We took a look at Nugen Audio’s loudness batch analysis correction application back in February 2012. Well now they have released an AudioSuite version of it that we can use in Pro Tools to prepare our files to meet the new standard.

The guys at Nugen Audio have designed it to use a two-pass system in AudioSuite to analyse and then correct a file for loudness and true-peak overs to your specified target criteria.

AudioSuite is perfect for this as integrated program loudness needs a whole file analysis, so the AudioSuite can save a lot of time if small edits are being made. AudioSuite can sometimes seem to be a forgotten tool and it’s ideal for this kind of application.

How to use it 
Well it is very simple. Highlight the bounce track (or whatever file you want to analyse) and then select the appropriate AudioSuite version of the plug-in, Nugen have provided every option from mono through LCRS to 5.1 and even 6.0. 

Then hit the Analyse button. The plug-in will then analyse the complete file, it took 22 seconds to analyse a 28 minute file on my Mac Pro 8 core machine, and it updaters the display as it runs through the file.

Next select the standard you are working to, in my case EBUR128 but again all the standards are in the Presets, and finally hit the Render button and the plug-in will process the file to suit the selected standard.

As you will see from the screenshot at the top, for the EBU standard my mix is 1dB low, but the True Peak levels are interesting as this file had been mixed through a limiter set to limit at -10dBfs, but it is showing a True PEak level of -8.8 which goes to she that there can be a difference between peak and true peak, which confirms the need for a good true peak limiter in the broadcast limiter workflow.