter threshold is set to. Set the parameter "Limiter Mode" to True Peak
to activate this. Be aware that further processing after the MD3 might introduce
intersample peaks again.
6.4.3 Beware of The Loudness Wars
An important note on loudness, is that there has been a trend in mastering
toward making songs appear louder and louder. Since you can never exceed
the 0dBFS digital ceiling, applying a brickwall Limiter at the nal stage, the
result often has been to apply very aggressive settings on dynamics tools such
as multiband compressors, so-called ‘loudness optimizers’, as well as the nal
Brickwall Limiter itself. This phenomenon has been referred to as ‘The Loudness
Wars’.
This escalated because we naturally perceive a louder version of a song to be
better than a softer version, when you compare them directly. Another cause is
that record industry people would compare an ‘airplay’ version of one track to a
newly mastered CD track, where the former tended to sound louder and fatter
due to FM broadcast processing – leading to a request to make the master louder,
with more cowbell. Well, the ‘wars’ may have peaked, but it is still something
that you should be aware of and pay attention to. And while we say that they
may have peaked, they are not completely over…
Further, if you apply extreme amounts of compression, distortion occurs, which
may lead to listening fatigue for you as well as your audience. Of course, the
amount of compression that you can use in order to t a certain music genre can
vary, but just stay aware of how it aects your music, and act accordingly.
It is also very important that you always listen to your own mastering project and
your reference library at the same loudness level when you compare them. There
is no doubt that while a heavily compressed song – dynamically speaking – may
sound more impactful at rst, you will sacrice detail and nuance.
Finally and as mentioned above, keep in mind that the current trend in music
streaming is a target loudness of approximately -16 LUFS, so if you deliver a
signicantly louder song, it will get turned down automatically if the listener
chooses to apply the ‘normalization’ feature such as ‘SoundCheck’ or ‘Same Level’
that aligns the loudness of the songs in the library. And if that happens, your very
loud song may well end up sounding much less impressive than the competition!
6.4.4 Compress-O-Meter - Master Analyser
TC Electronic has launched a free on-line service at the following address:
https://nalizer.com/analyzer
This analyzer can help you investigate and decide the suitable loudness level
and amount of dynamics processing for your music, when you compare it to your
preferred reference tracks, or pre-analyzed giant hits through the history.
A central part of this service is the Compress-O-Meter:
The X-axis is the amount of Dynamic Compression. It is unit-less, so you should
not add “dB”, “ratio”, or similar, when thinking about it.
The Dynamic Compression is based on the track’s Peak-to-Loudness (PLR) value
and a measurement of the micro-dynamics of the track.
• • Very dynamic music with lots of transients and loud and soft passages,
will have a low Dynamic Compression value, to the left in the Compress-
O-Meter.
• • Very dense music with little transients, will have a high Dynamic
Compression value and show up to the right.
The Y-axis is the full track Loudness value, shown in LUFS (Loudness Units Full
Scale).
6.4.5 Additional tools
We recommend using the Icon Series BRICKWALL HD for adding detailed True
Peak limiting and loudness awareness to your chain, which will ensure a solid
master audio le that will comply with any play back system or streaming
service.