Sorry in advance if I miss something obvious, but is there any possibility to analyze the session or it’s given parts (chosen tracks, objects in different time ranges) via the Post-Export Analysis window without exporting the file? This could save lots of time and a bit of diskspace :]
It’s the LUFS value and the spectrogram that interest me the most. I know that there are LUFS meter plugins (i.e. Klangfreund’s meter), but this particular one isn’t synced with the time code and to truly measure the LUFS one needs to play the whole material and keeeeep observing the graph that slides along and doesn’t stop when needed when the playhead stops.
(or maybe you can recommend some other plugin or sth like that?)
It seems that the analysis algorithm is quick and tells me everything that I need, but I wonder if it could work only on the exported material (a single file) or maybe, well, ‘inside’ the session and how to launch it if so.
You can’t analyse the whole session without performing all the export calculations. It might look quick but it’s using results created during the export process.
I’d guess that analysing a single region would be quite quick, as would analysing the stereo master after export, or any other .WAV file, but analysing the result of any mixing and processing can only be done by performing that mixing and processing and gathering the data from its output.
Ardour 5.0pre allows to analyze regions and ranges in a similar manner as the post-export analysis. It is available from the region and range context-menu and analysis in that case it’s raw unprocessed region data.
@ototto: meters.lv2 (from x42-plugins) does include a LUFS meter according to EBU-R128 specs (same as ardour’s built-in) .The plugin can also synchronize to Ardour’s transport for integrating long term loudness and can be added anywhere in the signal flow.
I know this is not what you requested, but wanted to add it here as an alternative R128 workflow that the company I work in has adapted. It may be of use to people reading this thread.
The R128 tries to emulate how people perceive loudness. Loudness perception differs from one person to another, but if you take a large group of people and take a “mean value” of this groups loudness perception you get very close to what R128 measurement shows you.
As R128 tries to emulate human loudness perception, this means that your ear is a better loudness meter that any technical meter including a R128 meter. If this claim sounds strange, remember that you are making a mix for your listeners ear not for a meter.
R128 corrects loudness to the target level by introducing a single adjustment to the volume and applying this single adjustment value to the whole audio material.
The above means that you don’t necessarily need a loudness meter when you do your mixing because your ear really is the best meter. The only thing that you lose by not having a R128 meter while mixing is the absolute target loudness level, however when you make loudness variations in your mix by ear these will be ‘correct’ in the sense that they will be percieved similarily by the listener as you did when mixing. You can easily adjust the loudness level to target loudness after you’ve got your master file made.
The company I work in (TV broadcasting) has adopted this loudness management method.
If recording an event that is broadcast live, then you must have a R128 meter or your won’t get to the correct target loudness level.
If the material goes through post processing before broadcast, then you don’t need a loudness meter while mixing. The person making the mix takes care to adjust his listening volume to approximate the average listening level viewers use at home. Then he does the mix and adjusts loudness variations so that they are pleasing to the ear. When the mix is ready the loudness of the master file is measured and adjusted to the target level with a software made for this purpose.
We’ve been using this process for 3 years now with success. No need to invest heavily in expensive loudness meters.
On Linux you can use the free libebur128 loudness scanner to measure loudness of your master file, it gives you the amount of dB’s you need to adjust the volume up or down of the whole mix:
Ardour 5.0 seems to give you this measurement also.
If you need to process lots of files daily, you could build a server for automatic loudness normalisations of files (disclaimer: I’m the author):
