Loudness Tools for Sound Mixers

LOUDNESS TOOLS

Following on from my previous ‘Loudness 101’ blog post, here are some tools that will help when delivering an EBU R128 compliant mix.

METERS

Youlean - Loudness Meter 2

To quote the guys at Youlean “The best free loudness meter on the market” – and I’m inclined to agree. This metering plugin offers a lot of really useful loudness insights and is very reliable. The best thing about it is that it’s completely free! You can download it here. There is also an advanced version which offers additional features and more detailed loudness information. A very good starting point.

Waves - WLM Meter

This is a paid for plugin, but Waves seem to have a constant barrage of sales on where you can pick up individual plugins for £30 or so. I particularly like this one as it's appearance is very simple, and it takes up little screen real estate. There is even an option to hide some of the more superfluous information and make it yet smaller. This means you can have it sitting in the background even when working on a laptop without much interference.

Mastering the Mix - Levels

This is technically listed at £50 but always seems to be on offer or bundled in for free with other plugins. It takes a different approach to most others metering plugins in terms of it’s layout and appearance. With regards to it’s functionality, it also offers interesting insights such as ‘Bass Space’ and ‘Stereo Field’. These are generally more helpful in music as opposed to audio post, but still a fun plugin to have in your toolbox – and it looks pretty cool.

Best of the Rest

For those with a bit more cash to burn, there are three top metering plugins that often come up in the ‘best loudness plugin’ conversation (you know that one?) and they are all well worth a look if you want to get deeper into your loudness data. They are particularly helpful when working beyond a stereo mix i.e. 5.1, Dolby Atmos etc.

These include:

- Nugen Vislm 2

- Izotope Insight 2

- TC Electronic Clarity M (which comes with desktop audio meter)

OTHER TOOLS

LM Correct 2

Not a meter as such, but this is a very simple, clever and reassuring loudness plugin. LM Correct is a standalone application used once you’ve finished your mix and ready to deliver. It works by scanning an export / bounce of the final stereo mix and, within a few minutes, it will tell you what your integrated LUFS reading is as well as the maximum True Peak level. Not only that, if you’re slightly out, say at -22.4, you can hit render and it will automatically tweak the mix to hit bang on -23LUFS.

Whilst I would always recommend re-visiting your mix and tweaking manually to ensure you’re within the permitted tolerance level of ±0.5LU, it’s great to have this final checking mechanism before delivery to give extra piece of mind.

Limiters

More of a tip than a specific tool but it’s important to remember your maximum True Peak level of 1dBTP for the mix in addition to the integrated loudness level. A simple way to keep this in check is to have a limiter on each of your Bus groups (Dial, SFX, Music etc.) as well as your Mix Out / Master. To avoid slipping over the -1dBTP level, it’s sensible to set your output ceiling to at -2 or -3dB. It’s worth remembering here that -3dBTP is often the recommended maximum True Peak level so you may even want to go down to -4dB for your output ceiling level.

For this, a stock limiter plugin is usually fine. You just want to ensure it’s one which will not add character or colour to your mix, as this is most probably undesirable in audio post. I like using the Pro Limiter which comes in Pro Tools Ultimate as this is very transparent and doubles up as a loudness meter as well.