Here's the Youtube link to the Reaper clip...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxb7jqxedUU

Given that many of the 'Loudness Units Full Scale' (LUFS) plugins are hundreds of dollars, the above is an easy, cheap and effective way to perform such analyses and adjustments.

Quote:
My process...

1. Mix the song in Reaper and render the file in wav.

2. Open a new tab in Reaper and import the wav file.

3. Follow the process on the above video except that I normalise LUFS to -14.

4. Render the newly adjusted track to a new wav file to save it.


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Some information on LUFS

A little while back, David Snyder started a thread on LUFS and its application in music production. The link to that thread is below...

www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=366324

As a result of David's posts, I've spent a bit of time further investigating the use of 'Loudness Units Full Scale' (LUFS) in today's music industry. According to sound enthusiasts and sound engineers on the 'net, these days it seems that Youtube, iTunes, Spotify are making use of LUFS when it comes to processing audio uploads. The values give are usually in the vicinity of

  • Youtube = -14 LUFS
  • Spotify = -12 LUFS
  • iTunes = -16 LUFS

While -23 LUFS is the level agreed on for radio broadcasting, for user audio preparation, the rule of thumb is that the value with the greater negative magnitude will have more dynamics and the value with the lower negative magnitude will have a more compressed sound (i.e. -16 LUFS will offer more dynamics in the performance than -10 LUFS).

The below article offers some insight into various settings.

https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=124442

The good news is that it's not necessary to understand how LUFS works to be able to use it. All that is required is to...

  • Determine what suitable LUFS value the audio should be adjusted to (e.g -14).

  • Adjust it to that value.

  • It is not necessary to adjust a track to the broadcast value of -23. Should a track be picked up for broadcasting, the studio will adjust the track's level accordingly.

When using Soundcloud (which doesn't optimise uploaded audios), if all tracks are adjusted to near the same LUFS value, the tracks will sound relatively uniform. Thus, as a listener plays through the tracks, they will not need to adjust the volume control excessively.

MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2024