Loudness Meter; assignable source

**I would like the Loudness Meter/Track analysis to get audio from a source that is assignable.

The way it currently works it takes signal from the “main mix” output only. However, there are certainly occasions where it seems more convenient to be able to tap a signal from a different point in the signal path instead.**
This is a request that goes back two years (old request is here.

For example:

In some of my templates I have as the “main mix” LCR/LFE. The reason is that I like to listen to center-only when doing dialog editing. It also allows me to use my smaller 5-inch speakers crossed over to a subwoofer when I feel like it. The routing uses groups for each ‘food group’; dialog, narration, sfx, music etc. They all get routed according to delivery specs on a per-network basis, and I use the outputs for that purpose (they don’t all get connected to a physical output). So, I might have:

  • Main STEREO mix
  • Mix Minus STEREO
  • DME STEREO
  • Main MONO mix

I would like to assign the loudness measuring “function” to any of those sources. In addition to those outputs I’d like to be able to pick up the output of a track, that way I can do a faster than realtime analysis of any of my already ‘printed’ mixes whenever I want. There are occasions where this is desirable, for example if a client comes back and claims the network said the mix didn’t conform to spec. A quick analysis would yield the info needed.

This also ends up directly relating to two different topics, and addressing either of these would provide an arguably reasonable alternative (especially #2):

  1. “Leave off-line plugin window open AND continue DAW control”. I added an explanation there.

  2. “Loudness measurement: offline & batch”(here)

You can always download the free SLM128 plugin by Steinberg and put that on individual tracks (I’m actually so used to it that I tend to use it instead of the new built in one!)

+1 :smiley:

Yep, and while they are re-working it, perhaps make the loudness track truly usable so it can store multiple ranges of data (example multiple episodes or versions in on timeline where loudness data is kept for each) and also to be a less to recalculate loudness data based on loudness track readings rather than re-measuring full content over and over and over…
I am aware the readings my not get perfect but should get close enough if they store all the data properly. Data and audio measurements are not quite the same thing but it would still be useful.
Measuring one our shows multiple times can get really boring really quickly.

Excellent suggestion Erik.

I could see situations where I’ve recorded onto tracks and need to punch in / consolidate (bounce) files to fix something. It’d maybe be a solution for it to automatically then just take the data up until maybe 10-20 seconds on either side of where you just recorded, and then just re-measure with those “handles” and then regenerate the final data.

Very cool suggestion of yours… It’s almost as if you do this stuff for a living! :smiley:

Absolutely !
The loudness data stays with the project and updates itself as you describe it.
That would be great :exclamation: